Source: New York Daily News
The family and lawyer of Latesha Bynum says she went to a shady clinic to get silicone injections from someone claiming to be a doctor — injections that cost the 31-year-old her life.
Police sources said she received the procedure in mid-July at a residential building on E. 21st St. at First Avenue around 1PM, but didn’t provide the name of a medical clinic or a doctor. At 11 p.m. that night, Bynum called 911 from home after she felt dizzy and started feeling chest pains. Medics rushed her to Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Medical Center, where doctors declared her brain dead. Just three days before her 32nd birthday, doctors removed her from life support.
Police are still awaiting autopsy results from the city medical examiner’s office. Her cause of death has not been determined, pending further tests, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner said.
In 2015, authorities ruled two botched butt enhancement procedures homicides: A Maryland woman died after getting injections in a Queens basement by a quack doctor who fled the scene; and a 40-year-old was found dead in her Bronx home of an embolism.
Latesha’s brother, Tymel Bynum, said her feet turned blue after the procedure, and she was placed in the shower twice at the clinic where she received the injection before being sent home. “Why wasn’t she taken to medical care? That probably could’ve saved her life,” he said.
Police couldn’t say whether the procedure was a legal one. Bynum’s family lawyer, Jack Yankowitz, said the injection was done by someone “representing himself as a doctor,” and is seeking more information from police and the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
“This is some sort of underground type of procedure — this is not something that’s done by professional doctors,” Yankowitz said.
Bynum’s family was more sure — they called it murder.
“Just because the person didn’t pull a trigger, it’s still murder,” says Tymel Bynum.
“My daughter was murdered,” said Bertie Bynum, 51, Latesha’s distraught mother. “I want to know: Why did they kill my baby? Why did they do that. They wasn’t supposed to do that.”
She added, “You killed a mother, you killed a sister!”
Bynum, the mother of daughters ages 13 and 8, had posted a photo of herself and a friend on Facebook just one day before the procedure. “U look beautiful boo!!” one friend wrote.
“Thank you so much,” she gushed in response.