Illegal surgery case hearing delayed in Las Vegas
Jan 24, 2012, 8:23 PM
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) – A lawyer said Tuesday he’s trying to negotiate a plea deal for a New York woman facing felony charges in Las Vegas after being accused of performing illegal eyelift surgeries.
Defense attorney James Gallo, representing Jing Qu, 55, of Flushing, Queens, N.Y., made his comments while awaiting a brief appearance before Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Melanie Andress-Tobiasson.
The judge postponed an evidence hearing in the case until March 26.
Gallo told The Associated Press that Qu is a physician from China and has performed more than 20,000 medical procedures. However, records show she is not licensed as a doctor in Nevada.
Qu was arrested in November on two felony charges of practicing medicine without a license and a burglary charge after Las Vegas police said a resident in a community southwest of the Las Vegas Strip complained about cars blocking his driveway and officers found people in a neighboring house wearing medical scrubs.
Police said the 38-year-old homeowner, who was found with a bandage over her right eye, told officers she paid $1,000 for an eyelift procedure.
The burglary charge derives from Nevada law making it a felony to enter a building to commit a crime.
The case drew comparisons with an illegal buttocks enhancement surgery in a back room of a Las Vegas tile store that left a 42-year-old woman dead last April.
A Colombian man who said he was a homeopathic physician in his home country and his wife, a lawyer with the country’s attorney general’s office, were convicted in the case and are serving up to eight years in a Nevada prison plus a year in county jail. They’ll also face deportation.
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