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Illegal liposuction doctor sentenced to 38 years

Posted at 5:49 PM, Aug 07, 2017
and last updated 2017-08-07 21:20:56-04

He did liposuction surgeries in an old warehouse.  After he had been arrested, he did lipo on people in his home bathroom.

Attorneys for both sides agree Gustavo Nunez never said he was a doctor, but prosecutors said he did plenty of things to make people believe he was qualified to do liposuction. 

One of those patients ended up brain damaged. Others had emergency trips to the hospital.

Now Nunez is going to prison for more than 38 years.

RELATED: Fake Lipo Doc pleads guilty to illegal surgeries

For several years Gustavo Nunez took money to do liposuctions in a warehouse. When police arrested him, he got out on bond and did more procedures in his house.

Some patients got terrible infections.  After his arrest, a patient getting lipo at his house had a seizure. 

Nunez called a friend for help but waited an hour before he took the woman to the hospital.  Now she has serious brain damage.

Nunez said he was sorry.

"I'm not proud of the fact my actions hurt anyone at all. I have been told that I am overconfident personality and I have a big ego. I don't believe I am a person that sees it that way. I see that God gave me some gifts I wanted the share with other people."

Prosecutors asked for the maximum sentence of close to fifty years.

The judge imposed a sentence that works out to just over 38 years in state prison.

In imposing the sentence, Judge Danielle Liwski said she was especially concerned about the fact Nunez continued to do lipo even while out on bond for doing those procedures. She ordered stiffer sentences for those later offenses.