Houston doctor begins prison term over Botox case
October 14, 2008
A Houston physician convicted last year of injecting unsuspecting patients with a Botox substitute has started serving her two-year federal sentence.
Dr. Gayle Rothenberg reported to a federal prison camp in Bryan on Friday. The minimum security women’s facility is about 100 miles northwest of Houston.
Her lawyer, Joel Androphy, had hoped to keep her free pending the outcome of an appeal, but the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that request.
A jury found Rothenberg, 56, guilty of conspiracy, nine counts of mail fraud, misbranding a drug for sale and lying to federal agents. At sentencing in June, she called using the fake injections “a mistake.”
Androphy said his client maintains her innocence.
“We’re going to fight this thing all the way through,” he said Monday.
The anesthesiologist and her husband, Saul Gower, were accused of buying Botulinum Toxin Type A as a cheaper alternative to Botox, a trademarked cosmetic toxin approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat facial wrinkles. The Type A product is similar but is not FDA-approved for human use.
Gower, a 57-year-old lawyer who served as office manager of the Galleria-area Center for Image Enhancement, pleaded guilty to misbranding a drug for sale and lying to a federal agent about it. He received probation.
source: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/6055821.html
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