A doctor whose medical license was revoked for performing botched plastic surgeries was being held on $100,000 bail yesterday after a news crew caught him seeing patients at a Fifth Avenue cosmetic surgery clinic.
José Lopez pleaded not guilty to a charge of unauthorized practice of medicine as his beauty-queen wife, Diana Figueroa, looked on. Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Anthony Ferrara ordered him to surrender his passport and remain locked up until he can come up with his bail.
Investigators from the state attorney general’s office nabbed Lopez at his Miami Beach condo on Wednesday, after information they’d received from UPN/Channel 9 convinced them the deadly doc was continuing to perform plastic surgery without a license in New York.
Lopez, 41, had his license suspended in 2002, after one of his liposuction patients died and five others suffered life-threatening complications. Lopez, who wasn’t certified to do plastic surgery, then had his New York and New Jersey licenses revoked in 2003.
Last month, however, an undercover UPN-9 news crew caught him working in a packed clinic at 276 Fifth Ave. The news team sent in their “patient,” identified only as “Lillian,” telling Lopez she wanted a tummy tuck. They met five times, and in one exchange captured by an undercover camera, he “introduced himself as Dr. Jose Lopez,” examined her and told her “he could do the surgery on her,” the criminal complaint against him says.
When the news crew returned to confront Lopez later, they caught him on camera performing a liposuction procedure, UPN reporter Barbara Nevins said.
In an interview with El Diario, Lopez contended that he’d been set up, and that the footage of him performing an operation was old. He also claimed that his only interaction with patients at the clinic was to give them post-surgical advice.