A bogus Queens doctor accused of killing a patient during a botched butt implant procedure was nabbed waiting for his Starbucks order at Kennedy Airport while trying to flee the country, prosecutors said Monday.
Felipe Hoyos-Foronda admitted to giving “hundreds” of butt implant injections from his home in Astoria before the March 28 procedure on María Paz Peñaloza Cabrera, 31, proved fatal, according to Queens prosecutors.
After he couldn’t revive her using CPR he got in his car and hightailed it to the airport, prosecutors say he admitted.
“I booked the flight while I was driving,” he told investigators, according to prosecutors. “I was going to go back to Colombia.”
Port Authority police officers nabbed him moments before his plane departed Terminal 5.
“He booked a flight from JFK, transferring in Florida to eventually go back to Colombia so he could avoid arrest and prosecution because he claimed that he was scared,” Assistant District Attorney. Gregory Lasak said at Hoyos-Foronda’s appearance in Queens Supreme Court on Monday. “Moments before he was able to board that flight police officers apprehended this defendant on the Starbucks line.”
A search of his car found evidence of his illegal medical practice: a garbage bag with a bloody syringe, more used syringes, an empty bottle of lidocaine and empty bottles of human growth hormone and other medications, Lasak said.
“There were used latex gloves, and all of this was concealed in a bag on the floor of that vehicle,” he said.
While Hoyos-Foronda was allegedly fleeing, Peñaloza Cabrera was suffering lidocaine toxicity, a condition that occurs when excessive amounts of the anesthetic enter the bloodstream, causing seizures, irregular heart rhythm, respiratory failure or cardiac arrest. She died two weeks later after being removed from a ventilator. She had visited Peñaloza Cabrera to have a problematic butt implant removed.
“I want him to go to jail. He’s dangerous to the society,” the victim’s mother, Gladys Cabrera, told the Daily News on Monday after attending the suspect’s court appearance. “The medicine he gave her killed her. She didn’t deserve this.”
Peñaloza Cabrera, the mother of two sons, ages 3 and 1, dreamed of becoming a beautician and sold tamales and empanadas in her Flushing neighborhood during summer months.
“We had been married for three years. I did not know that she was going for this procedure,” her husband, Theodore Paloumbas, told The News on Monday.
Hoyos-Foronda advertised services on his now-defunct TikTok page, offering procedures like Botox lip injections and micro-needling. He told authorities he was a licensed doctor in Colombia, sources told The News.
Hoyos-Foronda was arraigned Monday on manslaughter, assault and unauthorized practice of a profession charges and ordered held without bail. He faces up to 15 years behind bars if convicted.
He described the fatal procedure in statements during and after his arrest, Lasak said in court.
“I put her on IV. I injected lidocaine. I injected her in the a–. I showed paramedics. I am not a licensed doctor here. I understand I am not allowed to practice medicine. I charged her $1,900,” he said, according to Lasak. “After I injected her, she started to speak funny and then she stopped speaking. Slurred speech is normal during this type of anesthesia, even though it’s local. After she tightened up, she didn’t respond. She had low pressure and a low pulse. I administered CPR.”
He performed the procedure in a makeshift office in his house on 35th St. near 20th Road, authorities said.
“I’ve done work on many girls,” he told investigators, according to Lasak. “I’ve been practicing in that apartment for a few months. I have done this type of procedure hundreds of times.”
Hoyos-Foronda’s lawyer at his arraignment, Jonathan Latimer, reserved the right to ask for bail at a later date. His attorney of record, Matthew Thomas, didn’t return a call seeking comment.
After the proceedings, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz cautioned potential butt lift patients to verify their doctors’ credentials before undergoing a procedure.
“Please be careful,” she said. “We’ve had several of these cases here in Queens where people hold themselves out to be medical professionals but indeed they are not certified.”
“We don’t know how he procured the lidocaine,” she said of Hoyos Foronda. “I will say to anyone who is listening, who is providing that type of medicine for medicinal use to unauthorized personnel: we are investigating.”
Originally Published: April 28, 2025 at 4:25 PM EDT
