US woman faces jail over buttock injections

A US woman known as “the Black Madam” performed deadly cosmetic surgery on a British dancer in an airport hotel room, then used glue to close the wounds and fled when the client went into respiratory distress, witnesses have said.

A judge upheld a third-degree murder charge against Padge Gordon after the UK woman’s friend gave evidence about getting silicone injections to enlarge their buttocks in February last year.

Theresa Gyamfi said they had the procedure in their room at the hotel in Philadelphia and Gordon left when 20-year-old Claudia Aderotimi started having trouble breathing, telling them to call an ambulace if she did not get better.

The Londoners had no contact information for the woman they had met through an intermediary online and knew only as “Lillian”.

Ms Gyamfi, 22, said they had the same procedure by Gordon at the hotel months earlier and had no problems, and had come back for a “touch-up”. Ms Aderotimi had trouble breathing almost immediately, Ms Gyamfi said, and she died at a hospital hours later

They paid Gordon about $2,000 each on the first trip and $1,800 on the second trip for the injections.

She said she and her friend thought Gordon was a nurse. But Defence lawyer Christopher Mannix questioned whether they really thought they were signing up for a legal procedure.

Third-degree murder carries a potential 20 to 40-year sentence.

Gordon, who remains in jail on a $750,000 bond, looked down at the defence table when Ms Gyamfi described viewing the body at the hospital.

The Delaware County medical examiner said the industrial-grade silicone went into the woman’s blood, liver, lungs and brain and that Ms Aderotimi died of a pulmonary embolism.