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Md. Woman Pleads Guilty to Injecting Illegal Silicone into Customers

BALTIMORE (WJZ)-- A Maryland woman pleaded guilty to potentially putting hundreds of lives at risk by injecting them with a dangerous chemical.

Victims were led to believe illegal silicone injections would lead to their dream bodies. George Solis has a breakdown of the case.

According to her plea agreement, Kendra Westmoreland intentionally defrauded and mislead people looking to reshape their bodies by telling them what she was injecting into their bodies was medical grade silicone.

What they got was something far more risky.

Last spring WJZ caught up with 54-year-old Westmoreland outside the federal courthouse after pleading not guilty to charges she illegally injected industrial grade silicone into the buttocks and other body parts of victim customers.

Tuesday, the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office announced Westmoreland had changed her tune, pleading guilty to those charges.

"She had no medical training that would have allowed to do this and even if she did, the silicon that we she injecting is not authorized for use in the human body," Attorney Rod Rosenstein said.

Court documents revealed Westmoreland had hundreds of clients. Each paying upwards of up to $500 to obtain a figure some deem desirable and made famous by celebrities.

According to her plea agreement, the stuff Westmoreland admits to using is not only not FDA approved for body contouring, it's mainly used to make shampoos and other house hold items.

"This stuff can be very dangerous. There have been people that have suffered serious injuries and in some places people have died," Rosenstein said.

Like a Prince George's County woman who died in 2015 after receiving illegal silicon injection in New York.

In 2012, a woman was sentenced to three years in prison for injecting women with commercial grade silicon up and down the east coast including Baltimore.

Westmoreland reportedly made more than $250,000 during the time she operated her illegal medical practice. That will be money she will have to pay back if convicted.

Westmoreland is scheduled to be sentenced in mid-April. She faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.  

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