A Florida woman faces years in prison after she flew to the Bay Area and met a woman in a hotel where she performed an illegal, deadly silicone injection into the woman’s buttocks for money.
Vivian Alexandra Gomez, 50, was convicted by a jury of felony involuntary manslaughter and practicing medicine without a valid license, resulting in the death of another, San Mateo County Dist. Atty. Steve Wagstaffe announced on Tuesday.
Gomez’s attorney didn’t respond to a request for comment.
In April 2023, Gomez flew to San Francisco International Airport to meet Christina Ashten Gourkani, a San Jose resident and social media model known for resembling Kim Kardashian.
Gourkani contacted Gomez, who ran an unlicensed cosmotology business out of Florida, about silicone injections to increase the size of her buttocks, Wagstaffe said.
Gomez met Gourkani and her fiance at a Marriott hotel in Burlingame, a few miles south of the airport, for the procedure.
Gourkani got at least two injections of what was supposed to be gluteal silicone but right after the injections, she began to go into distress, including convulsions.
She died the next day of respiratory failure and a pulmonary embolism. Gomez then flew back to Florida, where she was eventually arrested and returned to California.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2021 warned against using silicone injections to enlarge or shape parts of the body, saying the injections can cause long-term pain, embolisms, disfigurement, stroke and death.
Last October, a woman was convicted in Riverside County of murder for a lethal silicone injection after she’d previously been convicted of manslaughter for the practice.
