A Mount Vernon woman has been charged in the 2022 death of a Connecticut woman after an investigation determined she had injected her with silicone for a butt lift without a license, the Bronx District Attorney's Office said.
Alicia Leslie, 47, pleaded not guilty last week in Bronx Criminal Court following her indictment on charges of criminally negligent homicide and unlicensed practice of a profession in the death of 53-year-old Maxine Messam of Bridgeport, Conn.
Early on Feb. 15, 2022, New York City police were notified that two women had driven Messam - naked from the waist down - in her car to Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx, where she was unresponsive and pronounced dead.
Police said the women had left after telling hospital staff they found
the unconscious woman near Woodlawn Cemetery.
According to the indictment, the identities of the two women are unknown, only that they were not medical professionals. It is unclear whether authorities suspect Leslie was one of the women.
The indictment accuses Leslie of injecting the silicone into Messam in Westchester, but does not specify where. Leslie now lives in a luxury apartment building on Broad Street in Fleetwood.
Bronx prosecutors assumed jurisdiction because the death occurred there. Leslie's lawyer, Kyle Watters, said he would explore the jurisdictional question if the crime allegedly occurred in Westchester.
"We're fighting this case and we anticipate she'll be exonerated," he said.
Leslie was released on non-monetary bail conditions and is due back in court on Nov. 4.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Mount Vernon woman charged in botched butt lift that turned fatal
