Fake doctor restarts Botox business weeks after leaving prison, California cops say

A California man was just charged with doing cosmetic procedures without a license — again.

In April 2023, 63-year-old Elias Renteria Segoviano pleaded guilty to the same offense after being caught doing Botox injections, fillers, thread lifts and other medical procedures without a license, according to Orange County prosecutors.

He had promoted himself far and wide, on every social media platform, using multiple aliases, according to a Feb. 22 news release from the Orange County District Attorney’s office. He even drove a car with a license plate that read “ELIASMD.”

“This man walked the walk and talked the talk of being a licensed medical professional, but he was anything but what he pretended to be,” District Attorney Todd Spitzer said.

On social media, Segoviano called his illegal business many things: “Botox in Anaheim,” “Botox in Anaheim- Health and Beauty,” “Neurotoxina Botulinica- Massage Service,” “Threads in Anaheim, “Threads La Habra”, “Botox La Habra,” and “OC Threads, Botox & Fillers.”

Authorities say he targeted Spanish-speaking women for his unlicensed procedures. Segoviano admitted to performing invasive procedures and injecting people with “potentially counterfeit Botox, fillers, anesthetics, and other medical drugs that placed the public at extreme risk,” prosecutors said.

“These women trusted this individual to have the training and the expertise required to perform these medical procedures,” Spitzer said. “Instead they unknowingly put their very lives in the hands of someone who was never licensed to perform the kind of work he was doing. “

McClatchy News reached out to Segoviano’s attorney for comment on Feb. 23 and did not receive an immediate response.

Segoviano was sentenced to four years in prison but served just one year and four months before being released on Dec. 22, 2023.

In January 2024, less than two weeks after his release, Segoviano was back to his old ways, as he was caught trying to sublet a space and apply for a business license, prosecutors said.

Segoviano is now accused of providing prospective landlords with a fake name and stating that he performs Botox injections and thread lifting procedures, both of which require valid medical authorizations which Segoviano doesn’t have.

He faces another round of charges, including two counts of unauthorized practice of medicine and one count of falsely representing himself as a licensed medical practitioner.

According to authorities, the motive for Segoviano seems to be clear: money. With the rising popularity of Botox and other cosmetic procedures, as well as the unusually high profit margins for Botox businesses, aesthetic medicine is highly lucrative. Whether you’re a dermatologist, a plastic surgeon, an aesthetic nurse or someone pretending to be both, medspa business owners make a killing. According to the American Medspa Association, the average annual revenue for a medspa in 2022 was $1,982,896.

Spitzer encourages people to understand that Segoviano was not interested in the well-being of his “patients ,” but only in making as much money as possible.

“The fact that he was out of prison less than two weeks — and while under supervision — when he returned right back to a life of crime makes it painfully obvious that he has no intention of changing his behavior,” Spitzer said. “He will continue to try to make money off unsuspecting women every chance that he gets.”

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