Mother, daughter get time served for deadly buttocks-enhancement procedure

A Riverside woman and her daughter, convicted of involuntary manslaughter for a woman’s death after a buttocks-augmentation procedure at a Sherman Oaks home in 2019, were sentenced on Thursday to state prison but a judge ordered their release because they had completed their sentences with credit for time they spent under electronic monitoring.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George G. Lomeli sentenced Libby Adame, 53, to four years and four months in state prison, and her 26-yearold daughter, Alicia Galaz, to three years and eight months in state prison in connection with 26-year-old Karissa Rajpaul’s Oct. 15, 2019, death, and ordered them to be taken into custody.

Within hours of the women being handcuffed, the judge said he agreed with the defense attorney’s argument that the two were entitled to credit for the time they underwent electronic monitoring while out of custody following their August 2021 arrests at the Riverside home they shared.

“If you add all this up, it’s time served,” Lomeli told attorneys late Thursday morning. “I’m going to order them released from this facility.”

Adame was also convicted of three counts of practicing medicine without a certification, while her daughter was found guilty of two counts of practicing medicine without a certification.

In a statement read in court on her behalf, the victim’s mother, Eureka Bobee, said, “In that single act, you caused her family and friends an unimaginable loss … as all of us still grieve so deeply every day, many years later. … Please, please, please do not ever harm another soul for the rest of your days.”

In a 2021 statement after the case was filed, Los Angeles police officials said the cosmetic procedure involved injecting an uncontained liquid sili

cone substance directly into the buttocks to make them look bigger, noting that injecting uncontained silicone into the body can cause it to enter the bloodstream and create embolisms that can result in serious illness or death.

“The suspects fled the scene without identifying or informing the paramedics of the cosmetic procedure for proper lifesaving protocols to be initiated,” police said. “As a result, the victim died in an emergency room with tending physicians unaware of the silicone injection.”