Bradenton woman ran fake Botox clinic out of her home. She is now under house arrest
Perhaps hoping to slow down the effects of aging, the people who went to Diane D’Anca’s west Bradenton home presumably thought they were getting Botox injections from a licensed professional.
But while the injections may have cost them less money than if they had gone to an actual clinic, D’Anca wasn’t a doctor or hold any kind of medical or cosmetology license and it wasn’t Botox being injected into their body.
On Thursday afternoon, D’Anca, 63, accepted a plea agreement before Circuit Judge Gilbert Smith Jr. on charges of practicing medicine without a license and possession of a legend drug without a prescription.
As part of the agreement, D’Anca was sentenced to two years of house arrest. D’Anca was also ordered to pay a yet-to-be-determined amount of restitution and costs related to the investigation and prosecution.
A condition of her sentence is also that D’Anca not practice medicine without a license again.
“The state feels this is a fair resolution given the facts and circumstances of this case,” Assistant State Attorney Jose Herrero said in a statement given to the Bradenton Herald.
In court, D’Anca’s defense attorney Jon Weiffenbach pointed out her current poor health and that the victims in the case had been uncooperative with prosecutors.
After her arrest in December 2017, police made a plea for anyone who had gotten injection from D’Anca inside her home to come forward, assuring them that they were victims and would be treated as such.
While additional potential victims in the case did come forward, none led to any additional charges, according to police spokesman Capt. Brian Thiers.
D’Anca’s only criminal history is a charge of fraudulent use of a credit card that she pleaded no contest to in 1992 and was ordered to serve probation and pay restitution.
According to injection records found in Decemeber 2017 by police inside D’Anca’s home in the Cordova Lakes Crossings subdivision, she appeared to have been illegally giving the injections since at least 2011. The counterfeit Botox was an imported drug, not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, police determined during their investigation.
At the time, D’Anca admitted she had ordered the drug from Canada for about two years. She also claimed that she thought she could operate as long as she worked under a licensed doctor.
D’Anca claimed to be working under someone she identified as “Dr. Tom.”
Police were never able to identify who D’Anca might have worked with.
