An unauthorized cosmetologist who accidentally killed a student by injecting toxic silicon into her buttocks has been sentenced to jail.
Tamira Mobley, 32, killed 22-year-old Tamara Blaine at a pay-per-hour New York hotel in July 2013.
The student died after the silicone entered her bloodstream and asphyxiated her.
Tamira Mobley (pictured in court Thursday), 32, killed Tamara Blaine, 22, at a pay-per-hour New York hotel in July 2013
Mobley pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter, second-degree assault and the unauthorized practice of a profession
Victim: Tamara Blaine died after suffering a seizure in a New York hotel, where she had gone for butt enhancement injections
Mobley pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter, second-degree assault and the unauthorized practice of a profession in exchange for one and one third to four years in prison.
A judge ruled that she did not mean to cause harm because she was using the injections on herself as well as her illegal clients.
As she was sentenced on Thursday, she said: ‘I wanted to say that I’m very, very, very sorry for engaging in this illegal activity. I’m so sorry that my actions caused the death of Tamara Blaine.’
In 2012 Mobley was investigated by Inside Edition over claims that she was selling butt injection kits over the Internet for $600.
Home kit: Inside Edition confronted Tamira Mobley in 2012 after allegedly buying silicone injections from her website
‘Toxic’: Laboratory tests showed the substance in the online kit contained adhesive and was potentially harmful
During an undercover investigation into the dangerous fashion for enhancing buttocks, the news magazine ordered a kit from a website allegedly run by Mobley.
When the $600 kit arrived, it contained 30 giant syringes filled with a substance Mobley’s company – Butt Injections Kit – described as ‘medical-grade silicone oil’.
When the substance was tested it was found to be an adhesive more commonly used in toothpastes and detergent.
The lab team that tested it said it was not sterile and potentially toxic.
Miss Blaine’s mother revealed that her daughter’s body laid unclaimed in a city morgue for more than a month after her death.
When Miss Blaine’s mother Lola first filed a missing person report days after last seeing her daughter, she was told that because she was an adult and independent, she may have just gone away without telling anyone, the family’s lawyer claimed.
Easy access: During an undercover investigation Inside Edition paid $600 for a butt enchancement kit
Questions: Mobley walks away from a reporter after being confronted about her online business
‘When I lost her, nobody helped me. When I looked for her, nobody was there for me. Everybody ignored me. That’s just the way it is. I called the police. They didn’t do anything,’ Lola Blaine told DNA Info.
The first autopsy, at the time of her death, had been inconclusive, but the missing person case became a homicide investigation in October, when a medical examiner noticed puncture wounds in the victim’s buttocks, and found silicone in her blood.
The official cause of death was ‘systemic silicone emboly due to a cosmetic silicone injection of the buttocks’.
Mobley was arrested on after security camera footage at the Liberty Inn hotel and credit card records linked her to the room where Miss Blaine was found.
Prosecutors claim Mobley, 28, injected silicone directly into Miss Blaine’s veins, which caused a seizure and eventually asphyxiated her.
Home kit: The $600 package came with 30 syringes supposedly filled with silicone
DIY: The butt enhancement kit also contained alcohol swabs and Band-Aids
Loss: The family of Tamara Blaine, who had a five-year-old son, spent a month searching for her before discovering she had died
Booking: Security camera footage shows Tamira Mobley arriving at the Liberty Inn hotel with Blaine in July 2013