A Massachusetts woman passed herself as a nurse and dispensed thousands of doses of phony Botox and other fillers that had been smuggled into the U.S., authorities said.
Rebecca Fadanelli, 38, of Stoughton, is scheduled to appear before a federal judge on Nov. 14 in Worcester, where she’ll face allegations that she illegally imported the drugs, one count of dispensing a counterfeit drug and one count of selling or dispensing a counterfeit device, prosecutors said.
Fadanelli owns Skin Beauté Med Spa, with locations in Randolph and South Easton, where she dished out fake Botox, Sculptra and Juvederm that she obtained from China and Brazil, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Massachusetts alleged in a statement.
Since March 2021, Fadanelli “completed approximately 1,631 Botox appointments, totaling $522,869 in client payments, and 1,085 filler appointments, totaling $410,545 in client payments,” federal prosecutors said.
Fadanelli’s attorney could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.
In an interview with agents, Fadanelli said she never claimed to be a nurse and didn’t make the injections, prosecutors said.
“Fadanelli further stated that she is not a nurse and claimed that she does not administer injectable drugs or devices to Skin Beaute Med Spa’s clients,” according to an affidavit by Brian Hendricks, a special agent for the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations.
“When agents asked Fadanelli if she would like to retract or modify that claim if she knew there was evidence showing that she was in fact administering such products, she reiterated that she does not administer injections,” the affidavit says.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a warning in June alerting consumers to “harmful reactions among people who received injections of counterfeit or mishandled” Botox.
The CDC cites such cases in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee and Texas from November last year to April that led to a host of health concerns, such as blurry vision, slurred speech and breathing difficulties.
Polly DeFrank contributed.
