The dodgy doctor accused of causing the death of a patient he injected with a trendy anti-aging treatment over the summer has been charged with her murder, the NYPD announced Tuesday.
Unlicensed Bronx spa operator Luis Rojas Cabrera, 55, was slapped with the upgraded charge of depraved indifference murder after the city’s medical examiner ruled the death of his patient, Elizabeth Baron, 27, a homicide in late September, cops said.
Baron, a Bronx local, was allegedly killed after Rojas Cabrera accidentally injected her with air during a treatment of NAD+ at his Bereshit Lifestyle Center on July 19.
The young woman immediately went into cardiac arrest after the injection, which prompted Rojas Cabrera to admit to a police officer, “I made a very big mistake,” court documents allege.
The accused quack physician ran the Riverdale wellness center that offered “natural medicine” and therapies as well as products geared toward “making healthy living easy,” according to its website.
Rojas Cabrera was previously charged with reckless endangerment and unauthorized practice of a profession, while prosecutors awaited autopsy results to see if his injection directly caused Baron’s death.
“Administering NAD+ via an IV requires a prescription from a medical professional,” Assistant District Attorney Ethan Reisbaum argued during Rojas Cabrera’s initial arraignment in July, where he pleaded not guilty.
The original charges weren’t bail-eligible, meaning Rojas Cabrera had been free since that court date.
When reached by The Post last month, the phony doc claimed medical examiners found air in Baron’s heart not because of the injection, but because he had to perform manual CPR.
He said he stopped the IV after Baron went into cardiac arrest and performed the life-saving measures — as did the medics who performed mechanical CPR after arriving on scene.
“When I investigated with other doctors, they told me it was a possibility,” he said. “The prolonged CPR can produce air in the heart chambers.”
Rojas Cabrera added that underlying health conditions could have caused Baron’s death. However, the medical examiner concluded she died from a cardiac air embolism and didn’t note any underlying conditions in the report.
NAD+ is a molecule that is hyped in woo-woo health circles and celebrities for its supposed anti-aging properties.
Famous models Kendall Jenner and Hailey Bieber once publicly crowed that they were devotees of the treatment, helping to fuel the craze over it.
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