A 27-year-old woman walked into a wellness clinic in the Bronx this July to receive a dose of an anti-aging drug. The clinic director inserted an intravenous line into the woman’s hand and administered the drug, according to prosecutors.
The woman, Elizabeth Baron, immediately lost consciousness, and the director called 911, but an hour later, she was dead, prosecutors said.
On Tuesday, the clinic director, Luis Rojas Cabrera, was charged with second-degree murder.
Mr. Cabrera, who prosecutors say lacks a New York doctor’s license, had initially been charged with reckless endangerment and unauthorized practice of a profession in connection with Ms. Baron’s death on July 19.
But last month, the city medical examiner ruled the death a homicide caused by an embolism — air entering the intravenous catheter and traveling to her heart. The ruling allowed prosecutors to pursue murder charges.
The indictment accuses Mr. Cabrera of causing Ms. Baron’s death “under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life.”
Mr. Cabrera, 56, had been running the clinic, Bereshit Lifestyle Center on Riverdale Avenue in Riverdale, since at least 2020. Its website, which refers to him as “Dr. Rojas,” says he “uses his years of experience and knowledge to integrate natural medicine and natural therapies to achieve well-being.” The site advertises a slew of alternative treatments, including geotherapy, which involves applying clay to the skin, and homotoxicology, a variant of homeopathy.
Mr. Cabrera, of Maywood, N.J., states on the website that he has a doctor’s license in the Dominican Republic. In New York, a person must have a state-issued medical license to administer intravenous substances.
The drug he gave Ms. Baron, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or N.A.D.+, is a popular longevity supplement that has not been proved to work in humans. Such supplements are largely unregulated and have fueled the growth of an industry of storefront wellness centers that often peddle substances and therapies whose benefits are unproved. N.A.D.+ is a molecule found in cells that is critical for energy production and other fundamental biological processes.
According to a criminal complaint, Mr. Cabrera told a police officer after Ms. Baron’s death that he had made a very big mistake and needed to call his family because he did not think he would be home for a while.
Mr. Cabrera entered a plea of not guilty at his arraignment on Tuesday, and his bail was set at $2 million cash or a $7 million bond. His lawyer, Donald Vogelman, called the charge “outrageous” on Wednesday.
“Depraved-indifference murder means that the defendant did not care whether the person lived or died,” Mr. Vogelman said, adding that Mr. Cabrera tried to revive Ms. Baron. “The fact that Mr. Cabrera called 911 himself and administered CPR means that he did care.”
Standard jury instructions in New York say that someone acts with depraved indifference when he “simply does not care whether or not grievous harm will result” from his actions.
Second-degree murder carries a sentence of 15 years to life in prison. Mr. Cabrera also faces several lesser charges, including one of second-degree manslaughter, which accuses him of recklessly causing Ms. Baron’s death, and one of criminally negligent homicide.
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