Natassia Louis wanted her backside to look better in jeans, so she saved her money until she could afford to have plastic surgery.
“I’m top-heavy and I just honestly wanted a butt to balance it out,” she told NBC 7.
Louis visited several plastic surgeons before deciding to go to a consultation with Dr. Carlos Chacon at his Divino Plastic Surgery Center in Bonita.
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“He won me over,” Louis recalled more than two years later. She told him she wanted a larger rear end. He suggested more.
“He recommended a full mommy makeover. He recommended a breast lift. He would take in my stomach, take the fat and put it on my butt," she explained.
The cost was $25,000 which was more than the other surgeons, but Louis thought it would be worth it.
“He sold himself so well,” she said. She also liked the fact that his office was clean and smelled good, and the people who worked there passed the test too.
“I bought it,” Louis said.
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Louis had no second thoughts. “I was excited. I had wanted this for years and I was finally gonna get it and in a couple of days I was gonna be pain-free and have the butt that I wanted.”
She got it, but it came at a price much higher than the $25,000 she paid Chacon.
The surgery was done on April 6, 2021. After the surgery, a nurse directed Louis, who was still feeling the effects of the anesthesia, to sit in a wheelchair. She fell, injuring her right side. The next day, Louis, who is a nurse, noticed the bruising on her right breast was worse than the left. She said she was told not to worry about it.
A few days later Louis said it looked like a patch of skin on her stomach where the surgery was performed was dying. Again, she said she called Chacon’s office and was reassured that he would look at it during her upcoming appointment. At that appointment, the dead skin was cut away and Louis was told it would soon heal.
That didn’t happen, Louis said.
“Came back in a couple of days and they cut more of the skin and they repeated the cutting of the skin for a few weeks," Louis said.
Louis showed NBC 7 pictures of the jagged hole in her stomach as it continued to grow. The images were graphic. Louis said the hole grew from being about the size of a walnut to the size of a grapefruit.
The skin has healed over, but a cavernous pit remains in her now disfigured stomach.
“I wanted to wear jeans and a t-shirt and feel comfortable. That’s all I wanted. That was my goal. Can’t do that,” she said.
Chacon told her he would repair her stomach and she set up an appointment to talk to him about it several months after the initial surgery. That’s when she said someone who worked in his office approached her and started whispering in her ear. That person told her she needed to look Chacon up before having any more surgery. She went to her car and Googled "Dr. Chacon malpractice."
“I was horrified,” Louis said after reading about the death of Megan Espinoza two years earlier after she went to Dr. Chacon for a breast augmentation. Espinoza, a kindergarten teacher and mother of two, went into cardiac arrest during the procedure, and according to a San Diego County Deputy District Attorney, Chacon did not do what was necessary to save her life.
Chacon was charged with manslaughter, a charge which in April of 2023 was upgraded to 2nd-degree murder. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.
Both the District Attorney and the California Medical Board have launched investigations against Chacon, yet he still is practicing plastic surgery.
That doesn’t sit well with Louis.
“He shouldn’t be in business right now,” she said. “No one stopped him after things started happening. No one stopped him and he continues to be in business and he continues to hurt people and it could have been stopped.”
Louis believes the California Medical Board should advertise accusations against doctors on its website so prospective patients can make informed decisions. She did not know at the time of her surgery that Chacon was already under investigation for gross negligence in connection to Espinoza’s death.
Even though Espinoza died more than four years ago, Chacon’s administrative hearing has not been scheduled. In order to discipline a physician’s license, the Board of Medicine must have “clear and convincing evidence” the physician violated the Medical Practice Act. According to a board spokesman “A conviction of a crime is not required for the Board to discipline a license.”
Chacon’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 5. The Deputy District Attorney handling the case said a medical board hearing will likely happen after a judge determines if there is enough evidence to proceed with a criminal trial. In the meantime, the Judge ordered Chacon to notify all surgical patients in writing that he’s under investigation for murder.
Louis has filed a civil lawsuit against Chacon, seeking damages of more than $25,000. It is slowly moving through the court system.
Louis doesn’t know when she’ll be able to afford surgery to repair her disfigured stomach. Dr. Chacon won’t be the one doing the surgery.
“I don’t want him touching anyone else, hurting somebody else that doesn’t need to be hurt," she said.
