MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A man and woman are accused of running at least three illegal post-operative cosmetic surgery recovery facilities in locations across Miami-Dade County. According to police, patients who complained about the care they received were subject to intimidation tactics and “disturbing behavior.”
Tatiana Giraldo-Torres, 33, and Juan Diego Ramirez, 32, the proprietors of Tatiana’s Resort & Spa, were moving patients around after their unlicensed facilities got busted, according to police.
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They are now facing several felony and misdemeanor charges following their arrests on Thursday. According to arrest reports, the pair, both Colombian nationals, reside at the same Davie address.
Local 10 News has previously reported on the issue of unlicensed, unregulated post-op recovery homes in South Florida. Some patients at illegal facilities have described dangerous, unsanitary conditions.
According to Miami-Dade police, officers first executed a search warrant at a home at 15505 SW 12th Terrace in the county’s unincorporated Tamiami area on Aug. 22.
Authorities said they found one patient, with another three currently in appointments or at surgery, and an employee at the residence.
Arrest reports state that Giraldo-Torres and Ramirez converted the four-bedroom home into a six-bedroom illegal recovery facility that could accommodate up to 17 patients and converted a closet into a massage room. Police said they found massage and medical supplies throughout the residence, which was leased in the name of Ramirez and his mother.
They were also illegally dumping medical waste, according to police.
A patient told police that her boyfriend paid $1,600 for her to spend six nights at the home while recovering from surgery. Authorities said the employee told officers that she was being paid $10 per hour — below Florida’s minimum wage — to care for patients and was subleasing a room from Giraldo-Torres and Ramirez.
That employee identified Giraldo-Torres and Ramirez as her employer; neither was present and police said the following day, Giraldo-Torres reneged on an offer to meet with detectives.
Police said on Aug. 24, patients at a home at 14700 S. Spur Drive, in northeast Miami-Dade’s unincorporated Golden Glades area, called police to report “unprofessional behavior.”
Authorities said they found four patients, including one who they had spoken to at the Tamiami home.
Map of homes:
Arrest reports state that they told investigators that they experienced “disturbing behavior” at the Spur Drive home.
“For example, they observed numerous suspicious vehicles driving by the residence and watching them through the front windows,” the report states. “One of the patients recorded two unknown individuals sitting in a car waving at them and showing her that they were also recording the patients. All of the patients left the residence and decided to stay at a hotel room because they did not feel safe.”
According to the reports, the patients told police that they had found the business on Instagram and that Giraldo-Torres told them that she “ran a licensed facility.”
Tatiana’s Resort & Spa charged $300 per night for lodging and care, they said. An employee there, police said, said she was making $12.50 per hour.
Authorities said when they knocked on the door of an apartment at 8450 NW 102nd Ave. in Doral in an attempt to locate Giraldo-Torres and Ramirez, a patient, donning “a robe with drain(age) tubes hanging down the sides,” answered instead.
“While waiting in the hallway, a female in a robe and a bandaged face approached the front door,” police wrote. “She was being assisted by another female. It was obvious that the female in the robe recently had surgery and that the other female assisting her was an employee.”
One of the patients told investigators she came to South Florida on Aug. 25 and paid Giraldo-Torres, via Miami Lakes Plastic Surgery, for a four-night stay at the recovery home.
“After her arrival, she was sent to two vacant or non-existent addresses and was finally sent to a condominium on Miami Beach where she was later picked up by a driver hired by (Giraldo-Torres),” police wrote in an arrest report. “The driver took her to her surgical appointment and when he picked her up after her surgery, she was transported to (the Doral apartment).”
Local 10 News emailed and left a voicemail for Miami Lakes Plastic Surgery Thursday afternoon seeking comment on the facility’s alleged relationship with Giraldo-Torres. As of the publication of this article, we have not received a response.
Others said they found out about the home through social media.
Giraldo-Torres and Ramirez also paid the Doral employee $10 per hour to provide care, police said.
Police wrote in the reports that she told officers she worked “eight days (per) week.” The report doesn’t state whether that was meant as a figure of speech.
The next day, a patient contacted police, telling them that she came back to the Doral apartment from a post-op appointment “and staff from the apartment complex had to let her in to retrieve her belongings,” according to the reports.
“The patient called (Giraldo-Torres) and left a message advising that she wanted her money returned to her,” police wrote. “The patient received a return call from a male from an unknown number. The unknown male advised the patient that he would return some of her money if she sent (a Miami-Dade detective) an email retracting her previous statement and that she vacated the premises because she needed advanced care following her surgery.”
Police concluded that Giraldo-Torres and Ramirez operated an ongoing “scheme to defraud multiple patients” after they found out the homes were unlicensed assisted living facilities.
“Rather than refunding previously booked clients their monies, they continued to operate unlicensed ALFs at other locations,” an investigator wrote in the reports. “Additionally, when the patients voiced their concerns about the treatment that they were receiving, the defendant and co-defendant attempted to intimidate them from calling the police, or they were asked to retract any previous statements they had provided to the police.”
Giraldo-Torres and Ramirez are each facing three counts of operating an ALF without a license and individual counts of organized scheme to defraud, witness tampering, felony littering and a felony hazardous waste charge. They are also facing misdemeanor counts of nuisances injurious to health and failing to track biomedical waste.
Both were held on a bond of more than $13,000 as of Thursday afternoon, according to Miami-Dade jail records.