MIAMI – Wilson Muñoz Suarez — known to patients as Dr. Wilson Muñoz — prominently advertised cosmetic surgery procedures and medical supplements on social media and his website and was pictured smiling in medical scrubs, touting his more than 25 years of “transforming lives.”
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He worked at a surgical center in the heart of Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood.
But deputies said he had no right to perform any procedures in Florida: he wasn’t a licensed doctor. His arrest report lists his occupation as “surgical assistant.”
Muñoz, 60, was arrested at his Doral home on Wednesday; but not before deputies said he tried to use his mother as a human “shield.”
According to the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, an Orlando woman contacted Muñoz in September after seeing him online and drove to Doral for a consultation. She underwent a cosmetic procedure at New World Medical & Mystic Cosmetic Surgery at 2020 SW First St. a month later and recovered at a private home, deputies said.
An MDSO arrest report doesn’t specify the procedure in question.
Deputies said she tried contacting him in December about her procedure. After “multiple failed attempts,” she again made the hours-long drive to Miami-Dade County to “confront” Muñoz, the report states.
“Upon confronting (Muñoz), she began to explain her concerns about her results. (He) again physically examined the victim alone,” an investigator wrote. “When asked if someone else did the surgery, (he) admitted to performing the surgical (procedure). The meeting was captured on a video recording by the victim.”
Deputies said they confirmed with the Florida Department of Health that Muñoz was not licensed in the state. The “about us” section of his website mentions that he “began (his) career in medicine” in 1999, but lists no information about a medical degree.
He wrote in the section that he “achieved great recognition throughout the national territory,” presumably a reference to his home country of Venezuela, and “the rest of Latin America,” including “Colombia and Panama.”
On Wednesday, deputies went to his home in the 3600 block of Estepona Avenue to arrest him on a charge of practicing medicine without a license. But they said his subsequent actions would add a second felony and three misdemeanors into the mix.
Authorities said when they asked Muñoz to step outside, he tried to close the door on them, leading a deputy to grab him. They said he “proceeded to tense up and pull away.”
Deputies said he then put his elderly mother in a “chokehold” as he tried to use her as a “shield.”
They said they then grabbed his arms to stop him from harming her. He continued to resist arrest, they said, but deputies were eventually able to take him into custody on the original charge, plus additional counts of battery on a person 65 or older, domestic battery and two counts of resisting arrest without violence.
According to jail records, Muñoz was given a bond of $2,500 on the practicing medicine without a license charge. His bond on the other counts was listed as “to be set.”
As of Thursday, he remained in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.