Homeopath Lacked Licenses, Officials Find in Coma Probe

A homeopath under investigation for inducing a woman’s coma while she underwent breast surgery was not licensed to administer drugs and did not have a business license, authorities said.

The woman, Alma Agnis, 42, of Los Angeles, was listed in serious condition at Humana Hospital Sunrise, where she was in a coma.

Agnis, a mother of four, was taken to the hospital after she became comatose during surgery last week at the Las Vegas office of Leo Newton Maxwell.

Maxwell, a licensed homeopath who also has offices in Beverly Hills, was performing breast enlargement surgery and removing stretch marks from the woman’s abdomen when he gave her a combination of drugs that allegedly caused the coma.

According to an affidavit filed by Metro Police homicide detectives investigating the case, the woman has a 5% to 10% chance of survival. If she survives, she is likely to have major brain damage, they said.

Homeopathy is a medical practice that treats a disease by administering minute doses of a remedy that would produce symptoms of the disease in healthy people.

According to the state Board of Homeopathic Medical Examiners, Maxwell obtained a medical license from a university in Mexico and became a licensed homeopath in August. He was not licensed as a medical doctor or an osteopath in Nevada.

Maxwell had applied for a license to administer drugs, but the application had not yet been processed, said a spokesman for the state Board of Pharmacy.