Cosmetic Clinic Owner, 2 Doctors Found Guilty of Fraud, Grand Theft

The owner and two doctors at a Westminster cosmetic surgery clinic, once popular with the Southeast Asian immigrant community, were found guilty Wednesday of insurance fraud and grand theft.

A Superior Court jury found that Elizabeth Cam Thach Thi Le, the owner and office manager of Cam Thach Clinic, and plastic surgeons Alexander S. Sinclair and David Page conspired to overbill patients and defraud insurance companies by claiming cosmetic surgeries were for medical purposes.

Le was convicted of seven counts of insurance fraud and two counts of grand theft. She faces up to 10 years in prison.

The jury found Sinclair guilty of four counts of insurance fraud and two counts of grand theft; Page was convicted on five counts of insurance fraud. They face maximum prison terms of 10 and nine years, respectively.

Le hired the two Los Angeles-based plastic surgeons to perform such surgeries as eyes and nose reconstructions, which are common among Asian patients, according to authorities.

Authorities said Le’s practice of splitting fees with Sinclair and Page fueled her $1-million-a-year business.

Le advertised in mainly Vietnamese-language newspapers, promoting everything from removing acne scars to “fixing” lost virginity.

“She was very influential in the Vietnamese community,” said senior investigator Larry Blochl of the Medical Board of California. “She made a lot of money.”

Property records show that in 1988, Le, a Los Angeles resident, paid $715,000 for a piece of land overlooking the ocean in Laguna Niguel. She was also listed as a co-owner in a $207,000 condominium on Wilshire Boulevard.

Former patients testified that Le threatened them and offered to pay them $1,000 to $2,000 not to give evidence against her.

Medical board investigators, assisted by local police and state insurance and pharmacology agencies, raided the clinic and the two surgeons’ private offices in Los Angeles in 1990 after a number of patients reported that they were harmed by botched surgeries.

In a previous interview, Thanh Thi Nguyen said she sought skin treatment from the clinic in 1986. After the “face peel,” Nguyen said her skin kept peeling, became covered with pus and then blackened. She said she was left with a scar from eye to chin.

The state attorney general’s office is prosecuting the two doctors on malpractice charges, investigators said.

“By shutting her down, we are protecting the public from medical professionals who were preying on insurance companies and the uninformed immigrant community,” Blochl said.

All three will be sentenced on March 1.