Plastic Surgery Clinic Convictions Reversed

The insurance fraud and grand theft convictions of a cosmetologist and two doctors from a Westminster plastic surgery clinic have been overturned by the 4th District Court of Appeals.

In addition, the three cannot be tried again for the crimes, for which the appeals court said the three-year statute of limitations had run out.

Elizabeth Cam Thach Thi Le, owner of the Cam Thach Clinic, and plastic surgeons Alexander S. Sinclair and David Page were convicted in December 1994 of conspiring to overbill patients and defraud insurance companies by claiming that cosmetic surgeries were for medical purposes.

All the violations allegedly occurred between May 1987 and February 1990, and an arrest warrant was issued in June 1992. Those charges were dismissed before a preliminary court hearing, though, according to court records.

But a grand jury handed down indictments for the same violations in October 1993.

Because of that, the appeals court found the prosecution of the three did not begin until those indictments, which came more than three years after the last offense, records show. In its decision released Friday, the court reversed the conviction and ordered acquittal for the three.