Natasha Stewart, 40, told a jury she was only trying to help someone who felt insecure about her body. But prosecutors said her so-called help led to a woman’s death.
Stewart, of suburban Memphis, Tenn., was found guilty of culpable negligence manslaughter Friday by a jury in Jackson, Miss., the Associated Press reports. The verdict was in connection with the illicit silicone buttocks injections that prosecutors say killed 37-year-old Karima Gordon of Atlanta, Ga. in 2012, the report says.
Stewart had been charged with "depraved-heart" murder, defined as a "callous disregard for human life" resulting in death, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, the report says. She also had been charged with conspiracy to commit depraved-heart murder. But jurors decided to go with the lesser charge.
They also found her guilty of conspiracy to commit culpable negligence manslaughter and she faces up to 20 years in prison for each charge. A sentencing date has not yet been set.
According to authorities, Stewart, an adult entertainer also known as Pebbelz Da Model, took $200 from Gordon for a referral to the alleged injector and falsely represented that the injector was actually a nurse, the report says.
Stewart told jurors Friday that Gordon felt insecure about her body and wanted help fixing previously botched buttocks enhancements, the AP says. Stewart said she connected Gordon with the woman performing the injections as a favor and not for money, but she said Gordon upon paying her.
Stewart also testified that she also thought the woman performing the injections was a registered nurse and had gotten injections herself more than 20 times over seven years, the report says.
"She told me that she was an RN," Stewart testified.
“But Patrick Beasley, a prosecutor with the Mississippi attorney general's office, said someone would have to be ‘dumb’ not to know Garner wasn't a nurse when she used veterinary syringes and sealed the injection sites with cotton balls and glue,” the AP says.
Gordon died from silicone embolism in her lungs about a week after getting the shots in March 2012, prosecutors say.
Tracey Lynn Garner, the one suspected of administering the injections, is charged with depraved-heart murder in the deaths of Gordon and another woman, Marilyn Hale of Selma, Ala. She has pleaded not guilty. Her trial is scheduled for March, according to the AP.
Read more at the Associated Press.