BALTIMORE (AP) — A Georgia woman with no license to practice medicine admitted Wednesday she injected customers' buttocks with commercial silicone in hotel rooms and used glue and cotton balls to prevent the silicone from leaking out.

Kimberly Smedley, 45, of Atlanta pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiring to introduce and deliver into interstate commerce an adulterated and misbranded device. She faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine at sentencing July 12.

According to her plea agreement, Smedley enlarged customers' buttocks with silicone intended to be used for metal or plastic lubrication, as an additive for paint and coatings or in furniture or automotive polishes. Prosecutors say Smedley is not a licensed medical practitioner and the silicone is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for that use.

From 2003 until October of last year, Smedley administered these injections in hotel rooms in Baltimore, Washington, Detroit, New York City, Philadelphia and elsewhere, using silicone stored in an unlabeled water jug, medical grade syringes and glue with cotton balls to cover the site of injection to prevent the silicone from leaking out.

She was paid between $500 and $1,600 in cash for each session, in which she typically injected silicone in nine places on each side of the buttocks. Smedley received more $200,000 in cash for the illegal injections.

Smedley told customers that she used medical-grade silicone, but she purchased nearly 5,000 pounds of commercial silicone from one manufacturer alone.

According to her plea agreement, Smedley gave the injections to an exotic dancer in Maryland last year. Smedley put the most recent injections in the woman's hips. Two days later, suffering from shortness of breath, the woman went to a Baltimore hospital, where fluid was found in her lungs and she was treated for pneumonia. A day and a half later, the customer felt worse and went another hospital in Baltimore, where a CAT scan showed silicone in the woman's lungs. She was diagnosed as having poisoning and toxic effects of silicone.

ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here and for
following agreed-upon rules of civility. Posts and
comments do not reflect the views of this site. Posts and comments are
automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some
comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules,
click the "Flag as offensive" link below the comment.