commentary by Patrick H. Moore
Even though there is no proof he ever said it, Phineas T. Barnum of Ringling Bros. Circus fame is often credited with saying, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Whoever actually coined the phrase is less important than the fact that there’s a lot of truth to it — a fact hucksters throughout history have taken full advantage of. The general population — myself included — is often naive, credulous and easily “taken to the cleaners”. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the recent case of Ron Oneal Morris, an “unlicensed doctor” who specialized in cut-rate butt injections by allegedly using Fix-A-Flat and cement to shape derrieres.
Unbelievable as this sounds, it is all true. The results of the injections are grotesque — so grotesque that the prosecution has struggled to find witnesses willing to testify against Morris. As a result of this reluctance on the part of the victims, Morris was able to cut a deal with the prosecutors which led to her pleading guilty Thursday morning in Miami to one count of practicing healthcare without a license. She was sentenced to 336 days in state prison, at least some of which she has already served.
According to UPI, Morris, who was born a man but considers herself a woman, will begin serving the remainder of her sentence in January.
Morris is reported to have started her cut-rate black market plastic surgery business in 2007. According to the the New York Daily News, many of her patients were transgendered women who were understandably seeking feminine curves. It is completely appalling that Morris took advantage of these vulnerable souls by pumping their bodies full of bizarre compounds. That being said, the investigators have struggled to find evidence that Morris actually used Fix-A-Flat in her injections, according to CBS Miami. For those of you interested in chemistry, Fix-A-Flat consists of low-density plastics dissolved in naphtha which, by the way, is extremely flammable.
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One transgender individual who did come forward in 2011, but may have refused to testify later on, is Rajee Narinesingh who told CBS Miami that Morris injected her face with a toxic brew investigators allege was a mixture of tire mender, mineral oil and cement. As the picture demonstrates, the injections have left her face markedly disfigured.
Narinesingh told the station that she was desperate to have plastic surgery. She contacted Morris sometime around 2009 after hearing about her through “word of mouth” in the transgender community. Narinesingh explained that many transgendered individuals experience great anguish because although they feel like one sex on the inside, their bodies reflect the opposite sex whom they do not identify with psychologically:
“It becomes so dire that you want to match your outside with your inside that you’re willing to roll the dice and take your chances. As a transgender person, you’re thinking ‘Oh, my God, I can start to look like I want to look like and I don’t have to spend a lot of money.’”
The botched backroom procedures left Narinesingh’s face a lumpy, misshapen mess.
She now has a real plastic surgeon, Dr. John Martin of Coral Gables, who stated that he hoped surgery and therapeutic injections could undo the damage.
“She’s got a long road, thousands and thousands of dollars to correct what was probably two or three hundred dollars to get the injection,” Martin told CBS.
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Morris and an accomplice, Corey Eubank, were arrested in November, 2011, after allegations on the part of alleged victims that they had been injected in their legs and buttocks with a mixture consisting of Fix-a-Flat, cement and superglue, according to NBC Miami.
In July of 2012, Morris was arrested again, this time on manslaughter charges for the death of Shatarka Nuby, 32, who allegedly paid at least $2,000 for treatments to enhance her buttocks, hips, thighs and breasts. Although the specifics of these charges remain murky, it appears that the compounds were allegedly sufficiently toxic to kill Nuby.
NBC Miami reports that the trial for that case is still pending. Obviously, if the manslaughter charge sticks, Morris will be facing a much longer sentence than the 336 days she has received to date.