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Women sue a local surgeon over alleged botched breast surgeries

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

(New York- WABC, March 29, 2006) (WABC) -- Three women claim a plastic surgeon on the Upper East Side of Manhattan botched their breast surgeries. This isn't the first time this doctor has been accused of negligence.

The Investigators Sarah Wallace has the exclusive report.

There's a common theme here: the women all allege that Plastic Surgeon Dr. Brad Jacobs put in implants that were too big for their bodies -- and that they never wanted to be that big. As a result, they claim in a lawsuit they've been physically and psychologically damaged.

Felice Rosenbaum's wedding video should bring her joyous memories for years to come. Instead, watching it brings her to tears for all the wrong reasons.

Felice: "I am afraid that all I am going to do is look at my breasts and at this dress."

Felice, a sales consultant, claims that last August she went to Dr. Jacobs for a lift. She'd been impressed with his Web site. Felice claims he convinced her to get implants.

Felice: "I wanted to be a 'b'"

Sarah Wallace: "What did you get?"

Felice: "A full 'c,' almost a 'd'"

Then, she says, this began to happen: "The skin started to separate from the stitches ... and the wounds were just tremendous."

Even three months later under that beautiful wedding dress, Felice says all she she kept thinking about was the ugliness of those sores. Dr. Jacobs' explanation?

Felice: "He blamed me. It was my fault. My eating habits weren't proper."

If you think you're still looking at Felice's photos, you're wrong. These are from a Wisconsin woman who won a partial jury verdict against Dr. Jacobs in Manhattan last year.

Attorney Gary Douglas: "He inserted implants that were just way too big for her body, and as a result, she has a separation of the wound."

Douglas is now representing Felice Rosenbaum and two other Jacobs breast patients, Claudia Rodriquez and Cornelia Ion -- a dancer who first went to Jacobs a year and a half ago.

Cornelia: "I would see a separation right here of the implant, a separation between the implant and me."

Cornelia says Jacobs convinced her to get a bigger implant: "I made it very clear to him I don't want to be a double d.... and I started noticing depressions in my aureolas, indentations, and as the weeks were coming, they would just get sucked in even more and more."

She says a third surgery slightly helped but claims she's still deformed.

"I can't even imagine this summer coming and wearing a bathing suit ? I just can't," she said.

Cornelia claims Dr. Jacobs' has continually made excuses: "He's blaming me, he's blaming my body."

She went back to Dr. Jacobs wearing an undercover camera to discuss what to do next.

Jacobs: "You should eventually catch up and heal. ... Actually, it looks pretty damn good."

He told her to take vitamins and do massage -- and she claims tried to talk her out of going to another doctor.

Jacobs: "I do have access to better brains, not the morons to get this handled properly. Okay. Say you're shopping around here and people are going, it's open on the bottom. Shut up, that guy is an idiot."

Claudia Rodriquez says she went to Dr. Jacobs last September to replace silicone implants he'd previously put in that had leaked.

Claudia: "With my rib cage, right under here. I get a sharp pain where I can't breathe."

Sarah Wallace: "Do you feel like they're too big?"

Claudia: "They are enormous ... I just I don't like the size. I didn't ask for this."

Attorney Gary Douglas: "It's the identical scenario. It's almost like an mo. ... He has these patients, he puts in implants that are way too big for their body, that are bigger than than what they ask for. ... it causes medical consequences."

Cornelia and Claudia say they can't afford new surgeries with other doctors to take their implants out. Felice has had her implants removed.

Felice: "The psychological effects are not gone. My husband and I want to start a family, that has to wait now because I have to heal."

She continues: "I went to him, I trusted him, he abused me, he abandoned me, and violated me."

The attorney for Dr. Jacobs said he will have absolutely no comment and not to contact him.

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