A Queens spa owner was thrown into prison yesterday for posing as a plastic surgeon and severely injuring a woman during a booty-boost procedure.
“I’m a single mother who was running a business, I paid my taxes and I’m sorry for what I did,” Barbara Nieto said through a Spanish-language interpreter before she was sentenced to two years in prison for illegally performing liposuction and a buttocks-lifting procedure on Augusta Velez-Jimenez on March 20, 2010.
Velez-Jimenez was hospitalized after the operations and needed surgery to avoid a life-threatening septic infection.
Nieto, 29, pleaded guilty to unauthorized practice of a profession and second-degree assault.
She agreed to pay $180,000 in restitution to all the victims — not named in the charges — she took advantage of, said District Attorney Richard Brown.
“I want to apologize for what I did . . . Have mercy on me — this is my first offense,” said Nieto as her 8-year-old son cried in the courtroom.
Nieto was the owner of Perfect Image Stethics in Corona, where she had hundreds of clients. She would transfer fat from one area of the body to the buttocks for more than $500 a pop.