Dean Faiello was a New Jersey laser hair-removal technician who spent years posing as a dermatologist in Manhattan, and in April 2003 he killed one of his patients, 35-year-old investment banker Maria Cruz, during a botched tongue procedure he performed while drunk and high. He hid her body under a concrete slab in his Newark garage, fled to Costa Rica, and after extradition pleaded guilty to first-degree assault. He served 17 years of a 20-year sentence and was paroled in 2022.
How Faiello Practiced Medicine Without a License
Faiello was born in Madison, New Jersey, and dropped out of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute after five semesters.1Vanity Fair. The Doctor Is Out He worked in construction, then learned laser hair-removal from a spa owner named Michael Hart before opening his own business, Skin Ovations, and treating clients as though he were a licensed physician.
In the late 1990s he worked alongside dermatologist Dr. Laurie Polis at SoHo Skin & Laser Dermatology. Polis discovered he had stolen a pad of her prescription scripts to write himself prescriptions for the opiate nasal spray Stadol NS, and reported him.2Vanity Fair. The Doctor Is Out About two years later, Polis learned Faiello was impersonating a doctor and performing laser surgery on patients, and again alerted authorities.3New York Post. Quack a Crazy Villain The NYPD arrested him for practicing medicine without a license on October 3, 2002.4Oxygen. Fake Doctor Dean Faiello Wanted in Maria Cruz’s Disappearance
The arrest did not stop him. Out on bail, Faiello set up a makeshift office in a friend’s apartment on West 16th Street in lower Manhattan and kept seeing patients.5New York Times. Fake Doctor Kept Working After Arrest Maria Cruz was one of them.
Who Maria Cruz Was
Maria Pilar Cruz, known to her family as “Pipie,” was a 35-year-old Filipino immigrant and devout Catholic.6ABC News. Fake Doctor Dean Faiello Sheds Light on Procedure That Left New York Woman Dead She held an MBA from Fordham University and worked as a senior credit analyst at Barclays Capital.1Vanity Fair. The Doctor Is Out She had been seeing Faiello for laser treatment of a black mark on her tongue.7New York Times. Fake Doctor Is Back in U.S. and Facing Murder Charge
What Happened During the April 2003 Procedure
On April 13, 2003, Cruz attended Mass at St. Malachy’s Church in Manhattan, went to her office on Park Avenue, and withdrew $400 from an ATM at Loehmann’s in Lower Manhattan before heading to her appointment with Faiello.1Vanity Fair. The Doctor Is Out She was never seen alive again.
In a 2022 interview with ABC’s 20/20, Faiello admitted he was “drunk and high” during the treatment. He said he injected the local anesthetic lidocaine into Cruz’s tongue but used far too much. “I used too many vials of lidocaine,” he told the interviewer.6ABC News. Fake Doctor Dean Faiello Sheds Light on Procedure That Left New York Woman Dead Cruz began convulsing. Faiello said he called a doctor friend, who told him to rush her to a hospital, but he did not. Cruz lost all vital signs in the apartment.
Instead of calling for help, Faiello put Cruz’s body in a large suitcase and drove it to a home he owned on Elwood Avenue in Newark, New Jersey. He buried the suitcase beneath a concrete slab in the garage’s storage room. He later told 20/20 the idea came to him because the garage floor already needed repair: “The idea came to me to make Maria part of that slab.”6ABC News. Fake Doctor Dean Faiello Sheds Light on Procedure That Left New York Woman Dead
How the Body Was Found
Cruz’s family reported her missing after she failed to come to work for two consecutive days.8Mix 99.3. Fake Doctor Dean Faiello Sheds Light on Botched Procedure Detectives linked her to Faiello through patient records and credit card activity near his office on the day she vanished. The breakthrough came from Faiello’s former longtime partner, Greg Bach, who told investigators that Faiello had once spoken about a “panicky” situation with a patient who suffered convulsions and had poured a concrete slab in the storage room of his Newark garage.9Vanity Fair. The Doctor Is Out
NYPD detectives executed a search warrant at the Newark property on February 18, 2004, and found Cruz’s decomposing body inside the suitcase, wrapped in garbage bags and encased in cement.10CBS News. Concrete Coffin for Missing Woman Investigators identified the remains through the serial numbers on her breast implants and found that Faiello had ordered bags of cement around the time she disappeared.
Flight to Costa Rica and Extradition
Faiello did not wait to be caught. In June 2003, about two months after Cruz’s death, he skipped a court hearing on the practicing-without-a-license charges and fled to Costa Rica.4Oxygen. Fake Doctor Dean Faiello Wanted in Maria Cruz’s Disappearance He settled into a beachfront villa at a hotel in Samara Beach.
After Cruz’s remains were discovered, U.S. Diplomatic Security agents at the American embassy in San José worked with Costa Rican police to track him down. He was arrested at a resort in northwestern Costa Rica on February 26, 2004, eight days after the body was found, by Costa Rican immigration police for overstaying his tourist visa.11U.S. Department of State. Diplomatic Security Assists in Return of Fugitive
Faiello and his Costa Rican attorney then tried an unusual strategy: they sought to have him adopted by a local couple he had stayed with, on the theory that Costa Rican citizens cannot be extradited. A Costa Rican court rejected the maneuver.12ABC News. Dean Faiello, Fake Doctor Convicted in 2003 Death, Recalls Case A magistrate agreed to extradite him, and after roughly 15 months in a Costa Rican jail, U.S. Marshals escorted him back to the United States on May 23, 2005.11U.S. Department of State. Diplomatic Security Assists in Return of Fugitive
Charges, Plea, and Sentence
The Manhattan district attorney’s office charged Faiello with second-degree murder, which carried a potential sentence of 25 years to life.7New York Times. Fake Doctor Is Back in U.S. and Facing Murder Charge A State Supreme Court justice ordered him held without bail at Rikers Island.4Oxygen. Fake Doctor Dean Faiello Wanted in Maria Cruz’s Disappearance
Prosecutors could not sustain the murder charge because Cruz’s badly decomposed remains did not yield a specific cause of death.4Oxygen. Fake Doctor Dean Faiello Wanted in Maria Cruz’s Disappearance On July 25, 2005, Faiello pleaded guilty in Manhattan Supreme Court, before Justice Gregory Carro, to first-degree assault “under conditions evincing a depraved indifference to human life.”13ABC News. Fake Doctor Pleads Guilty The agreed sentence was 20 years. Cruz’s father, Rodolfo Cruz, later said the family accepted the deal to spare themselves a trial.14New York Daily News. Bogus Doc: I Killed Patient At sentencing, the judge called Faiello’s actions “heartless,” “senseless,” and “depraved.”
Release and Public Apology
Faiello served his sentence at Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York and was released on parole in 2022 after 17 years. Shortly after his release, he sat for an ABC 20/20 interview that aired in December 2022 and offered his first public apology to Cruz’s family. “Not a day passes that I do not think of Maria or think of her family and why I acted like such a coward,” he said.6ABC News. Fake Doctor Dean Faiello Sheds Light on Procedure That Left New York Woman Dead He also told the interviewer, “I can never really make up or atone for what I did. It’s impossible.”15Good Morning America. Dean Faiello, Fake Doctor Convicted in 2003 Death, Recalls Case As of late 2022, he was working as a maintenance man at a grocery store.12ABC News. Dean Faiello, Fake Doctor Convicted in 2003 Death, Recalls Case