Under the Knife: A Beautiful Woman, a Phony Doctor, and a Shocking Homicide (12 page)

Moving into the West 44
^th
Street apartment created an additional problem: Dean overslept nearly every day. He had the sense to know that there was one appointment he dared not miss—the one with his probation officer. Dean
always spent the night before one of these required monthly appearances at Greg’s apartment.

On a typical work day though, he spent the night at his apartment and arrived late to work. This prompted his receptionist to call Greg and plead with him to wake up Dean and get him into the office. Those demands disrupted Greg’s work day; but still, he walked the fourteen blocks to Dean’s new home to rouse him from bed. He did, after all, have his own financial interests to protect. As long as Dean went to work each day, Greg had a hope of repayment. And as long as they maintained regular contact, there was a possibility of preserving a hold—albeit a tenuous one—on their floundering relationship.

That hope for the relationship and the repayment, though, diminished with each passing day. Dean stopped paying on his loan and Greg was outraged. In disgust, he stopped responding when asked to provide wake-up service.

Dean struggled to meet his own basic needs. There was simply not enough income rolling in for him to survive the added expense of a Manhattan apartment, no matter how good a bargain he had. His solution was to attempt to rent the house in Newark. He found an interested couple, thinking his income shortfall was solved. But driving to Forest Hills in their rented moving van, they got lost and meandered through some of the grittier Newark neighborhoods. After that eye-opening experience, the couple reneged on their agreement.

Eventually, Dean stopped showing up for work entirely. His alarmed receptionist notified Greg. After calling Dean’s apartment numerous times without response, Greg went to 44
^th
Street and buzzed up to Dean. Still no response, day after day.

After nearly a week, Greg was frantic. He contacted a doctor he knew socially and convinced him to intervene.
The doctor left a message on Dean’s answering machine: “Dean, if you do not let us into the apartment, I’ll call the police. They’ll force their way in.”

The next time Greg went to the apartment, Dean responded to the buzzer. Greg went in to find the apartment looking like a disaster zone. Dean had been inside all along, buzzed out on a drug binge.

MEANWHILE, DR. LAURIE POLIS’ STAR WAS RISING HIGH IN THE
Manhattan horizon. Her business, now named the SoHo Skin and Laser Dermatology Group, flourished. The location of her office complex was ideal—SoHo had become home to the most prestigious spas in the world, and Dr. Polis stepped into that arena with the opening of her Mezzanine Spa in 2000.

She reigned over this world, with the sort of cachet that drew a long list of celebrity clients. Dr. Polis was named one of the seven most sought-after dermatologists in New York City.

The glamorous spa she created was an oasis of delight. Walls with Japanese grass–infused wallpaper, other walls of rice paper, bamboo floors, a three-story water sculpture and a lounge stocked with wasabi snacks and fortune cookies formed an exquisite backdrop for her services. A dozen doctors now worked at her facility. In addition to a medical practice in cosmetic, clinical and surgical dermatology, she offered a Western menu featuring cutting-edge skin-care treatments based on the latest science and tailored to the needs of each individual, as well as an Eastern menu offering Ayuveda from India, a philosophy-based holistic approach to health and healing that utilized herbs and meditation; acupressure; and Chinese herbal facials and relaxation therapies. Dr. Polis oversaw the most comprehensive medical day spa in the country.

One day, she flipped through a new issue of
New York
magazine. Her fingers froze in disbelief and dismay. Once again she stared at an ad for SkinOvations. Dean was still at it, in a new office, but still offering the same services, presented with the same marketing approach.

She felt helpless and frustrated.
Why wasn’t he in jail?

DEAN’S THREE YEARS PROBATION FOR FORGING PRESCRIPTIONS
expired in January 2002. He was now free and clear of the criminal courts and the justice system. Or so he thought.

Authorities, however, had other ideas. On February 2, Daniel Kelleher, director of investigations for the state department of education, sent a second undercover officer, Ariana Miller, to visit Dean in his offices. He hoped that this time they would get sufficient evidence to convince the attorney general’s office to move forward with the prosecution of Dean Faiello.

Dean offered to remove blood vessels from Ariana’s leg and diagnosed her skin lesion as benign. He told her he could remove both with a laser, and that she would not feel any pain because he would inject her with a local anesthetic before starting the procedure. When she questioned his credentials, he assured her that he was a doctor.

Tonya Holder, yet another investigator, entered Dean’s office on March 22. He also diagnosed her skin lesions as benign, again offering to remove them with a laser after injecting the area with anesthetic. He gave her the same assurances that he was in fact medically qualified to perform the procedure.

The investigators prepared a second round of reports and filed them with the office of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in May, then sat back and waited for him to take action and put Dean out of business.

That summer, Dean moved the offices of SkinOvations to a new space at 117 East 18
^th
Street. This Gramercy Park–area property was owned by his personal physician,
Dr. Lawrence Fontana. Dean worked there under the supervision of a doctor in the neighboring suite, Dr. Frank Spinelli. Spinelli provided comprehensive adult primary care with a focus on gay health. As a specialist in treating HIV-positive patients, he was in great demand in the gay community. His clientele also appreciated him for his good looks. The
New York Blade
named him one of the two hottest doctors in town. “Those dark, brooding eyes. That curly hair. That muscled body. Oh yeah, he’s also a great doctor,” the Manhattan gay newspaper wrote.

Despite the fresh start in an office complex with a respected doctor, Dean’s behavior continued to deteriorate. He never seemed to sleep. He spent his nights reading medical websites instead. His mood swings were more sudden than an earthquake and more extreme than a category-five hurricane.

Greg knew that drug use, complicated by lack of sleep, provided the fuel for Dean’s erratic and bizarre behavior. Dean, though, tried to conceal his habit. Greg bumped into confirmation wherever he turned—a Pyrex plate with a straw in it stuffed in a linen closet, a Stadol inhaler shoved deep down in the trash.

Greg still tried to engage him in conversation about the root of his problems, but once again made little or no progress. He consulted with experts at rehab centers. Greg wanted desperately to save Dean from himself. He also had the growing suspicion that Dean was courting trouble by passing himself off as a physician. He saw more and more mail coming in addressed to Dr. Dean Faiello, M.D.

One evening, that worry received confirmation. Greg dropped by Dean’s office and together they walked out to the parking garage. A worker there said, “Goodnight, Dr. Faiello.”

On the way home, Greg asked, “Dean, you don’t tell people you’re a doctor, do you?”

“No, of course not,” Dean said.

“You know how much trouble you can get into if you do, don’t you?”

Dean waved him off, dismissing his concern. Dean did not feel it was important. But he should have. While he made little of Greg’s worries, a dark cloud churned over Dean’s head. Lightning poised, ready to strike. The attorney general’s office was receiving and responding to reports from the state department of education. Investigators from that office now dogged Dean’s every step.

DEAN AND HIS BUSINESS ATTRACTED MORE THAN JUST AN
official investigation. Two tenacious journalists now shadowed him, preparing to con the con.

Barbara Nevins Taylor, an investigative reporter with Channel 9 News, was the first to pick up the scent of the developing story. A native New Yorker, Barbara was born and raised in Queens. She attended New York City’s Performing Arts High School—later named LaGuardia High School. She majored in sociology at Queens College, the City University of New York. By the time she graduated, Barbara planned to enter the world of journalism, following in the footsteps of her father, Zeke Segal, national assignment editor and southern bureau chief with CBS News.

Like many aspiring reporters, Barbara embarked on a journey of voluntary exile, polishing her craft in smaller media markets. She started as a reporter for WHNT, a television station in Huntsville, Alabama. She then worked as an anchor and reporter at WKYT in Lexington, Kentucky. She stepped into a substantially larger market when she snagged a reporter’s position at a local television station in Atlanta, Georgia.

During this stop in her nomadic existence, Barbara met Nick Taylor, a long-time print journalist working in
television news as a political reporter. Nick left broadcasting to take a position with the Jimmy Carter campaign and the two saw little of each other. But after Carter’s successful election, Nick and Barbara started dating. Barbara was now the chief political correspondent at WAGA in Atlanta.

Nick and Barbara lived together for five and a half years and were then married in 1984. At last, Barbara was able to return home to New York—her journeyman dues paid—when she accepted a reporting job at WCBS.

Nick thrived in New York. He was elected president of the Authors Guild and successfully authored twelve non-fiction books including one,
Laser: The Inventor, the Nobel Laureate, and the Thirty-Year Patent War
, about the technology that played such a pivotal role in Dean Faiello’s professional life. Together, Nick and Barbara traveled, sailed and tackled the greatest challenges of the boomer generation: caring for the lives, bodies and minds of their elderly parents, and watching as they shrunk before their eyes.

In 1992, Barbara left WCBS, taking a hiatus from the frenetic pace of television journalism and devoting her attention to her foster child. When she returned to media work in 1994, she found her mission as an investigative reporter at the New York–based, Fox-owned television station, Channel 9.

She tackled an FBI sting operation gone bad, stolen identity stories, and gun-related crime. She exposed a green card scam that bilked immigrants out of nearly a million dollars. She uncovered an unscrupulous landlord—one who didn’t provide heat or hot water and refused to repair collapsed ceilings, giant holes in the floors, leaky roofs and broken toilets. She was there with a cameraman, bringing viewers the image of this man as he was handcuffed and carted off to jail. She unraveled
the flim-flam operations of unscrupulous tax preparers, fly-by-night contractors, towing companies who stole cars and phony mortgage companies who stole houses.

Through all this work, the praise piled high for Barbara Nevins Taylor. She earned thirteen Emmys, a “Laurel” from the
Columbia Journalism Review
and other honors from the Associated Press, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Deadline Club, The Newswomen’s Club of New York, the New Jersey Broadcasters Association and the New York Society of the Silurians.

When Barbara focused her talents and energies on the cosmetic surgery industry, she stepped onto a path that would lead her to Dean Faiello.

Initially, her story focused on three physicians—one in New Jersey and two in Queens—who were the subject of repeated complaints from viewers whose plastic surgeries were botched. The most egregious offender was Dr. Jose Arely Lopez. She looked into his practice at a time when he was about to lose his license for the death of one of his patients. Wanda Nunez, a young mother, died on the operating table because of the anesthesia Dr. Lopez administered during a tummy tuck procedure.

Women who survived his surgeries told tales of horrible pain and disfigurement. Carol Brown went to Dr. Lopez’s New Jersey office for liposuction on her stomach and legs. After the procedure, she had open lacerations on her torso. Lopez told her nothing was wrong—her wounds would heal and disappear.

Several months later, when she expressed her dissatisfaction again, Lopez recommended corrective laser surgery to remove the excessive scarring. Carol underwent the procedure with Diana, Dr. Lopez’s wife, assisting him in surgery. Diana had no medical training at all.

Afterwards, the burning pain Carol felt was intense, and the disfigurement was not alleviated—if anything, it
worsened. When she sought a second opinion, Carol was told that further treatment was useless, and she was scarred for life.

Maria Linarez visited Dr. Lopez for liposuction, too. He performed the procedure on her back—once again with the assistance of his unschooled wife. The surgery left a legacy of scars and pain, both physical and mental. Maria believed she looked like a monster.

When authorities revoked his medical credentials, Lopez closed his existing office and calmly set up another on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Barbara made repeated efforts to send in an undercover operative to catch Lopez in the act, but always failed to get an appointment. Then, she caught on to the process. All prospective patients were screened by Lopez’s brother—if you were not a Latino, you didn’t get in to see him.

Barbara lined up the right bait and the trap was set. The television station offered the attorney general’s office the opportunity to provide an undercover investigator to accompany them on the appointment, but they declined.