Woman's quest for big breasts leads to fraud charge

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Florida woman wanted bigger breasts and thinner arms so badly authorities say she was willing to break the law to get them.

Shatarka Nuby, 29, of Tamarac, faces a credit-card fraud charge after the U.S. Postal Service says she and an accomplice committed fraud so she could have more than $9,000 of cosmetic surgery. The accomplice posed as Nuby's cousin and paid for the surgery using a stolen identity, court records show.

While it's rare for someone to use a pilfered identity to pay for plastic surgery, it has happened before in Broward County.

A Fort Lauderdale woman pleaded guilty in September to stealing someone's identity to plunk down $5,000 for a tummy tuck. Patrice Thomas, 34, was sentenced to five years' probation on the credit-card fraud charge.

There also have been similar cases in California and Pennsylvania within the past two years, notably that of Yvonne Jean Pampellonne, a Los Angeles-area woman dubbed the "Breast Implant Bandit." She was sentenced to six months in jail after admitting to getting $12,000 of surgery by using a line of credit she acquired in another person's name.

The president-elect of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons said he has never heard of so many similar cases being reported in such a short time, but he doesn't think it's indicative of a trend of people stealing identities just to get cosmetic surgery.

"The trend may be that identity theft is happening more often," said Dr. Phil Haeck, based in Seattle. "Identity theft is heartbreaking enough and can take years to recover from, and then to have the identity theft used for a big-ticket item is even harder. Plastic surgery is a commodity. It's a big-ticket item and can be considered akin to buying a car or fur coat."

In the case allegedly involving Nuby, the victim appears to have had her identity stolen after she dropped off a college application — containing many personal details — in a mailbox outside the Tamarac Post Office. The application never arrived at the school and the victim soon discovered five credit cards had been opened in her name and $19,550 in charges racked up, according to federal court records.

The victim learned one of the cards had been used at Pinnella Cosmetic Surgery in Fort Lauderdale. U.S. Postal Inspector Brian McCarthy went to the plastic-surgery center and discovered the charges were for Nuby replacing her existing breast implants with larger ones and liposuction on her arms, court documents show.

Nuby was arrested Thursday and is being held in federal custody pending a pretrial detention hearing set for Wednesday.

A federal count of credit-card fraud could carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.