DUBAI, April 29, 2010 (AFP) - A Dubai court has jailed an American doctor for two months for carrying out cosmetic surgery telling patients that he was a famed US surgeon who had operated on the stars, press reports said on Thursday.
Steven Moos, 40, was sentenced to one month in jail for forging documents purporting to show that he was Dr. Steven Hopping, former head of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery, the government-owned daily Emirat Al-Youm said.
He was jailed for a second month for practising a profession in the United Arab Emirates without a permit.
After he has served his sentence, Moos is expected to face extradition to the United States, where he is wanted by the FBI on suspicion of drug possession and trafficking, and crimes against life and health, Abu-Dhabi based daily The National said.
But the timing of his extradition remains uncertain because he also faces two civil suits from patients who charge that their operations were botched, the paper added.
The paper published a picture of a woman with a severely damaged upper lip that it said was one of Moos's patients.
The imposter conducted fat-removal liposuction procedures under primitive conditions in his villa, the head of the Dubai branch of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery Hospital, Dr. Jeehan Qadir, told the press when Moos was arrested.
His trial began on March 29.
He was exposed after one of Hopping's patients sent the celebrity surgeon a copy of the fraudster's business card and asked: "Is this really you?"
Police sources told the press that the fake surgeon has been the subject of an Interpol Red Notice since 2008 and was once briefly arrested in the UAE only to be freed when the United States did not follow up on his case.
Qadir said earlier that she suspected many women knew the fraudster was not a certified surgeon but went to him anyway because his fees were as low as 500 dirhams (136 dollars).
