Plastic surgeon pleads guilty to fraud, operating without license, AG says

A Westbury plastic surgeon who performed more than 60 expensive cosmetic operations over four years — despite losing his license five years before — will serve 3 to 9 years in prison after pleading guilty to several felonies, state prosecutors said.

Brad Jacobs, 56, also pleaded guilty to insurance and welfare fraud, the state attorney general's office said in a statement Monday.

He claimed he had little or no income, was supported by his elderly parents and was entitled to nearly $13,000 in food stamps, prosecutors said. While getting that public aid, he concealed his income: more than $1.3 million in disability payments from his insurer, Northwestern Mutual Insurance Co., payments from patients who did not know he was practicing medicine without a license and nearly $100,000 from a startup skin care company, Nouveau Genesis.

Jacobs, working with a licensed Queens physician, Nicholas Sewell, charged $8,000 to $10,000 for the operations, and injected scores of patients with Botox and other fillers from about September 2012 to June 2016 in Manhattan, prosecutors said.

Jacobs has agreed to repay his victims more than $425,000, prosecutors said. Sewell's case is pending.

“Practicing medicine without a license jeopardizes the lives of New Yorkers, undermines our healthcare system, and diminishes the work of licensed doctors committed to the health and safety of their patients,” Attorney General Letitia James said.

Jacobs pleaded guilty in Manhattan on Monday to felonies for grand larceny, unauthorized practice of a profession and scheme to defraud, prosecutors said. He pleaded guilty in Nassau County last week to felonies for insurance and welfare fraud.

"This defendant not only endangered patients, but also stole public benefits intended to aid the most vulnerable among us," James said. "My office will continue to aggressively prosecute those who commit fraud at the expense of New Yorkers.”

On June 18, 2007, the state Department of Health used emergency powers to suspend Jacobs' license, which he had held since 1988, and shut his practice, prosecutors said. The charges brought against him included gross negligence, incompetence and moral unfitness, tied to his performance of surgeries for breast augmentation, tummy tucks, liposuction and rhinoplasty.

Jacobs surrendered his license in September 2007 and was barred from sharing offices with another physician who provided health services, and from "sharing or receiving any fee for professional services," prosecutors said.

Afterward, Jacobs settled a disability claim with his insurer in 2013, which paid his trust $750,000 in a lump sum, prosecutors said. The insurer also paid the trust $100,000 a year for the next four years, with Jacobs each year falsely telling it he was not practicing medicine.

Also from 2013 to 2017, Jacobs collected food stamps from Nassau County by concealing his outside income, which included $18,000 a year from the trust, prosecutors said. Jacobs spent $10,000 of that trust money at Whole Foods and Waldbaum's, and another $3,900 at Bagel Boss.

Jacobs is scheduled to be sentenced in Nassau County on March 1 and in Manhattan on March 20, prosecutors said.