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Doctor, nurse sentenced in deadly plastic surgery
Left to right: Heather Alice Lang Vass and Carlos Chacon in court (KGTV) Inset: Megan Espinoza (Glen Abbey Memorial Park & Mortuary).
A California plastic surgeon and his nurse were sentenced for their roles in a botched plastic surgery that killed a patient and mother of two.
Dr. Carlos Chacon was sentenced on Friday to three years in prison as part of a plea deal to manslaughter in the killing of Megan Espinoza, 36, who died from a fatal dose of drugs, including ketamine and fentanyl. He is also banned from practicing medicine for life in California.
Chacon’s nurse, Heather Alice Lang Vass, was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter. She surrendered her nursing license but can eventually apply to have it reinstated.
Espinoza’s mother, Judith Gorcey, took Vass to task for not calling 911, San Diego’s ABC affiliate KGTV reported.
“That man and his nurse who are responsible for callously ending Megan’s life gave her the death penalty, and they gave all of us who loved her a life sentence of extreme pain,” Gorcey said.
The defendants apologized, San Diego’s CBS affiliate KFMB reported.
“You are a far better man than I ever could be to stand behind those rails. You should know at my core, if I could trade places with Megan, I would,” Chacon said to Espinoza’s father.
Vass added in a statement: “Her death will haunt me for the rest of my days that I didn’t call for help.”
David Gorcey, Espinoza’s father, decried the light punishment.
“The minimum sentencing of three years seems, well, painfully inappropriate,” he said.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Megan Espinoza’s heart stopped at Divino Plastic Surgery six days before Christmas in 2018.
The probable cause warrant said Espinoza went into cardiac arrest mid-surgery at around 2:20 p.m. on Dec. 19, 2018.
Chacon reacted by leaving the room to see four other patients between 3:15 p.m. and 5 p.m., calling two doctors to ask for their advice rather than calling 911, ordering staffers, some of whom had no medical background, not to call 911, and lying to Megan Espinoza’s husband about what was happening, according to the warrant,
“Chacon made the conscious decision to stop others from providing emergency lifesaving efforts on at least 7 occasions,” the warrant said.
Prosecutors said that Chacon did not call 911 until 3 hours after Espinoza’s heart stopped. By then, it was much too late to save her.
Espinoza died on Jan. 28, 2019, at 10:26 p.m., the warrant said. An autopsy determined she died from “ischemic encephalopathy […] caused by a lack of blood flow and oxygen to the brain.”
In December 2022, KGTV reported that the victim’s family had settled a lawsuit against Chacon.
An obituary noted that Megan Espinoza was a kindergarten teacher, devoted wife, and mother.
“Megan’s teaching career was something for which she had the utmost passion,” the memorial reads. “She taught kindergarten and T-K for the Cajon Valley Union School District, and taught in San Ysidro and San Diego earlier in her career. Megan loved spending time at the beach, cooking, gardening, going on walks, taking yoga classes and taking pictures, especially of her boys. She loved being with family and arranging get-togethers with her many friends, but being with Moises and her boys were her greatest joys.”
Law&Crime’s Matt Naham contributed to this report.
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