NEW YORK (AP) – A man who fled to Central America after pleading guilty to practicing medicine without a license was indicted on a second-degree murder charge Monday in the death of a patient who was found buried at his former New Jersey home, the Manhattan district attorney said.
The indictment charges Dean Faiello with depraved indifference to human life in the death of Maria Cruz, 35, District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said in a statement.
Cruz, a financial analyst at Barclay’s Capital, had gone to Faiello for laser treatments of a growth on her tongue. Her body was found Feb. 18, 2004, under a concrete slab at Faiello’s former home in Newark, N.J., 10 months after she vanished.
Faiello had been arrested in October 2002 for practicing medicine without a license, but he continued to see patients after that arrest, prosecutors said.
He fled to Central America after pleading guilty in June 2003 to the unlicensed practice of medicine charge, which carries a possible four years in prison. He was extradited from Costa Rica in May.
If convicted of second-degree murder, Faiello faces 25 years to life in prison.
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