PHILADELPHIA (AP) – A Gothic hip-hop artist and former escort service madam has offered a mix of fawning, fiery and flirtatious testimony at her trial in the death of a young London dancer who received illegal buttocks injections.
Padge-Victoria Windslowe, who performed in hip hop videos under the name “the Black Madam” and did buttocks enhancements as “Bodies by Lillian,” is set to return to the witness stand for a third day on Friday – if the trial resumes after her two-day hospital stay for chest pain and a winter storm.
Windslowe was released from the hospital late Wednesday and is back in custody at a Philadelphia jail where she has been held since her arrest in 2012, a prison spokeswoman said Thursday.
During two weeks of testimony, jurors have learned more about the transgender “body sculptor” than the victim, 20-year-old Claudia Aderotimi, who received the injections at an airport hotel in 2011. Doctors have said the low-grade silicone spread to Aderotimi’s lungs and stopped her heart.
Windslowe has proven to be a riveting witness, claiming in her many colorful tangents that she crossed paths with rappers Kanye West and Nicki Minaj, model Amber Rose and Ed Rendell, the former Pennsylvania governor and ex-mayor of Philadelphia. She clashed with Assistant District Attorney Carlos Vega who questioned why people like Rose and her friends would choose an unlicensed practitioner over a Los Angeles plastic surgeon.
“I was the best, and I don’t mean that to be cocky,” Windslowe replied.
Windslowe said she learned the lucrative buttocks injection business from doctors in Thailand and Ecuador – vaguely referred to as Dr. Morales, Dr. Chimchoke and Dr. Vu – who performed her sex-change surgeries.
She said she has since performed thousands of the procedures on clients ranging from rappers to strippers to fellow transgender women and earned the name “the Michelangelo of buttocks injections.”
Windslowe said she formerly ran escort services but stopped after her father’s death in 2003 because she felt she was “facilitating places where men could cheat on their wives.”
Aderotimi’s parents stayed in frequent contact with police during the 18-month investigation, but have decided to skip the trial.
So too has the childhood friend who flew with Aderotimi to the U.S. to get the underground buttocks injections. Theresa Gyamfi’s testimony from a 2012 preliminary hearing has instead been read aloud in court. She said that both friends picked the “bubble butt” over a “tear drop” shaped backside, and asked if they could still have children. They were assured they could.
“When Lillian put in the last needle, she felt a pain in her chest,” Gyamfi said of Aderotimi. “She was leaking (silicone) as well.”
Gyamfi said they went to find Windslowe and she told them, “If the pain gets worse, call the ambulance.”
Windslowe was gone by the time they did.
A suburban Philadelphia gastroenterologist also has testified about a long-ago affair with Windslowe, and the six-figure extortion attempts that followed.
Windslowe said of her ex-lover: “He would bring me needles, Lidocaine, and all kinds of prescriptions” and taught her to use an “aspirated needle.”
The doctor, James Taterka, denied ever helping Windslowe with her surgical sideline. A gag order prevents lawyers from discussing the case.
Windslowe faces 20 to 40 years in prison if convicted of third-degree murder in Aderotimi’s death, and potentially more time for aggravated assault and practicing medicine without a license. Two witnesses have said they were left seriously ill after visits with Windslowe. One spent months in a coma.
If the trial resumes Friday, the jury is expected to get the case next week.