Spa owner accused of giving “black market Botox” treatments
By Stephen Swanson
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PRIOR LAKE, Minnesota (WCCO) — A spa in Prior Lake, Minnesota, is at the center of a criminal investigation into alleged “black market” Botox treatments.
According to the complaint filed last month in Scott County, the owner of the anti-aging spa, a 59-year-old Prior Lake woman, was using unlicensed Botox-like products and semaglutide weight loss drugs, also known as GLP-1, without the legal authority to do so.
The complaint states a longtime friend of the defendant tipped off authorities last year that she’s not a registered nurse and there was no medical director at the spa. The friend said the defendant told them “she gets Botox really cheap and makes a ton of money.”
A former employee also told authorities she had worked at the spa between 2022 and 2023 and said the defendant “would never let her inject people with Botox” even though she was qualified to do so, and instead did all injections herself, the complaint states.
Both the friend and the former employee also claimed the defendant’s ex-husband told them separately the Botox-like products were unregulated bootlegs.
Another witness told investigators the defendant ordered her products from China and “learned to inject Botox from watching YouTube.” A man who briefly worked as the spa’s former medical director told investigators he reported the defendant to the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice after learning of the allegations.
In July 2025, a former customer told investigators she had “a terrible experience” at the spa during an open house when she had some painful injections of what they believed was Juvederm. The customer later asked the defendant to provide her with the drugs’ lot numbers, which she then gave to the company that makes Juvederm. The company confirmed “those numbers were not their product,” according to the complaint.
The defendant later told investigators she had neurotoxin training in Texas and was unsure if her certification was valid in Minnesota. The complaint states the defendant also claimed that she was “joking” when she said the product was from the “black market,” and blamed a voice text that “got messed up” for the misunderstanding.
She went on to say she was “providing a service to women, her heart is good, and all she does is give,” the complaint states.
The defendant is charged with one count of unlawful practice of medicine, a gross misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail.
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