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Dr. Jay Pensler, unhappy about negative reviews his former patients posted on Yelp and Citysearch, is suing at least three of them for defamation. In court papers, Pensler, who calls himself a "well respected plastic surgeon," says the women have "embarked on a malicious campaign to undermine and destroy" his personal reputation.
But Carol Oshana, a lawyer for a woman who has declined to be identified, said Pensler left her client horribly disfigured. "Her breasts look terrible. I mean, I hate the way she looks. She looks so bad," Oshana told AOL News today in a phone interview. She said the suit would likely be dismissed, but not before the women are forced to pay thousands of dollars in legal fees.
On the online review sites Yelp and Citysearch, many women claiming to be former patients offered descriptive and disturbing accounts of their encounters with the Chicago surgeon.
"The end result after my surgery was that I had Frankenstein breasts with the nipples placed too high," one woman writing under the name "rinasa" posted on Citysearch in June 2009. "A year after my surgery I asked around, did research and interviewed 4 other plastic surgeons for revision surgery because there was no way I was going to let Pensler butcher me again."
On Yelp, another woman said her breasts looked like something out of a horror film. "I have very dark, discolored scars ALL OVER MY BREAST.........literally," a woman wrote under the name "Melissa H" in August. "My breast doesn't even look like breast anymore, it's just that scary!!!! And my areolas look like a drawstring purse."
But there were positive reviews as well. One woman, writing under the name "Michelle C," said Pensler fixed her daughter's cleft palate. "Now, when my daughter looks in the mirror, she does not see a birth defect. She does not see a hole in her face. She does not see someone who was born with this horrible thing. She likes what she sees. She likes who she is," the commenter wrote in October.
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Photographs of the women's post-surgery scars have been made public, but Pensler's attorney, Mitchell Marinello, says they have been doctored. "The photographs that are being shown are not legitimate and that they are something that someone has made up in some fashion," Marinello told AOL News today. "The allegations [against Pensler] are unjustified and completely false, and we're going to prove that in court."But Oshana said the woman she represents was simply trying to warn other women about her traumatic experience. "She's trying to warn people," Oshana said. "You just don't want people to have a bad experience like you did."
According to Fox Chicago News, Pensler subpoenaed Yelp and Citysearch for the IP numbers of the postings, which ultimately led him to discover the identity of some of the authors. Under federal law, the companies cannot be held liable for the postings of their users. Pensler did not immediately return a call for comment today.
