A former District police officer is accused of providing security for a woman who offered illegal silicone buttocks implants, and plea deals appear likely for the pair, court documents show.
A criminal information was filed this month against Kimberly Smedley, a Georgia woman arrested at a downtown D.C. hotel in October, and ex-D.C. cop Martin Freeman. The document, filed in federal court in Baltimore, can only be filed with the defendants’ consent and indicates the two are working toward a plea agreement.
Court documents say Smedley traveled to D.C., Baltimore and other cities to give liquid silicone injections to women who wanted to enlarge their buttocks. Freeman was paid to provide security for her, the documents say. Court records don’t say how many times the pair provided injections in the D.C. area, but said they happened between 2009 and October 2011.
The Food and Drug Administration has not approved liquid silicone for such uses, making the implants illegal. This is the first time Freeman has been charged in the case; a complaint was filed against Smedley in September.
The two are charged with introducing a misbranded drug into interstate commerce with the intent to defraud or mislead.
Smedley’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday; Freeman could not be reached and no attorney was listed for him in court records.
Authorities learned of the scheme after an exotic dancer in Baltimore was hospitalized for shortness of breath after receiving the implants and doctors found silicone in her lungs, a criminal complaint says.
The woman reported that she received nine injections in each buttock and also got injections in her hips.
Freeman was fired from the Metropolitan Police Department in 2005, shortly after he and other officers alerted city officials that the department had set up what they said was an improper deal to provide security in the Gallery Place area. That setup happened after MPD had rejected the officers’ requests to provide off-duty security there.
Freeman told Washington City Paper in 2010 that he had been blacklisted from other security jobs since he left the police force. When potential employers checked his references, “MPD says bad things about me,” he told the newspaper.
Smedley usually gave women the injections at hotels; she was taken into custody at the JW Marriott near 14th Street NW and Pennsylvania Avenue on Oct. 11, according to court documents. Freeman was with her at the hotel but was not arrested.
