An illegal Miami surgery recovery house run by a couple of people from Texas, cops say
Two Dallas residents used a four-bedroom home just west of the Palmetto Expressway for an unlicensed post-cosmetic surgery recovery facility out of a West Miami-Dade home, police said.
Arrest paperwork claims the illegal business has been running for years.
Montreal Lee, 34, has pleaded not guilty to 13 counts of operating an assisted living facility without a license. Lee was released Tuesday after posting $7,000 bond.
Destiny Wilson has been charged with 13 counts of operating an assisted living facility without a license; plus felony littering; a felony hazardous waste violation; two counts of organized fraud over $50,000; and two misdemeanors, nuisances injurious to health and failing to track biomedical waste. Wilson posted $105,000 bond to be released from Miami-Dade Corrections custody.
Arrest reports accuse Wilson and Lee of owning and operating iMermaids Recovery House out of the house, although iMermaids President India Smith called the Miami Herald to say she has no association with Wilson and Lee. She said her business, which state records place in Miramar since its 2019 registration, operates a legal recovery house under the customer limit set by state laws.
The recovery house offered patients transportation to and from their surgeries, and post-surgery care of bathing, dressing eating, medication and more, a Miami-Dade police arrest report read.
On March 1, police executed a search warrant on the home at 5785 SW 89th Ave. that Wilson and Lee were using for the business, the report read.
The 2,072-sq. ft. house with four bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms has been owned by Jose Salerno and Adelys Marquez De Salerno since they bought it for $840,000 June 21, 2022, Miami-Dade County online property records show.
Detectives found five patients inside and an employee, police said. The patients confirmed to police that the house was being used as a post-operative recovery house. Collectively, they stayed at the home for 13 nights.
A check of the Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration shows no facility licensed for that location.
The duo were arrested in west Miami-Dade on Tuesday.
Illegally dumping human waste, too?
Wilson and Lee aren’t just facing charges for operating the fugazi recovery house. Police say the duo were illicitly dumping human medical waste.
Arrest forms say they threw away waste saturated in human feces, blood and urine in the signature Miami-Dade green trash and blue recycle bins provided by the county for residential waste. Those aren’t supposed to handle large amounts of medical waste, such as used adult diapers, bandages, gloves, medical absorbent pads, medical gowns and bed pads, police said.
Wilson’s second fraud charge comes from allegedly getting a lease on a South Miami-Dade home by showing fake documents to back up a claim that she was on paid military leave.
This story was originally published July 18, 2023 at 9:18 PM.
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