An Orange County plastic surgeon who calls himself “Dr. Laguna” has reached a $6 million settlement with dozens of former patients who claim they were the victims of horribly botched procedures and medical negligence.
Dr. Arian Mowlavi has agreed to end civil lawsuits brought by around three-dozen former patients with a settlement that will be paid by his insurance company, according to a filing from the doctor in a bankruptcy case.
The former patients made a host of allegations against Mowlavi, including the use of unlicensed technicians to help perform surgeries, the degrading treatment of disrobed women and the hard-selling of unnecessary procedures.
Mowlavi — whose medical license was briefly suspended after the death of a patient — was called “a danger to the community” by the chief of the plastic surgery department at a south Orange County hospital.
A canny self-promoter who markets himself on Instagram, Mowlavi claims to be “well regarded as a world renowned face, body and breast sculpture” who has “performed over 15,000 procedures.”
In his own court filings, Mowlavi has denied being responsible for any misconduct or medical malpractice and has accused his accusers of trying to destroy his career. Most of the civil cases have already been dismissed following the settlement, Orange County Superior Court records show.
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But the former patients who sued Mowlavi described unexpected medical side effects from their procedures that left some hospitalized with at-times life-threatening ailments and others in medical debt and unable to work.
The settlement doesn’t end all of Mowlavi’s legal issues.
A civil lawsuit filed against Mowlavi by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office that echoes many of the allegations by the doctor’s former patients while also accusing him of unlawful business practices remains active.
Mowlavi is also facing an ongoing criminal investigation, according to legal filings from the DA’s office submitted to the court as part of their civil lawsuit.
And in a new accusation filed with the state medical board on Jan. 25, another former patient alleges she was taken to an emergency room, underwent multiple surgeries and spent time in a burn center due to side-effects of treatment from Mowlavi. That written accusation alleges that Mowlavi performed liposuction in an unsafe manner, injuring the skin on the patient’s abdomen and “creating a full-thickness burn” that “ultimately became infected and resulted in septic shock.”
Mowlavi is already in the midst of a 10-year probation period under an agreement with the state medical board that included a 90-day suspension of his medical license.
That agreement was related to a woman who died of “surgical intervention leading to cardiac arrest and cerebral anoxia,” the latter condition referencing a complete interruption of the supply of oxygen to her brain, two days after Mowlavi performed liposuction and other procedures on her.