Florida plastic surgeon charged after operation leads to wife’s death, police say

A plastic surgeon was performing procedures on his wife when she had a seizure, went into cardiac arrest and later died, Florida authorities said.

He’s now charged with manslaughter.

Investigators with the state’s Department of Health previously accused Ben Brown of malpractice at Restore Plastic Surgery in Gulf Breeze, resulting in a restriction to his medical license, McClatchy News reported in May. Restore Plastic Surgery has since closed.

On Monday, the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office announced 41-year-old Brown is facing a charge of second-degree felony homicide: manslaughter by culpable negligence.

“Dr. Brown continues to live an endless nightmare without his wife Hillary by his side, and these inaccurate allegations only further deepen his immense pain,” his family said at the time of his May 2 emergency license restriction.

McClatchy News couldn’t reach Brown’s family for comment Monday, and his attorney information isn’t available in Santa Rosa County records.

“Careless and haphazard”

The manslaughter charge stems from a monthslong investigation into Brown after his wife, Hillary Brown, died in November.

On Nov. 21, 2023, Hillary Brown was going under her husband’s knife for scar revision, liposuction to her arms, lip injections and ear adjustments, investigators said.

Before surgery, she took a “plethora of pills” and prepared her own anesthesia for her IV bags, employees of the medical office told investigators.

This wasn’t completely out of the ordinary at her husband’s office, where in addition to mixing her own solution and suturing her own wound that day, Hillary Brown performed procedures on other patients without a license, including laser treatments, injections and removing stitches, investigators said.

Ben Brown performed the first round of procedures on his wife that day without issue. Then they ran out of anesthetic solution, so he poured “two containers into a bowl” and began injecting her with undiluted lidocaine to numb the area, witnesses said.

Complications began as he continued to inject the potent lidocaine into the area around her eyes and she said “she started seeing orange,” staff told investigators.

He continued to inject the anesthetic around her other eye, at which point she said she thought she may be overdosing, a staff member told investigators.

Then she started having a seizure.

Staff began performing CPR and asked if they should call 911, but Brown repeatedly told them to wait as he asked them to find equipment they weren’t even sure they had at the office, investigators said.

Eventually, Brown told an assistant to call 911, and she was rushed to a hospital in cardiac arrest, officials said.

Hillary Brown never woke up, and she died a week later on Nov. 28.

Investigators called his treatment of his wife “careless and haphazard.”

The aftermath

On May 15, investigators received the final report from the medical examiner, who determined Hillary Brown died from complications related to lidocaine toxicity.

“The level of disregard Dr. Brown paid to patient safety, even when that patient was his wife, indicates that Dr. Brown is unwilling or incapable of providing the appropriate level of care to his future patients,” officials said.

A former employee who quit due to concerns of neglect at the practice said the doctor often gave his wife higher than normal doses of medication, calling her “his little alien.”

Alongside the criminal investigation, officials with the Florida Department of Health said Brown gave patients unwanted Brazilian butt lifts while he was performing other procedures on them.

His patients also accused him of botching procedures, leaving them disfigured and in pain.

“This public order was issued without Dr. Brown having any opportunity to dispute the allegations against him through any hearing process,” the family said in the statement at the time of his license restriction. “These accusations are inaccurate and misleading, and Dr. Brown looks forward to the opportunity to defend himself and present the actual facts through a hearing process in the future.”

Gulf Breeze is a suburb of Pensacola in the Florida Panhandle.

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