“Illegal Injection Leads to Conviction in Actress Cindyana Santangelo’s Tragic Death”

A woman in California, dubbed “the butt lady,” has been found guilty of causing the death of Cindyana Santangelo, an actress known for her role in “Married with Children,” through illegal silicone injections in her buttocks.

Libby Adame was found guilty on Thursday of second-degree murder and practicing medicine without a license in relation to the actress’s death earlier this year, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.

Santangelo, who also made appearances in “ER” and “CSI: Miami,” was discovered unresponsive on March 24 at her Malibu home, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. She was quickly taken to a nearby hospital in Ventura County, where she was declared dead shortly after. She was 58 years old.

Prosecutors told the court that Adame gave Santangelo the injections the same day, resulting in a fatal silicone embolism.

At the time, Adame was on probation for an involuntary manslaughter case involving deadly injections that resulted in the death of 26-year-old Karissa Rajpaul in 2019, per the LA Times. However, both she and her daughter, Alicia Galaz, were cleared of the more severe murder charges.

In 2024, Adame received a sentence of four years and four months in prison, but was released in under a year due to time already spent in custody and under electronic monitoring. She continued performing unauthorized procedures in California post-release.

During the trial, Santangelo’s husband, Frank, shared his testimony, stating his wife was “killed in the prime of her life” at home after receiving illegal and dangerous injections from Libby Adame, who was pretending to be a qualified professional, as noted in the civil complaint.

“Tragically, her death not only could have, but should have been prevented,” he said, adding that Adame fled the moment his wife began to convulse.

Prosecutors also argued that Adame was aware the procedure was dangerous, even before the deaths of both Rajpaul and Santangelo.

Defense attorney J. Michael Flanagan alternatively contended that Adame was only at Santangelo’s home as a consultant. She’d been there on behalf of doctors who can legally perform buttocks injections in Tijuana, Mexico.