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'Pumping Party' Trial: Witness Says Men Claimed To Be Doctors

POSTED: 6:49 a.m. EDT May 14, 2003
UPDATED: 9:59 a.m. EDT May 14, 2003

There was some damaging testimony in the trial of two men accused of killing a woman with a lethal dose of silicone.

Tarrell Bell One prosecution witness claimed the defendants passed themselves off as doctors.

The following exchange took place between witness Tarrell Bell (pictured) and the prosecuting attorney:

Bell: We were told they were doctors.

Attorney: Who told you that?

Bell: They did.

Another witness, Denise Jones, said she thinks she had a close call at one of Mark Hawkins and transsexual Donnie Hendrix's so-called "pumping parties" where people come together to get cut-rate plastic surgery procedures performed.

"I was just feeling like I could barely breathe. I thought I was having an anxiety attack," Jones said.

Hawkins and Hendrix are charged with practicing medicine without a license and third-degree murder.

Vera Lawrence attended one of those parties in March 2001 and died after she was injected with industrial strength silicone, prosecutors say.

The defense argues Lawrence died because she repeatedly got silicone injections over a five-year period.

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