A Florida woman who flew to the Bay Area to administer FDA-banned silicone butt injections at a Burlingame hotel was sentenced Monday to four years in prison after her client died the following day of respiratory failure.

Vivian Gomez, who ran an unlicensed cosmetology operation out of Florida, was convicted in March by a San Mateo County jury on charges of involuntary manslaughter and practicing medicine without a license. The case centers on Christina Gourkani — a Kim Kardashian lookalike with a significant online following — who died in April 2023 after Gomez administered gluteal silicone injections at a Marriott hotel near San Francisco International Airport. The death, and the three-year prosecution that followed, illustrates the lethal stakes of an underground interstate injection industry that skirts FDA restrictions on the procedures.

On April 19, 2023, Vivian Gomez boarded a flight from Florida to San Francisco International Airport with a specific purpose: to inject silicone into the buttocks of a paying client. Gluteal silicone injections are explicitly disapproved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration due to the risk of embolism and other life-threatening complications. Gomez, who held no medical or cosmetology license permitting her to perform the procedure, operated her injection business across state lines.

Her client that day was Christina Gourkani, described in court as a Kim Kardashian lookalike with an active online following. Gomez met Gourkani and her fiancée at the Marriott hotel in Burlingame and administered the injections. Gourkani rapidly fell ill. Her fiancée called 911, and she was transported to Mills-Peninsula Medical Center in Burlingame. She died the following day from respiratory failure and a pulmonary embolism, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office.

Gomez did not stay in the area long enough to learn her client's fate. She returned to Florida, where she was later arrested on a San Mateo County warrant and transferred back to California to face charges. She posted a $200,000 bond and remained out of custody throughout the lengthy legal proceedings that followed.

After a two-week trial in March, a San Mateo County Superior Court jury deliberated for three hours before convicting Gomez on both counts: involuntary manslaughter and practicing medicine without a license.

At Monday's sentencing hearing in San Mateo County Superior Court, Judge Leland Davis heard victim impact statements from Gourkani's family. He denied Gomez's request for probation. According to court notes from the District Attorney's Office, Davis found Gomez to be "an active participant in the infliction of death to the victim." He sentenced her to four years in state prison. Gomez told the court she would not appeal.

The defense offered a different portrait of their client. Geoffrey Carr, one of Gomez's attorneys, said in an interview after sentencing that the four-year term was consistent with what the defense had sought from the outset. "She's a very nice woman," Carr said. "She was willing to accept responsibility for involuntary manslaughter a long time ago."

Carr's framing — that Gomez was always prepared to plead to the lesser charge — stands in notable tension with the trial that actually occurred: two weeks of evidence, witnesses, and deliberation that ultimately produced a conviction not only for manslaughter but for the medical practice charge as well.

A restitution hearing is scheduled for July 20 to determine what Gomez will owe Gourkani's estate.

The case underscores a persistent enforcement challenge: unlicensed practitioners selling cosmetic injection services across state lines, often to clients who have limited access to affordable medical-grade alternatives. The FDA's warnings about injectable silicone have been public for years, but the underground market persists, facilitated by social media followings, referral networks, and the ease of interstate travel.

Gourkani's death, three years ago in a hotel room a few miles from SFO, is now part of the public record of what that market costs.