A woman from Port St. Lucie, Florida, has been charged with a long list of felony accusations after she allegedly operated an illegal “Med Spa” out of her backyard shed. This sounds like a pitch for a true crime beauty podcast.
This week, Rosa Maria Mena, 50, was taken into custody after a woman complained of facial paralysis after a Botox procedure that was as shady as the place where the procedure was done.
According to Florida police, Mena was running a full-time company out of her makeshift shed clinic, distributing Botox and fillers, doing microneedling, and even promising vitamin “cures” to people when things went wrong. She was operating without a physician’s license. And things certainly took a turn for the worse.
After being struck by scary facial paralysis, the victim at first went to the Port St. Lucie police in May 2025.
The alleged backyard beautician doubled down when she went back to confront Mena, giving another injection, and this time, it was a vitamin cocktail that was developed to fix the damage done. Not surprisingly, it failed.
Mena gave the woman her $325 back, but the refund was just as useless as the treatment itself.
Florida Woman Claimed To Be ‘Doctor from the Dominican Republic’
Florida police say that when the person in question requested Mena to present her official documents, the offender produced a censored and modified phlebotomy certificate, which isn’t exactly the type of document that gives you confidence when someone is sticking needles in your face.
Later, in February 2024, the Florida Department of Health confirmed that the certificate had expired.
Mena supposedly made the unfounded claim that she was a Dominican Republic doctor in a bid to calm the victim’s growing doubts. Nor did detectives believe it. The warrant for the search was obtained at Mena’s residence on NW Coosa Drive after a multi-agency investigation which involved the health department, local police, and code enforcement, among others.
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What they came across was more of a miniature form of black-market clinic rather than a spa: medical beds, medicine vials, fat-sculpting machines, injectable dermal fillers and Botox devices, microneedling equipment, PRP kits, and laser lipo machines. It was all tucked away in what was meant to be an ordinary backyard shed.
Mena now faces two fraud charges, three counts of practicing medicine without a license, one count of using a two-way communication device to carry out a felony, and three counts of aggravated battery causing bodily harm.
She is presently held at the St. Lucie County Jail on a $95,000 bond.
The Botox Bandit and the Backyard Med Spa Epidemic
Police in Port St. Lucie shared a public service announcement on Facebook, dressed in legalese and voicing concern: “We want to remind the public to research the facility and individual prior to performing procedures.” They added: “In order to perform injectable procedures like Botox, it needs to be performed by a licensed professional. Your safety is our priority!”
Florida scammer posing as doctor gave Botox injections in backyard shed, causing woman to suffer facial paralysis: cops https://t.co/bHdSCRI0x7 pic.twitter.com/1M6KyUA5cY
— New York Post (@nypost) July 11, 2025
In all truthfulness, this shed operation from Florida may as well prove to be far more prevalent than many people are aware of. Some patients do not perform careful planning and end up in an awful situation in a world where Instagram aesthetics and TikTok trends may stir up their thirst for instant beauty.
Mena is headed to a courtroom instead of another shady shed appointment as an illegal aesthetics businesswoman.
