In Coral Gables, a building on SW 8th Street has undergone multiple identities. Last year, there was less signage. The name was altered. In 2025, Seduction Cosmetic Center changed its name to Svelta Plastic Surgery. It had the same management, most of the same surgical staff, and a new branding over a tragic past. Now, you wouldn’t have any particular reason to stop as you passed the exterior. Patients are still scheduling mommy makeovers, BBLs, and lipo 360 procedures inside. The clinic’s website features a before-and-after gallery that displays transformation after transformation, neatly sorted by type of procedure. On the surface, it appears to be just like any other Miami location for cosmetic surgery.
The facility is difficult to completely discount due to the genuinely conflicting reviews. Since going into private practice in 2002, Dr. Alfred Sofer has performed more than a thousand cosmetic surgeries each year. Patients truly admire him and give him credit for outcomes that surpass their expectations. He was so attentive after surgery, according to one woman, that she would give him a hundred stars if she could. Another said she felt more confident than she had in years thanks to his work. BBL patients describe the facility as clean, the staff as professional, and the entire experience as positive from intake to recovery, and Dr. Robertson receives similar treatment. There’s no fake enthusiasm in those reviews. They read like sincere relief, the special appreciation of someone who entered with anxiety and emerged feeling content.
However, it would be dishonest to try to write around the clinic’s recent history. Two patients passed away following procedures at Svelta in April and May of 2026. On April 29, Lexington, Kentucky resident Kenly Aponte, 35, suffered a cardiac arrest while getting a makeover. After being brought to Baptist Health Doctors Hospital, she was declared deceased. On May 22, Endrys Martinez, a 19-year-old from Memphis, arrived at Svelta for a rhinoplasty. He was placed on a ventilator and passed away four days later. In accordance with Florida malpractice law, attorney Jorge Silva has started the necessary pre-lawsuit notice procedure on behalf of both families. In a statement, owner Gretel Jardon expressed sympathy and mentioned that a root cause analysis was in progress. There have been previous deaths associated with this address.
In 2017, under the name Seduction Cosmetic Center, Lattia Baumeister passed away from fat clots after a BBL attempt by a surgeon whose past medical history—including organ punctures, infections, and a state attempt to bar him from liposuction—should have been more apparent to potential clients. Eventually, the surgeon’s license was cancelled. After a different death, another doctor at the facility was fined and prohibited from performing BBLs in the future. In 2025, the company changed its name to Svelta. It’s still unclear at this point whether the rebranding represents true structural reform or just a desire to distance the clinic from its documented past.
Yelp reviews and Facebook group threads reveal an additional layer of concern for patients who speak English. Patients who arrive with questions about drainage, recovery instructions, or complications find it difficult to get clear answers in a language they understand due to the facility’s heavy reliance on Spanish. Additionally, post-operative pain management is frequently mentioned in complaints from patients who describe recoveries that were significantly more difficult than what they had been told during consultations. At some facilities, the discrepancy between pre-surgical assurance and post-surgical reality may be a strength rather than a weakness.
Reading all of this makes it difficult not to feel something, not just the sorrow of the families who lost a mother or daughter in what should have been a simple cosmetic procedure, but also the more subdued annoyance of patients who paid a substantial sum of money, showed up in good faith, and ended up in pain, perplexed, and unable to contact anyone who could assist them. There are dozens of board-certified surgeons working at respectable facilities with spotless records in Miami’s competitive and expansive cosmetic surgery market. There is genuine surgical talent at Svelta. Prospective patients deserve an honest response to the question of whether that talent is working within a system that can keep patients safe, and as of right now, that answer is genuinely unanswered.
