Woman gets prison for illegal abortions

SAN DIEGO, April 25 (UPI) -- A woman who admitted performing abortions at a San Diego clinic without a medical license has been sentenced to almost seven years in prison.

Bertha Pinedo Bugarin, 49, is to serve the sentence concurrently with a three-year term for doing abortions at a clinic in Los Angeles, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. She was also ordered to pay $32,800 in restitution, most of which has already been handed over, Deputy District Attorney Gina Darvas said.

Bugarin pleaded guilty in December to grand theft and to practicing medicine illegally. Investigators say that she operated six clinics in Southern California.

Nine women said that Bugarin performed surgery on them at the Clinica Medica de la Mujer in Chula Vista in February and March 2007.

Darvas said that the women suffered emotional trauma. One woman was hospitalized twice for complications and then gave birth to a baby who died within three hours, while another had to go through two procedures because the first was bungled.