Abortion Clinic Owner Faces Arraignment

Former Hialeah abortion clinic owner Belkis Gonzalez is scheduled to be arraigned today in a Broward circuit criminal court. She is charged with practicing health care without a license.

New Times published a story about the clinic this past October.

According to police, forty one-year-old Gonzalez and her business partner Siomara Senises -- who was arrested and charged with the same third-degree felony crime this past March -- provided abortion services at three facilities in Hialeah and Miramar.

Miramar police raided the clinic at 6161 Miramar Parkway in late 2004, following a tip from the Health Department alleging unlicensed doctors were performing abortions. Affidavits confirm no one on the staff was licensed to perform medical services.

The clinic’s doctor, Robelto Osborne, had his medical license revoked four months prior for perforating a woman's uterus during a procedure and causing her to hemmorage, and failing to take phone calls after hours. Osborne said that Senises and Gonzalez knew he had no license, but allowed him to work: “It was business as usual,” he told investigators. Osborne turned himself in and was sentenced to two years community control followed by three years probation.

Police also arrested Joselin Collado -- hired as a receptionist but performed patient’s sonograms and dispensed drugs to them; and Adieren Rojas, who assisted one of the unlicensed doctors during procedures, investigators say. Both women plead guilty to practicing medicine without a license and received probation.

Corporation records reveal the Miramar clinic is still open under the name Miramar Women’s Center and operated by Natali Vergara, who formerly resided with Gonzalez, and Freddy Guzman, with whom Senises runs a auto company.

This past July, Hialeah police discovered a 22-week-old fetus inside a red biohazard bag at A Gyn in West Hialeah, prompting the state to close it. According to a search warrant, Gonzalez delivered the fetus, which was born alive, cut the umbilical chord, and stashed it in the bag. The medical examiner concluded the death was natural, caused by extreme prematurity.

Senises' attorney requested a jury trial, scheduled to begin in July. --Joanne Green