QUACKING DOWN

By JEANE MacINTOSH

February 26, 2004 -- SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - Cops launched an all-out manhunt for "killer" quack Dean Faiello yesterday as the lead investigators in the case arrived with an arrest warrant.
Costa Rican police combed several Pacific Coast beaches a few hours from San Jose, the capital.

Other cops, meanwhile, tracked activity on Faiello's Visa card, and learned that the fake cosmetic surgeon had used it in the past few days.

As these efforts were going on, Brian Ford and Joe Buffolino, two investigators for state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, arrived with a warrant to have Faiello, 44, arrested for jumping bail.

Ford and Buffolino led the probe that resulted in Faiello being busted for practicing medicine without a license.

He pleaded guilty June 6 and was free on $5,000 bail pending sentencing in September. But instead of showing up, he bolted to San Jose.

Jumping bail is not an extraditable offense in Costa Rica. But authorities hope it will keep Faiello behind bars while they develop an extraditable case against him for allegedly killing patient Maria Cruz.

The body of Cruz, a 35-year-old investment banker, was found in a suitcase buried in concrete at Faiello's former home in Newark.

Two detectives from the NYPD's Midtown North precinct arrived later in San Jose to join in the murder investigation. Two more may follow today.

Faiello has been having a gay old time in San Jose, working as a go-go boy in a night club and enjoying the city's gay discos and saunas.

Faiello, who had done stints as a gay dancer at Big Apple go-go bars in the 1980s, entered Costa Rica on Sept. 19 on a three-month tourist visa. He listed his profession as dermatologist.

On Feb. 11, a week before Cruz's body was found, Faiello worked as a go-go boy at Puchos, a raunchy bar.

The woman who hires dancers at the club recognized his picture immediately.

"He worked just the one night and he never came back," she said, sounding annoyed.

Faiello also dropped by Canta Brico, a beer joint and local hangout, and Bochinche, a tony, multilevel disco with a velvet rope known for its video screens.

He also visited the gay saunas, which won the right to operate in a Costa Rican Supreme Court ruling.

Faiello and a friend dropped into the popular Cyber Café on Friday.

Staffers said he stopped by two or three times a week and spent an hour on the Internet, mostly doing e-mails.

Additional reporting by Philip Messing and Andy Geller

GAY GO-GO QUACK
By JEANE MacINTOSH

February 25, 2004

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - The plastic-surgery quack suspected of killing a pretty financial analyst during a botched operation has been openly living a wild gay lifestyle here - working as a go-go dancer and lounging around male spas.
 

Two NYPD detectives were set to jet to Costa Rica today to hunt for the fugitive phony physician, Dean Faiello, who is wanted in the death of 35-year-old Barclays banker Maria Cruz. Faiello, 44, has been living in San Jose for months since fleeing the United States after Cruz's death. He worked as a pretty-boy dancer at Puchos Night Club, a raunchy gay bar in a seedy section of San Jose, as recently as two weeks ago, one of the club's managers said. He also frequents an Internet cafe, where he spends an hour a day exchanging e-mails with cyberpals, staffers there said.

The fake doc became a suspect in Cruz's death after her body was discovered last Wednesday stuffed in a suitcase buried under concrete at Faiello's former home in Newark.

She had been missing since April 13 - the day she had an appointment for tongue surgery with Faiello at a Manhattan apartment on West 16th Street that he used to perform his illicit procedures.

Faiello had been out on $5,000 bail while awaiting sentencing for practicing medicine without a license. He skipped the country after selling his home in May - just a day after getting a shipment of concrete delivered there.

Investigators believe he fled to Costa Rica with at least $200,000 in cash.

On Feb. 11, a week before the body was found, Faiello worked as a go-go boy at Puchos, which is famous for its male dancers.

The woman who hires dancers at the club recognized his picture immediately.

"He worked just the one night and he never came back," she said, sounding annoyed.

Faiello, who reportedly had done stints as a dancer at Big Apple go-go bars in the 1980s, entered Costa Rica on Sept. 19 on a three-month tourist visa.

He listed his occupation as dermatologist and did not provide an address.

There are large numbers of skin clinics and spas offering facials and laser surgery in the region - work Faiello was doing without a license before he fled the United States.

San Jose also has a large and thriving gay community. Its gay district is a few blocks south of the city center.

At the popular Cyber Cafe in another area of town, where you can buy a half-hour of Internet access for 75 cents, staffers said Faiello stopped by two or three times a week and spent an hour on the Internet, mostly sending and receiving e-mails.

Faiello also has been taking advantage of gay nightlife.

A bartender and other staffers at Cantabrico, a beer joint and local hangout, said he often came by.

Several blocks away, at Bochinche, a tony, multilevel disco with a velvet rope, staffers said he had been there twice in the last two weeks. And employees at several gay saunas said Faiello has visited them.

Immigration sources said Faiello hasn't left the country using the passport he showed to enter. His three months have long been up, so he could be picked up by local immigration agents for a visa violation.

But top law-enforcement officials in Costa Rica and even at the U.S. Embassy said they were frustrated with the New York authorities' handling of the case.

The officials said they hadn't launched a manhunt for the phony plastic surgeon because they hadn't been contacted by either the NYPD or the Manhattan District Attorney's Office until late yesterday.

Interpol, the Costa Rican police and the country's immigration department have not received critical information about him - or even photos, the officials said.

"We are eager to help, but we don't even have basic information," one top official said.

But sources said New York prosecutors can't issue an arrest warrant until they have Cruz's cause of death - and they won't know that until toxicology tests are completed in six to eight weeks.

As a result, the DA's office is moving to have Faiello nabbed in Costa Rica for bail-jumping, officials said. The charge is not an extraditable offense. But it would keep the phony doc behind bars long enough to try to charge him with one that is, the officials said.
 

FAKER LEFT TRAIL OF LIES

By ANDY GELLER

February 20, 2004 -- Dean Faiello didn't have a doctor's license, didn't have a medical degree and in fact was a college dropout.
But that didn't stop him from earning big bucks from a lucrative laser-surgery practice for almost seven years.

Along the way, there were some glitches - an arrest for illegally writing prescriptions, an unhappy patient who sued for $8,000.

But Faiello, 45, also managed to wiggle his way out and keep going.

Last April, his world suddenly collapsed when he allegedly killed Manhattan bank analyst Maria Cruz, 35, with an overdose of anesthetics.

Already facing four years behind bars for practicing medicine without a license - and now certain to be the focus of a homicide investigation - Faiello allegedly buried the body in a concrete coffin in his Newark home and bolted for Costa Rica.

Faiello's career as a quack began 1996 when he opened Skin Ovations, a laser-surgery practice, from a Park Avenue office.

He subsequently moved to 133 E. 73rd St. and in 2002 to a swank Gramercy Park duplex at 117 E. 18th St. The rent was about $40,000 a month.

On his Web site, he claimed to be "one of the foremost specialists" in the field, having "taught doctors from all over the country how to perform laser treatment."

In fact, Faiello - who told Post reporters four times that he was a doctor or a dermatologist - never graduated from medical school or even college. He dropped out of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

From 1993 to 1998, he was a certified electrologist - using electrical equipment to remove hair - but he lost his certification in 1998.

That year, he was busted for writing prescriptions on pads stolen from Dr. Laurie Polis, a dermatologist for whom he once worked, helping on laser procedures.

He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and got three years' probation.

That year also, the Office of Professional Discipline of the state Education Department - which licenses professionals - began an investigation.

In December 1998, the office sent investigator Kathy Hearn to Faiello and he offered to remove a benign skin lesion through laser surgery.

Faiello's troubles began to mount.

In 1999 he was sued for $8,000 by ex-patient Mark Schuckman, who claimed his hair-removal treatments were worthless. Faiello settled for $3,250.

In February and March 2002, Faiello offered to perform laser surgery on state investigators Ariana Miller and Tonya Holder.

Acting on a tip, Post reporter Jeane MacIntosh went to see him about a lesion. Faiello said it could be removed with one or two $250 laser sessions.

Although two doctors had previously insisted that a biopsy be performed, Faiello didn't recommend one. Removing a lesion without a biopsy is dangerous because it could allow a malignancy to go undetected and spread.

On Oct. 6, 2002, The Post ran an exposé about Faiello. Two days later he was busted and charged with three counts of practicing medicine without a license, punishable by up to four years behind bars.

He pleaded guilty last June 6 but remained free on $5,000 bail pending sentencing in September.

Meanwhile, Faiello had resumed operations at a West 16th Street apartment - where Cruz went for treatment April 13 - the day she was last seen alive.

PAL TIP LED TO CRYPT QUACK

By PHILIP MESSING, JEANE MacINTOSH and LARRY CELONA

February 20, 2004 -- A pal of phony physician Dean Faiello gave police vital information that linked him to the disappearance of Manhattan financial executive Maria Cruz, whose body was found entombed in concrete at Faiello's old Newark home.
Authorities notified Cruz's family yesterday afternoon that they had positively identified the remains as those of the missing 35-year-old Barclays Capital analyst.

Faiello's apparent cover-up attempt fell apart when the witness revealed that the fake doctor jumped bail and fled to Costa Rica because a procedure went horribly wrong, a highly placed NYPD source said. Faiello was convicted last year of practicing without a license.

The friend told cops that Faiello communicated with him while on the lam and said he bolted last summer because he botched a tattoo-removal operation and that the patient had to be hospitalized.

NYPD detectives quickly determined Cruz was the patient - and the tattoo story was phony.

They had already found Cruz had marked an appointment with Faiello on her home calendar for Sunday, April 13, the day she vanished.

Another NYPD source told The Post the informant had a business relationship with Faiello after the quack flew the coop - but ratted him out after Faiello burned him for $80,000 in the deal.

The body was found Wednesday packed in a suitcase sealed under concrete in the carriage house at Faiello's former home. He sold the home last May, just a day after getting a shipment of concrete delivered to the address, law enforcement sources said.

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office charged Faiello in October of 2002 with practicing medicine without a license. He eventually pleaded guilty to the charge, but was allowed out on $5,000 bail as the case went on.

Before the bust, he had a pricey Gramercy Park clinic called Skin Ovations.

But after his arrest, he conducted his procedures at a West 16th Street apartment he shared with a friend, police sources said.

According to the calendar obtained by police, that address is where Cruz went after church on that fateful April to correct a case of black tongue - a discoloration sometimes caused by the use of antibiotics.

Cops also found that Cruz, who came from the Philippines to become a $180,000-a-year financial whiz, bought something at a shop near Faiello's apartment on the day of the appointment.

Police had tried to interview Faiello after Cruz's appointment with him was found, but his lawyer refused to let cops question him.

Police sources said that the investigators at the time did not consider Faiello a suspect, but wanted to interview him along with many other people who knew Cruz and had contact with her.

Faiello's lawyer later told cops she lost contact with her client sometime in August or September.

Police sources on Wednesday said they believe that Cruz most likely died when something went wrong with the use of anesthesia.

Faiello had been previously charged with trying to inject anesthesia and use lasers on undercover investigators who visited his practice, though he was neither qualified nor licensed to do so.

Additional reporting by Erin Calabrese
 

BURIED IN CEMENT

By ERIKA MARTINEZ

February 19, 2004 -- Cops yesterday unearthed a gruesome secret from a concrete tomb at a Newark home where a notorious fake doctor once lived: the body of a woman believed to be a missing Manhattan investment analyst who was one of his patients.
NYPD cops believe the body - stuffed into a suitcase under concrete - is that of Maria Cruz, 35, a Barclays Capital analyst who was last seen at her West 50th Street home April 13, 2003.

While cops did not have a positive ID pending an autopsy today, sources said the remains matched Cruz's description, including breast implants.

The woman may have been the victim of illegal surgery gone wrong.

"We are exploring the possibility that she may have died as the result of procedures he performed, but was not licensed to perform, including anesthesia," said an NYPD spokesman.

The property was once owned by Dean Faiello, who went on the lam last year after pleading guilty to charges of practicing medicine without a license.

Authorities decided to search the house at 212-214 Elwood Ave. during a probe into the whereabouts of Faiello, who is believed to have fled to Costa Rica.

He was exposed as a fake by a Post investigation during which the college dropout offered to remove a reporter's moles using laser surgery, which requires a medical license.

NYPD sources said they had evidence that Cruz went to Faiello for treatment on her tongue shortly before she disappeared.

He was interviewed by cops regarding the disappearance but said nothing then to raise suspicions.

The New York Attorney General's Office also investigated information that Faiello had several bags of concrete delivered to the residence around the time Cruz vanished.

Soon after that, someone noticed the slab in the renovated live-in garage.

Last Friday, NYPD detectives got permission from the home's new owner to inspect the slab.

Yesterday, NYPD and Newark cops made the sickening discovery.

Neighbors in the Forest Hill section were shocked that Faiello - who dressed as Dracula to give out Halloween treats - has a record.

"We knew he was a professional in New York, but we never knew what he did," said neighbor Isabel Kitzman.

Cruz, a Philippines native, was reported missing last April 16.

At the time, Faiello was free on $5,000 bail, following his bust the previous October for practicing medicine without a license at his Skin Ovations clinic in Manhattan.

On June 26, Faiello pleaded guilty to the charge, for which he faced up to four years in prison.

But the phony doc - who also pleaded guilty to charges of writing fake prescriptions in 1999 - fled the country.

Cruz had an MBA from Fordham University, where she got straight A's.

She moved up from a entry level job at Citibank to a $180,000-a-year senior post at Barclays, where she had worked since July 2001 in high-yield bonds.

But Cruz had been depressed at the time of her disappearance, still carrying a torch for a boyfriend who had broken up with her.

Cruz had a self-image problem, prompting her to have her breasts enlarged and to have fat removed from her face.

"I'm still hoping she's somewhere and still alive - and no one can take that from me," said Cruz's uncle, José Navarro.

Cruz's family in the Philippines is hanging on to a sliver of hope.

"We tried to give them hope, because nobody's sure if it's her," Navarro said.