'This defendant preyed on women in the Hispanic community' by passing herself off as a doctor, the prosecutor says. Bertha Bugarin, 48, at one point ran six clinics in Southern California.
By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
12:24 PM PDT, June 21, 2008
SAN DIEGO -- A 48-year-old woman who ran an abortion clinic in Chula Vista was charged Friday with 10 felony counts of practicing medicine without a license and grand theft.

Bertha Pinedo Bugarin, who faces similar charges in Los Angeles, is accused of telling women that she was a doctor, performing abortions on them and prescribing drugs. One woman had to be rushed to a hospital with life-threatening complications, prosecutors said.