- The "Boob God" of Miami, the husband of a
Real Housewives star, sued former patients who wrote negativeonline reviews . - Dr.
Leonard Hochstein also attempted to pay off a woman in a bid to rid the internet of her negative review, an Insider investigation finds. Hochstein denied this. - He used non-disparagement agreements, or "gag clauses," which called for $25,000 in damages per disparaging review.
Prominent plastic surgeon Dr. Leonard Hochstein calls himself the "Boob God" of Miami but some of his former patients would opt for less flattering monikers.
"What I would like to call him would probably get me sued again," said Kristen LaPointe - a 38- year-old stay-at-home mom who went to Hochstein for breast augmentation surgery in 2018.
LaPointe was sued by the plastic surgeon, the husband of the
She's one of several women who spoke to Insider who believe that Hochstein will go to great lengths to rid the internet of uncomplimentary comments about him.
In addition to filing lawsuits, the women told Insider that he had used non-disparagement agreements, or "gag" clauses, which called for $25,000 in damages per disparaging review and, in at least one instance, attempted to pay off a former patient.
'Very nasty, very contentious' legal battles
LaPointe, who now lives in Tennessee, went to Hochstein for surgery after she saw "really good" reviews about him on Yelp. She was excited to have her breasts augmented by the so-called Boob God, but she was disappointed with the results, to her dismay.
She tried to resolve the situation with Hochstein by asking for a refund. She says the plastic surgeon refused, so instead, she wrote reviews on several websites to express her frustration.
She said, along with her husband, that they wrote a total of 14 negative reviews across Google, Yelp, and several other medical websites. Hochstein claims they wrote over 50, he told Insider.
In June 2018, Hochstein filed a lawsuit against the couple. He accused them of
What followed was two years of a "very nasty, very contentious" legal battle, LaPointe said. According to legal documents seen by Insider, Hochstein filed successfully for an injunction that stopped her from posting certain comments.
A Miami-Dade County judge ruled that LaPointe and her family had to remove certain reviews - around 13 - some of which it found were based on hearsay, but allowed her to keep up comments that reflected her "personal experiences."
The case was eventually closed, with no money being exchanged, but LaPointe told Insider that she still "gets sick just thinking about it" until this day. "It was just so emotional," she said, through tears, during a Skype conversation. LaPointe said that she now struggles to sleep as her insomnia has been exacerbated by the stress.
Hochstein, however, said that he "doesn't lose much sleep over it" but added that the legal battle "wasn't fun."
During a phone call with Insider, the plastic surgeon defended his decision to take legal action. He said that LaPointe is "venomous" and is an example of someone with an "ax to grind" and added that he had no choice but to sue. "My other choice was I could have paid her off," Hochstein said. "But there's no guarantee if I would have done that, she would have stopped anyway."
'The business may be attempting to abuse the legal system in order to stifle free speech'
LaPointe wasn't the only woman taken to court by Hochstein after writing negative reviews.
Nicole George, a flight attendant from Colorado, was unhappy with a "mommy makeover" (a tummy tuck, breast augmentation, and liposuction) she received. She was also sued after writing negative reviews about the famed plastic surgeon on RealSelf and Yelp.
Hochstein sued her, again saying that his patient had gone against the terms of the non-disparagement agreement, but the case was later settled and voluntarily dismissed without prejudice.
According to the Consumer Review Fairness Act, a federal law passed in 2016 to protect Americans' ability to share their honest opinions as consumers, businesses are prohibited from using these sorts of agreements to punish customers who share honest feedback about the services they received.
In a statement to Insider, a spokesperson for Yelp condemned Hochstein's use of a "gag clause" and noted that his behavior once led to the company issuing an alert on his business's page for a period of three months.
The statement said: "As part of our Consumer Alerts program, we may place a Questionable Legal Threats Alert on a business page when we receive evidence that a business may be abusing the legal system to intimidate or silence a reviewer, for example through a dubious legal threat or a contractual gag clause.
"In 2019, Yelp learned that Dr. Hochstein's practice had sued multiple clients. After investigating this claim and receiving evidence of a gag clause in the practice's patient contracts, Yelp placed a Questionable Legal Threats Alert on the business's Yelp page. This alert was placed to warn others that the business may be attempting to abuse the legal system in order to stifle free speech."
Hochstein told Insider that it was a "mistake" and an "error" to use the non-disparagement agreements, which he conceded were "illegal" but added that he didn't choose the wording.
He initially claimed that the agreements were only used for around five months in 2016. When presented with documents indicating he was still using non-disparagement agreements in January 2018 - over a year after the Consumer Review Fairness Act banned them - he claimed they were used for six months from May 2017.
The non-disparagement agreements have been replaced with exact copies of the Consumer Protection Act, Hochstein said.
'People are probably scared of him'
Another former patient, who asked to be referred to only as 'Stephanie,' refused to sign Hochstein's original non-disclosure agreement. "When I went in to get surgery with him, my intuition, or something inside of me, told me to remove that document," she said.
Stephanie said she felt emboldened to write her first reviews ever about her "botched" surgery on Yelp and RealSelf. She said she was almost immediately issued a threat of costly litigation. "His attorney called me the next day to remove the reviews," she said. "If I didn't, he said he was going to sue me and take me to court."
She ignored the threat and refused to take her reviews down. "He didn't pursue a lawsuit because I removed the document, I didn't sign it, I took the paper from the package," Stephanie told Insider. "But I've had a lot of girls message me since that are scared to come forward because of the document."
Stephanie said that she believes Hochstein's powerful position intimidates women into remaining silent. "He obviously has a lot of connections, and people are probably scared of him," she said.
Hochstein apparently tried to pay a former patient to take a review down
According to a former patient, Hochstein offered her money to get her to take down her reviews. The former patient said that Hochstein told her on a call that he was not going to give a refund on the surgery but said: "what I can do, is give you $1,000."
Later in the call, Hochstein offered money in exchange for his former patient signing a release, taking down the review, and promising not to contact his office again. He explained that the former patient would take down the review and agree not to write any other ones.
The patient refused the offer.
In an email to Insider, Hochstein referred to allegations that he had "bribed" customers as "100 percent a lie" and instead claimed that several patients have tried to extort him of money. In a phone call, he said that he has "never" offered a patient money to take down a review.
Hochstein went after the review websites
But it's not only former patients Hochstein has taken through the courts. He filed lawsuits against Google, HealthGrades, RealSelf, and MMP Solutions (MakeMeHeal) in a bid to discover the identities of anonymous reviewers.
"Those lawsuits were not against those people, but those sites allow people to make posts, and these posts are from people who've never had my services," Hochstein said.
"You can't just ask them for the IP addresses or for the information," he continued. "You actually have to take them to court, and the judge has to say this is what you have to do because none of these companies do it voluntarily. They have to be compelled, and that's what it's about."
Google, Realself, and MMP Solutions did not respond to Insider's requests for comment.
Hochstein told Insider that he has taken such extreme measures to get reviews removed because he takes them "personally."
Some of the negative reviewers might harbor animus towards him, he said, because of his "lifestyle" and what he and his reality star wife post on Instagram.
Others, he went on, might be unhappy because he didn't perform a miracle. "They expect to become a swimsuit model as a result of the operation... but I did something that I felt nobody else could have achieved," Hochstein said.
But for some former patients, like Stephanie, the doctor's efforts are emblematic of the plastic surgeon's "god complex."
"He thinks that if anyone says anything about him, then we're the crazy ones," she said.