[Pantyholic]

BROWARD COURTS
Conviction reversed in silicone-shots case
A man convicted of injecting silicone into a woman's buttocks at a 'pumping party' will be out of prison soon.
BY ASHLEY FANTZ



A man who was convicted in 2003 in the death of a Carol City secretary by injecting her buttocks with industrial-grade silicone during a so-called ''pumping party'' is expected to walk out of prison.

Mark Hawkins, one half of the duo who performed the illegal injections, was handed a 30-year prison sentence in November 2003 in Broward Circuit Court for his role in the death of Vera Lawrence, who wanted to enhance her buttocks.

But the Fourth District Court of Appeal on Wednesday overturned his conviction, ruling that the medical examiner could not prove that the silicone caused the woman's death.

Defense attorney Eric Schwartzreich said Hawkins, 41, should be released soon from Lake Correctional Institution near Clermont.

''He started crying,'' Schwartzreich said of his client upon hearing the news. ``He said he would always be sorry for what happened to Vera Lawrence, but he wasn't the one who killed her.''

Lawrence's daughter, 40-year-old Tangela Sears, a well-known Miami-Dade black activist, sobbed Wednesday.

''I don't know what to think,'' she said. ``I'm still trying to bring closure to my momma's death. I feel like I've been banged against a wall.''

Lawrence had been receiving injections for months prior to her death on March 20, 2001, raising the possibility that it was an accumulation of silicone in her body that was to blame for her death, testimony during trial showed.

Hawkins lived with Donnie ''Viva'' Hendrix in Greenville, S.C., and traveled to Miramar for the pumping parties, which South Florida's male transvestite community favored to feminize their features.

Lawrence died in the Miramar apartment of a friend of Sears' brother, a transvestite named Corey ''Cookie'' Williams, who accepted a plea deal and got probation in exchange for testifying.

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