Luis Rojas Cabrera

Introduction

Luis Rojas Cabrera is a 55-year-old unlicensed practitioner who operated the Bereshit Lifestyle Center, a holistic wellness spa on Riverdale Avenue in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, where 27-year-old Elizabeth Baron went into cardiac arrest and died on July 19, 2026, shortly after he administered an intravenous infusion of NAD+ — nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, a coenzyme marketed in wellness circles for energy, cognitive clarity and anti-aging. He was arrested the next day and charged with reckless endangerment and unauthorized practice of a profession, and released without bail at his July 20 arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court. After the city medical examiner ruled Baron’s death a homicide in September, a Bronx grand jury indicted Rojas Cabrera for second-degree murder, and he turned himself in to face the upgraded charges on October 6, 2026.

Background Information

Rojas Cabrera is not licensed to practice medicine in the United States, according to prosecutors and the NYPD, though he is licensed in the Dominican Republic; investigators told CBS New York that within the United States he was licensed only as an esthetician. On his website he described himself as “an active surgeon and Naturopath in the Dominican Republic and an alternative and holistic medicine practioner [sic] in the United States,” with a bio boasting training in head and neck, bariatric and laparoscopic surgeries “as well as in alternative, integrative and naturopathic medicines abroad in places like Israel, France, Puerto Rico, and Mexico.” His Bereshit Lifestyle Center offered “natural medicine” and therapies along with products geared toward “making healthy living easy,” according to its website.

He had two prior US arrests before the fatal infusion, prosecutors said at his arraignment: a November 6, 2025 arrest at Newark Airport while returning from the Dominican Republic with a metal baton in his bag, and a second arrest days later at the same airport after returning from the Dominican Republic with almost 200 files of prescription medications, over 30 tablets, and 10 syringes of lidocaine.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Allegations. The claims in this section are allegations from prosecutors, the NYPD and court documents, as reported by the New York Post and CBS New York. The murder indictment is a grand-jury charging decision, not an adjudication: Rojas Cabrera has not been tried or convicted, and he is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court. He denies the conduct amounted to a crime, and his attorney has called the prosecution outrageous.

Baron, a 27-year-old Bronx woman who lived less than two miles from the clinic in the Skyview On The Hudson condo complex, went to the Bereshit Lifestyle Center with her mother for an NAD+ injection, according to investigators, and received the IV infusion from Rojas Cabrera around noon on Sunday, July 19, 2026. She shortly lost consciousness and went into cardiac arrest, and was rushed to NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, where she died around 1:10 p.m. Assistant District Attorney Ethan Reisbaum told the July 20 arraignment that administering NAD+ via an IV requires a prescription from a medical professional and that Rojas Cabrera, unlicensed in New York, had no authority to administer it; he pleaded not guilty.

The Post, citing court documents, reported that prosecutors allege Rojas Cabrera accidentally injected Baron with air during the NAD+ treatment, and that he admitted to a police officer at the scene, “I made a very big mistake.” In late September the city’s medical examiner ruled Baron’s death a homicide, determining the cause was a cardiac air embolism caused by the introduction of air into an intravenous catheter during the procedure, and the report noted no underlying conditions.

Rojas Cabrera has disputed the medical examiner’s conclusion. Reached by the Post after the homicide ruling, he said he stopped the IV after Baron went into cardiac arrest and performed manual CPR himself before medics arrived, and said doctors he consulted told him “the prolonged CPR can produce air in the heart chambers”; he also suggested underlying health conditions could have caused the death. The case rode a broader NAD+ craze that his own marketing had tapped into: the Post noted that models Kendall Jenner and Hailey Bieber had publicly described themselves as devotees of the treatment, helping fuel demand for the infusions.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The case drew immediate local press attention in July, with the Post reporting that Yelp reviewers had previously referred to Rojas Cabrera as a “scammer,” “con artist,” and “manipulator” who “will take your money and lie to your face.” Baron’s family declined to comment, asking for privacy as they grieved, while her next-door neighbor Paula Schaap described her as “beautiful,” health-conscious and a regular at the gym. Rojas Cabrera’s son, Luis Rojas Cabrera Jr., publicly defended his father while awaiting the arraignment, saying through tears that he was blindsided by the allegations and calling his father “a good man, a good father and a good doctor.”

The concrete consequence arrived with the October indictment: a Bronx grand jury charged Rojas Cabrera with second-degree murder — identified by his attorney as a depraved-indifference murder count — along with second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, and he turned himself in on Tuesday, October 6, 2026, per the Bronx district attorney’s office and the NYPD. His attorney, Donald Vogelman, said in a statement to CBS New York: “What the DA did is outrageous. There is no case ever in New York state under these facts where anyone has been convicted,” arguing the prosecution must prove his client did not care whether the patient lived or died, and that “the fact he called 911 and performed CPR shows that he did care and that it was an unfortunate accident.” A source familiar with the investigation told CBS New York that two additional people who visited the clinic later came forward; neither received the same injection as Baron, investigators found no indication of adverse health effects, and Rojas Cabrera has not been charged in connection with them.

Current Status

Rojas Cabrera stands indicted on second-degree murder, second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges in Baron’s death, and is being held by the Department of Correction on $2 million cash bail, according to CBS New York — a sharp reversal from his release without bail after the July arrest, when prosecutors said they could not seek bail until autopsy results arrived. His next court appearance is scheduled for October 27, 2026. The charges are unadjudicated: he has been indicted by a grand jury but not tried, and no count has been proven in court.

Impact on Their Career/Life

A murder indictment ends any realistic prospect of Rojas Cabrera operating the Bereshit Lifestyle Center as a wellness practice: he now stands charged with causing the death of a client who died within hours of an infusion he administered, which is the conduct the case is built on, and he is jailed on $2 million bail pending trial. His prior record — the two 2025 airport arrests involving medical supplies, the esthetician-only US licensing, and now a murder indictment — is the public record attached to his name and his clinic. For the wider wellness industry, the case stands as a cautionary example of the criminal exposure attached to administering prescription-grade IV treatments outside a medical license.

Sources

• New York Post, “Phony NYC doctor hit with upgraded murder charge after patient died from trendy anti-aging injection,” October 7, 2026.source
• CBS New York, “Unlicensed Bronx practitioner charged with murder in anti-aging NAD injection death,” October 6, 2026.source
• New York Post, “Death of NYC woman who got trendy anti-aging injection from phony doc ruled a homicide: ME,” September 21, 2026.source
• New York Post, “NYC woman, 27, dies after getting anti-aging serum injection at holistic wellness center,” July 20, 2026.source