Dr. Brown's Conviction. (Patreon)

Photo: Fakir Musafar and Dr. Brown (side) presented by Annie Sprinkle/Veronica Vera (HERSTORY of Body Piercing, 2019)

As a surgeon, John Ronald Brown- dubbed The Modification Doctor by some, and the World's Worst Surgeon by others- was known for his questionable procedures, his casual attitude towards medical ethics, and his often forward thinking surgical concepts (that were often perfected by more skilled operators). 

I found him to be charming, well meaning, and devoid of anything resembling self awareness when it came to his bad reputation and botched surgeries. 

Based in Mexico, Brown was flown around the country, often on Jack Yount's bill, to perform surgeries on patients who couldn't make it his clinic in Mexico. Jack had extensive work done in Brown's clinic, his own living room, and hotel rooms as time and schedule would permit; things like z-plasty, urethral relocation, and silicone injections. 

Brown also famously worked on Fakir Musafar, cutting the suspensatory ligament in his penis which allowed for 'erections in all directions. 

In 1999, Brown was convicted of second-degree murder due to the botch amputation of a 79 year old "patient"- we ran this news story, borrowed from the A P, on my old SPC website. 

TW: The language in this news article includes transphobic statements and is being presented unedited for the sake of documentation.

October 6, 1999
Web posted at: 12:14 PM EDT (1614 GMT)

SAN DIEGO  -- A doctor whose license was suspended 22 years ago for performing shoddy sex-change operations has been convicted of second-degree murder in the death of a man who had a healthy leg amputated to satisfy a sexual fetish.

John Ronald Brown could face life imprisonment. Sentencing was set for November 3.

Brown, 77, amputated the leg of Philip Bondy, a New York man who paid Brown $10,000 for the operation in May 1998. Bondy, 79, died of gangrene poisoning in a suburban San Diego hotel two days after the operation.

New York psychologist Gregg Furth testified during the two-week trial that he and Bondy contacted Brown as a last resort to fulfill lifelong desires to amputate their legs. They shared a fetish known as apotemnophilia, getting sexual gratification from the removal of a limb.

Furth paid Brown to amputate one of his legs last year but changed his mind, in part, because he saw a Mexican doctor who was to assist in the surgery walk into the clinic carrying a butcher knife.

Defense attorney Sheldon Sherman argued that Brown was guilty only of operating on the fringe and providing "help for the weirdos" because traditional doctors wouldn't.

"No one would deal with these transsexuals. They are a cancer and a plague on society. We don't want to deal with them. John Brown was willing to deal with them," Sherman said.

But prosecutor Stacy Running said Brown "just chopped off" Bondy's leg below the knee and then dumped him at a hotel to recuperate alone while he buried the leg in the desert to hide the evidence from Mexican clinic inspectors.

Bondy called Brown the next day, complaining that he was bleeding and oozing from the stump, Running said. Brown returned to the hotel, rewrapped the leg and suggested Bondy take more pain medications.

Brown did not perform a preoperative examination on Bondy, which would have revealed pneumonia and past heart operations, Running said. Coupled with Bondy's age, he was a risky candidate for surgery, she said.

Brown, who lost his medical license in 1977, was convicted in 1989 in San Francisco for an unsuccessful scalp surgery to shift the hairline of a man during a sex-change operation. Brown served three years and then moved to San Ysidro at the U.S.-Mexico border to start his underground medical practice again.

He conducted business from his home and operated at clinics in Tijuana, Mexico, Running said.