"Black Madam" testifies in her own defense

In the 43 years since birth, Forest Leon Gordon has undergone one transition after another.

There was her 1994 change from man to woman and the new name Padge-Victoria Windslowe, her 1999 baptism as "Genevieve" (French pronunciation) by Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua; her identity as the Gothic hip-hop entertainer "Black Madam" and provider of illegal body enhancement as the self-styled "Michelangelo of buttocks injections."

On Thursday, Windslowe made another transition, taking center stage as first witness for the defense in her murder trial in the 2011 death of a dancer who underwent one of her silicone buttocks injections.

Windslowe told a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury of six men and six women that what the state called illegal, she called a mission to bring buttocks enhancement to the masses, people who could not afford overpriced "American rock-star doctors."

"I just tried to do the best, the best job I could," Windslowe testified during almost two hours on the witness stand. "I just wanted to help people, a lot of people with self-esteem issues. . . . I loved being around the girls. They called me their fairy godmother."

Her lawyer, David S. Rudenstein, told the jury in his Feb. 19 opening statement that Windslowe would testify that she believed the silicone liquid she injected into her clients was safe, and that she had used it on herself and her friends without harm.

Windslowe acknowledged that the liquid silicone she bought from a Texas supplier was not medical grade, but said, "It was nontoxic. I was told you could drink it. That's why it's in me."

Windslowe said she took the silicone lubricant and emulsified it with water to create a substance she called "hydrogel." She said she found that it held up better than injected body fat or medical-grade silicone, which she said was absorbed or disappeared in the body after injection.

"I loved the way it worked," she said. "I felt like I was getting my money's worth."

Windslowe is on trial for third-degree murder in the Feb. 8, 2011, death of Claudia Aderotimi, a 20-year-old dancer who flew from London to Philadelphia for Windslowe to do buttocks enhancement injections in an airport hotel room.

Windslowe is also charged with aggravated assault for injections she gave 23-year-old stripper Sherkeeia King in February 2012 at a "pumping party" at an East Germantown home.

King was hospitalized, vomiting blood and struggling to breathe. Doctors found that silicone in her buttocks had spread through her bloodstream to her heart and lungs.

Medical experts have testified that liquid silicone is no longer injected in cosmetic procedures because of its tendency to migrate from the injection site.

Windslowe acknowledged that she had no formal medical training, but insisted she knew what she was doing.

Windslowe said she was taught to do buttocks injections by a nurse in Manhattan who had given her silicone injections.

Although her clients testified that she had told them she was a "nurse-practitioner," Windslowe denied having done so.

She said she worked for a time for a doctor in Bangkok, Thailand, who treated her during her sex transition.

And she said she was taught how to use a hypodermic needle to aspirate tissue by a Philadelphia-area doctor with whom she had an affair in 1993 and maintained contact over the years - which that doctor had denied strongly in testimony Tuesday.

"I would hope [my clients] believed I knew what I was doing, because I thought I knew what I was doing," Windslowe said.

Windslowe strode to the witness stand in high heels, a black dress, and long black coat, her hair pulled back.

She wore that outfit after two days of warnings from Judge Rose Marie DeFino-Nastasi that her blouses were too sheer or revealing.

At the end of the day - after ordering Windslowe to change out of an earlier blouse before Thursday's trial session began - the judge warned Windslowe to wear a similar ensemble Friday, when she resumes her direct testimony.

Windslowe appeared self-assured through most of her testimony, although she seemed to be overcome when she recalled that the woman who arranged for Aderotimi's procedure called her the next day and told her about the death.

"She said, 'It's RIP, baby, RIP,' and the way she said it was just coldly indifferent. It sounded so cold. That 'RIP' rang through my soul for four years to the date," Windslowe said.