The documented story of surgical harm, fabricated evidence, arbitration corruption, criminal intimidation, a data breach, and every institution that looked the other way.
This is not a lawsuit. This is not an allegation. Every word on this page is documented in court records, arbitration transcripts, JAMS disclosures, hacker email chains, police reports, and formal federal complaints. Every name. Every date. Every number. On the record.
She had a CT scan. She had surgical nursing records. She had two board-certified expert witnesses. She had a treating physician. She had a whistleblower. She had a motion for summary judgment that the arbitrator herself denied — confirming the case had merit.
None of it mattered. Because the arbitrator had undisclosed financial ties to the defense. Because a convicted criminal stalker was feeding her private arbitration details in real time — and the emails prove it. Because her medical records were hacked, published, and then erased by someone using a fake email in her name. Because NBC4 was about to break the story — until someone in New York made a call.
And because every institution she turned to — the medical board, the FBI, the DOJ, the California Supreme Court — closed the file.
NTS was built so the world would know what happened. And so it never happens to anyone else.
This public record is designed to raise awareness, prevent recurrence, put pressure on the people and institutions in the record, and support patient-protection legislation.
In 2019, Elina Shaffy underwent septoplasty / internal nasal work with Dr. Gary Motykie at Surgery on Sunset, Inc. in Beverly Hills, California. She was 40 years old. Seven years of pre-operative medical records — including records from Cedars-Sinai and multiple ENT specialists — confirmed her nasal turbinates were healthy, normal, and functionally intact. She did not consent to a nose job or external cosmetic nasal changes; she consented only to septoplasty / internal nasal work related to septal issues. No turbinate pathology was identified. No turbinate removal was indicated, recommended, discussed, or consented to.
She told Dr. Motykie explicitly before the procedure: "I don't want any changes to my nose." That is in the arbitration transcript. Under oath.
The corrected framing is direct: she did not consent to a nose job. She consented to septoplasty / internal nasal work only, because of septal issues. Dr. Motykie presented the work as within his expertise, describing it as a “no-brainer,” “so simple,” and something he could take care of “in thirty minutes.”
The hearing record later raised the opposite question: if he had “never” corrected one of these before, why accept the procedure and charge approximately $15,000 as if he were experienced?
She woke up without her turbinates.
Post-operative CT imaging performed by treating physician Dr. Schenck confirmed near-complete bilateral resection — approximately 90% of the right inferior turbinate and 100% of the left. This is an irreversible, catastrophic surgical intervention. It causes Empty Nose Syndrome — a permanently debilitating condition with no cure, characterized by paradoxical nasal obstruction, inability to sense airflow, chronic dryness, and severe neurological consequences. The patient cannot breathe normally. Cannot sleep normally. Cannot function normally. For the rest of her life.
Two dual board-certified ENT and facial plastic surgery experts testified at arbitration that turbinectomy is appropriate only in rare cases involving malignancy or nonviable tissue. Neither condition applied to Elina Shaffy. The procedure — as performed — was a gross deviation from the accepted standard of medical care.
Dr. Gary Motykie's defense rested on a single document: a second operative report claiming he performed a "turbinoplasty" — a repositioning procedure — not a turbinectomy. This document directly contradicted the first operative record, the nursing record, and his own initial operative note.
Here is what that document was — and was not.
"The majority refused to credit the only properly prepared record of what happened in the surgery. Nurse Galbese was the scrivener. If Dr. Motykie disputes the record he produced and authenticated, he had to correct it or bring in his nurse to correct it. He cannot simply change it ipse dixit as he testified — and the majority allowed."
— Claimant's Objections to Interim Award, submitted to JAMSThe dissenting arbitrator — the one appointed by Elina — found no logical basis for admission of the second operative report. Cooper and Kelly admitted it anyway. Then they used it as the primary basis for their ruling — over a CT scan, a timestamped nursing record, two board-certified experts, and the surgeon's own initial note.
That is not a legal judgment call. That is a decision to accept fabrication over fact. And the Court of Appeal called it "discretionary."
The Court of Appeal affirmed the arbitration award on February 28, 2025. In doing so, it failed to meaningfully address — or simply ignored — the following documented evidence that was excluded, suppressed, or never adjudicated. Each item is in the court record.
The Court of Appeal applied abuse-of-discretion review to every one of these issues. California precedent — Maaso, Haworth, Jordan — requires de novo review for statutory disclosure violations and constitutional due process claims. The wrong standard of review is not a technicality. It is the mechanism by which every violation above was shielded from accountability.
Justice Candace Cooper — a retired California Court of Appeal justice, fully versed in disclosure law — certified under penalty of perjury on January 15, 2021 that nothing would prohibit her from impartially serving. The January 9, 2023 supplemental JAMS disclosure revealed what that certification concealed.
"There was no logical basis for admission of the Second Operative Report of Dr. Motykie into evidence." — Dissenting arbitrator, appointed by Elina Shaffy, on the document that became the entire basis of Cooper and Kelly's ruling against the patient.
While Elina's arbitration was active, a man with a documented history of violence against her — a convicted criminal who had been arrested and against whom she held a restraining order — began contacting her with threats to drop the lawsuit. What made these threats extraordinary was not their existence. It was their content.
This man knew details of a private arbitration proceeding. Details available only to the parties. Details that could only have come from Dr. Gary Motykie or his attorney Greg Werre.
In 2021 — before these emails — this same individual had called Elina from a blocked number to tell her he had been in touch with "the doctor and the lawyer" and that "they will destroy me." At the time, she did not know he meant Dr. Motykie and Greg Werre. The September 2022 emails made it unmistakable.
The connection is documented in writing, submitted to the arbitration panel, and reported to law enforcement. It raises the following questions — which remain unanswered:
In June 2023, a hacker group operating under the domain garymotykie.at published what they described as Dr. Gary Motykie's complete patient database — approximately 5 terabytes of data including surgical photographs, videos, personal consultation records, files from his PC and OneDrive. Patient names, dates of birth, email addresses, and intimate medical photographs were published publicly without consent.
Elina Shaffy's records — including her surgical documentation — were among the data published. The same records Dr. Motykie denied the existence of under oath. The same records the arbitrator excluded from the hearing. Published. Publicly. On a hacker's website. Marked: "hot story."
Hacker: "We are a financially motivated group. Currently we are selling Motykie's data and it doesn't matter for us who will pay us — Motykie or anybody else."
Hacker: "We offered him to close website and delete his data for $800,000 but he drags on and cheats us."
Hacker: "$2,500 was paid by person which used the following email address: shaffyscottsdale@gmail.com"
Elina Shaffy: "That's not my email."
Hacker: "We already received payment for deleting your data on our website and your data is not on our website anymore."
shaffyscottsdale@gmail.com is not Elina Shaffy's email address. It never was. Someone created an email address impersonating her — using her name — and paid $2,500 specifically to erase her surgical records from the hacker's site. The records being erased were the same records excluded from the arbitration. The same records Dr. Motykie denied under oath.
This is identity impersonation. It is a federal crime under the Stored Communications Act. It was reported to the FBI and the DOJ via formal certified complaints. Both agencies took no action.
This is not a story about one bad doctor. This is a story about what happens when every institution designed to protect patients — medical, legal, regulatory, federal — chooses instead to protect the powerful. Every entry below is documented. Every complaint was filed. Every response — or non-response — is on record.
They didn't fall through the cracks. The cracks were built for them to fall through. And now — for the first time — the full picture is public. Documented. Permanent. And impossible to bury.
To everyone who buried evidence, falsified records, concealed conflicts, intimidated a patient, erased her data, killed a news story, and closed the file: you should know that this moment was always coming.
The CT scan still exists. The nursing record still exists. The hacker emails still exist. The threatening emails still exist. The JAMS disclosures still exist. The police reports still exist. The federal complaints still exist. The arbitration transcript still exists. Every document on this page is real, authenticated, and in the public record.
You cannot erase what you could not contain. And you cannot silence what is already speaking.
NTS is just getting started.
Nipped, Tucked & Screwed™ is a nonprofit accountability platform for patients who have been harmed by surgical misconduct and denied recourse by private arbitration, institutional cover-up, or systemic failure.
We document. We publish. We advocate. We connect injured patients with journalists, legislators, and legal advocates who can amplify what private arbitration was designed to silence.
The mission is also legislative: to push for protections so patients and the general public do not have to live through this kind of institutional failure.
You are not wrong. You are not crazy. And you are not alone.
Collect, verify, and publish patient accounts of surgical harm and arbitration abuse — creating the public record that private proceedings are designed to prevent.
Investigate repeat-player relationships between arbitrators, defense firms, and arbitration providers. Make those conflicts publicly searchable.
Work with legislators, journalists, and patient advocacy groups to advance reforms restoring transparency, neutrality, and meaningful access to justice in medical arbitration.
Connect harmed patients with legal resources, investigative journalists, and a survivor community. Every story strengthens the case for reform.
NTS was born from a case where a CT scan proved everything — and was excluded anyway. RadReveal.ai exists so the next patient walks into a doctor's office, a deposition, or an arbitration already knowing exactly what their imaging shows. In their own language. With documentation they control.
The archive tells the founding story, while the app ecosystem gives patients a clearer way to understand and preserve their own imaging before any institution can bury it.
A patient-facing medical AI platform built with physician leadership in interventional radiology — co-founded by Dr. Christopher Herzig, M.D. Putting your imaging in your hands before anyone can take it from you. Coming late 2026.
Get notified at launch →If you or someone you love has been harmed by surgical misconduct, denied informed consent, silenced by private arbitration, or ignored by the institutions that were supposed to protect you — we want to hear from you. Every account matters. Every story is evidence.