You don’t need a license to perform an abortion. Having this in her mind, Bertha Pinedo Bugarin, 48, performed abortions and prescribed drugs while pretending to be a doctor at Clinica Medica de la Mujer in Chula Vista. According to prosecutors, the woman performed abortions at the clinic on in Chula Vista during February and March of last year. On Thursday, she was arrested and charged with 10 felony counts of practicing medicine without a license and grand theft.

“This defendant preyed on women in the Hispanic community,” said District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, according to the Los Angeles Times. “By passing herself off as a doctor, she put these women’s lives in serious danger.”

Chula Vista Police Chief Rick Emerson, who led a yearlong investigation, said patients “were subjected to pain and risk of great bodily injury because of Bugarin’s lack of medical training,” the same source noted.

One woman had to be rushed to a hospital with severe complications. She eventually delivered her baby prematurely. At least nine South Bay women identified Bugarin as the person who performed surgical procedures on them. One woman paid $500 for an abortion but had to be hospitalized again for a second procedure because the first intervention wasn’t successful.

The woman who posed as doctor faces more than nine years in prison if convicted, prosecutors said. She is being held on $500,000 bail.