Where Is “Scamanda” Now? How Amanda Riley's Cancer Hoax Unraveled
The law finally caught up with Amanda Riley, who raised money and garnered sympathy with a most cancers fight that turned out to be faux, but it took years.
Days after Amanda Riley gave starting up to her first child in Might 2012, she acknowledged she got a devastating diagnosis: The 27-300 and sixty five days-veteran had stage 3 blood most cancers.
She started working a blog about her dart and, rapidly ample, sympathy was pouring in from all corners of the Web. Chums, individuals of her church and kind strangers kicked in further than $105,000 to encourage her expensive therapies.
In flip, Amanda saved on preserving on for nearly seven years, surviving and thriving—she and husband Cory Riley welcomed their second child in April 2014—no matter various properly being challenges that she described intimately on her weblog, LymphomaCanSuckIt.com, and social media.
Rather than it was all a lie.
Photos and videos of Amanda apparently undergoing a barrage of tests and coverings, tangled as much as tubes within the scientific institution? Staged, consistent with federal authorities. Pictures of of us at some stage within the nation wearing #TeamAmanda signs and swag? Exact, but collected below faux pretenses. The SupportAmanda.com dilemma? A model to defraud.
And in 2021, Amanda pleaded responsible in federal court docket to wire fraud. Per her written plea, consistent with the U.S. Licensed expert's Arena of business, Northern District of California, she admitted to scheming to solicit donations for most cancers therapies she neither got nor wanted because she had below no cases been recognized with most cancers.
She was sentenced in 2022 to 60 months in penal advanced, but after serving time in Texas she was transferred to a Southern California residential re-entry center in December and is thanks to be launched before the damage of this 300 and sixty five days.
Licensed expert info for Amanda wasn’t directly accessible. At her Might 3, 2022, sentencing hearing, she acknowledged in an announcement, consistent with a court docket transcript, “I’m here to simply procure responsibility and humbly procure my penalties as the first step of exhibiting all individuals I desire to assemble this comely.”
Mute, it’s unclear in this Web-sleuth-dominated day and age how Amanda was ready to pull off her ruse for goodbye and, in this case, it was any individual she knew who blew the whistle.
“At some level, I started reading her weblog,” venerable friend Lisa Berry acknowledged within the ABC News Studios docuseries Scamanda, now streaming on Hulu. “She’s posting pictures and I comely was very much surprised seeing your entire consideration that she's getting for it.” Her hackles up, Lisa within the damage was the one who tipped off a journalist in 2015.
Said Lisa, “There was comely one thing interior of me announcing this isn’t comely.”
Right here's how Amanda's hoax within the damage unraveled—and why it took years for authorities to compile the evidence to accuse her of faking most cancers:
Who Is Amanda Riley?
Southern California native Amanda Riley looked as if it would possibly probably even be your common household-oriented, church-going young girl residing in San Jose. She married Cory Riley, who was dad to daughter Jessa from a outdated relationship, in 2011 and so that they welcomed a son together in Might 2012.
“She was a wife, she was a Christian that attended church and was very energetic in her group,” Charlie Webster, host of the 2023 podcast Scamanda, described Amanda within the ABC News Studio docuseries furthermore called Scamanda. “She was very charming, very properly-liked and he or she obtained recognized with most cancers.”
No longer much less than, that’s what Amanda suggested fellow individuals of Household Community Church, a sprawling mega-church with upward of 5,000 congregants in San Jose.
She started documenting her fight with the blood most cancers Hodgkin’s lymphoma in October 2012, explaining on her weblog that she had been so moved by her group’s reaction to her dilemma that she thought it would possibly probably even be appropriate to comprise a solution to withhold all individuals updated and to increase any individual going through a an identical abilities.
Amanda was described by a pair of churchgoers interviewed within the ABC News sequence as charismatic and charming. FCC member Lindsey Wilder acknowledged that she once considered as it so miraculous that Amanda “would possibly even be so terminal and so alive at the identical time,” it led her “to think she was anointed.”
Church member Josh Keirstead acknowledged within the sequence, “Amanda was more or much less a esteem a huge title at FCC. She was appropriate at telling her story…She would captivate us at any time when.”
How Did Amanda Riley Present an explanation for Getting Pregnant Whereas Combating Cancer?
Amanda shared within the autumn of 2013 that she was pregnant along with her second child, while unruffled undergoing treatment and no matter having an IUD.
“Regardless of everything this chemo and radiation she had, she's pregnant,” the Riley household’s babysitter Mahasti Ameli acknowledged within the ABC News sequence. “I acknowledged, 'Amanda, what's going on now with you being pregnant?'”
Amanda wrote on her weblog at the time that she had consulted “a panel of docs” who assured her that having this child was “very doable, web, and that you may presumably imagine.” Her second son with Cory was born in April 2014.
Why Did Americans Initiating Giving Amanda Riley Money?
After child No. 2 got here, Amanda shared on her weblog that she and Cory were struggling financially, they had insurance but her therapies and participation in scientific trials was leaving them in a gap.
The donations started pouring in, with of us within the damage contributing more than $105,513—online and in tests made out directly to Amanda, consistent with federal prosecutors—to what they thought was a righteous trigger.
Pal Rebecca Cafiero acknowledged in ABC’s Scamanda that she at the starting place donated $500, after which turned it into a monthly contribution.
Church member Lindsey, who was unable to make a contribution unheard of financially, recalled within the sequence being extremely tickled to salvage a level out in Amanda’s weblog after maxing out the quantity of platelets she was ready to donate in a given month.
Within the intervening time, Amanda diligently chronicled her properly being dart with pictures and videos, the pictures exhibiting her in scientific institution beds, tangled as much as IVs, preserving vials of treatment, shut-u.s.a.of syringes and more. She wrote in mountainous element, discussing white blood cell counts, Neupogen photographs and scientific trials.
In 2013, she wrote on her weblog that she would possibly be undergoing brain surgical treatment. Forward of giving starting up to her second child in April 2014, she wrote, “5 scientific institution stays and 32 docs appointments/lab visits in January by myself! Thank goodness ideal 1 more week of chemo unless Child Riley gets here! Next weekend must celebrate!”
How Did Amanda Riley Fetch Caught in a Lie?
Frequent friend Lisa Berry, who met Amanda when her daughter was within the identical class as Jessa, acknowledged in ABC News’ Scamanda that Amanda suggested her support in 2010 that she had terminal most cancers.
Lisa recalled being devastated, but furthermore outlandish as to why Amanda’s other folks weren’t around more when their daughter was supposedly so in unhappy health—Amanda suggested her they were busy, Lisa acknowledged—and on one event Amanda requested Lisa to mortgage her money for a “’life-saving blood test.’”
“It felt awkward,” Lisa acknowledged within the sequence, “but I gave her the money.”
At some point, Lisa acknowledged, she picked up Jessa from college while Amanda acknowledged she was getting treatment, and the baby went swimming at the Berrys’ house. When Amanda obtained there, Lisa persisted, she furthermore went within the pool.
“She suggested me that she had comely had fluid drained off her brain within the scientific institution,” Lisa acknowledged within the sequence. “So she was coming from the scientific institution and he or she swam underwater after having fluid drained off her brain? I knew that wasn’t comely. And I commence going through my tips and thinking about your entire tales she suggested me.”
Lisa acknowledged she and her husband Steve Berry within the reduction of ties with Amanda and Cory rapidly after. But Amanda saved calling, she acknowledged, and the final time she talked to her was when Amanda suggested her she was pregnant. Lisa recalled announcing, “’I believed you were dying,’” to which Amanda allegedly suggested her that her being pregnant was “’reversing the illness.’”
How Did Police Receive Out About Amanda Riley's Cancer Hoax?
Lisa acknowledged in Scamanda that she started reading Amanda’s weblog in 2015 after receiving an email alerting her to a native Chili’s fundraiser dilemma as much as encourage her venerable friend’s most cancers fight.
That resulted in Lisa contacting investigative producer Nancy Moscatiello after seeing on social media that the journalist was shopping for techniques about skill scams for a show she was engaged on, Crime Gaze Day-to-day.
Nancy recalled within the ABC News sequence being intrigued since the tipster—who wished to remain anonymous at the time, but Lisa proudly recognized herself in Scamanda—got here with loads of small print, but she acknowledged she knew she had to tread evenly since accusing any individual of faking most cancers was no small ingredient. But handsome rapidly, after combing throughout the entirety of Amanda’s weblog to this level, Nancy detailed, she was delighted that the mom of two was perpetuating a hoax.
“My thought activity was, I desire to discontinue her,” the journalist suggested ABC 30 Action News’ “On the Red Carpet” in January. “I desire of us to perceive who Amanda Riley is.”
Amanda’s weblog “was very detailed,” Nancy added. “It was one thing that I would possibly latch onto and truly truth test usually.”
Nancy acknowledged in Scamanda that she started calling the San Jose Police Division and was finally linked with Monetary Fraud Unit Det. Jose Martinez in September 2015.
The now retired detective acknowledged in Scamanda that he knew it wasn’t going to be easy proving any individual was lying about having most cancers, since scientific info are private below federal law. And at the starting place, he acknowledged, he had to steal into legend the likelihood that the tipster was “comely an offended household member or any individual who was scorned, comely attempting to salvage any individual in pains.”
A astronomical damage got here, consistent with Martinez, when he requested an lawyer representing Amanda for a allotment of verifiable proof that she did comprise most cancers, with which he would possibly shut the case. “Time handed,” he acknowledged within the sequence, after which he got—in an email attachment—a letter purportedly from a health care provider at Santa Clara Kaiser Permanente Sanatorium that referred to Amanda as being a most cancers affected person.
When he called the scientific institution to ascertain the document, Martinez persisted, they were “huge retaining” about affected person confidentiality but he was within the damage suggested that a letter was sent to Amanda, “‘but no longer for that.’”
“Now I’ve obtained a faux doctor’s letter,” the retired detective acknowledged in Scamanda. “I believed, Wow, we obtained ourselves a case.”
But wanting “better reach,” he acknowledged, he contacted the IRS’ monetary crimes unit.
Frequent IRS Legal Division Particular Agent Arlette Lee described in Scamanda how her enlighten of job subpoenaed “each scientific facility [Amanda] listed in her blogs” to scuttle-test whether she’d ever been handled for most cancers at any of them. The now-retired agent acknowledged she went through thousands of pages attempting to incontrovertibly secure Amanda in a lie.
On Sept. 16, 2016, as detailed within the ABC News sequence, federal agents raided Amanda’s house.
But, as Martinez infamous within the sequence, while investigators carted away documents and scientific instruments from the house Amanda shared along with her husband and two sons, she wasn’t charged with any crime, nor was she below arrest.
And hours after the agents left the house, Nancy acknowledged within the sequence, Amanda posted a photograph of herself with a shaved head on her weblog in recognition of Lymphoma Cancer Awareness Month.
How Became once Amanda Riley At final Prosecuted?
Whereas for the time being Amanda took a job as a vital at a private Christian college in Gilroy, Calif., finally the law closed in on her.
In 2020, she was charged with wire fraud for scheming to solicit donations to pay for most cancers therapies she neither wanted nor got, consistent with a info initiate from the U.S. Licensed expert's Arena of business, Northern District of California.
A felony criticism filed July 27, 2020, alleged that she falsely claimed a pair of cases that she was being handled at a sequence of hospitals at some stage within the nation, as properly as extinct her weblog and social media accounts to explain she was in unhappy health and solicit funds for scientific and dart costs to salvage treatment and aid fundraisers.
She dilemma up a site, SupportAmanda.com, in September 2013 to further facilitate donations, the criticism contended. And on April 6, 2016, consistent with the criticism, she altered a health care provider’s display to learn that she was “in treatment for most cancers.”
Federal prosecutors acknowledged investigators had recognized 349 other folks and entities who collectively donated more than $105,000—no longer including assorted items—to Amanda.
Facing a maximum penalty of twenty years in penal advanced and a gorgeous of $250,000, Amanda pleaded responsible in October 2021 to one depend of wire fraud. She was sentenced in Might 2022 to 5 years in penal advanced—more than the 18 months prosecutors urged—and ordered to pay $105,513 in restitution.
In court docket, U.S. District Mediate Beth Labson Freeman acknowledged she felt Amanda put the public at “essential likelihood,” so with “public security and the necessity for deterrence” in tips, she was imposing an “upward variance of the rule of thumb of thumb sentence.”
What Has Amanda Riley Said About Her Habits?
In an announcement learn at some stage in her Might 3, 2022, sentencing hearing, per a court docket transcript, Amanda acknowledged, “Your Honor, there aren’t ample words to adequately categorical how horrific I feel and how sorry I’m that this took enlighten. My heart aches each day, thinking that I did one thing that ache various of us. Right here’s the worst ingredient I’ve ever achieved and the worst mistake I would possibly comprise made.”
She wasn't drowsing properly and would possibly barely undercover agent at herself within the consider, she acknowledged.
“I truly were coping with the repercussions of this for years,” Amanda persisted. “I threw away my dream profession, lost all my company and household. I went from being a no one to being negatively lined in dozens of tabloids and info articles.”
Noting that she had turn into paranoid about being followed and unnerved of what of us would possibly be announcing about her on social media, she acknowledged, “I’m here to simply procure responsibility and humbly procure my penalties as the first step of exhibiting all individuals I desire to assemble this comely. I’m going to use the leisure of my life practising the amends for the ache that I truly comprise precipitated.”
She then apologized to “your entire victims in this case,” singling out her church and “all of the kind, loving these that helped us,” and to her household.
Rebecca Cafiero, the friend who acknowledged that at one level she was donating $500 a month to Amanda, acknowledged that days before Amanda reported for penal advanced, she texted her messages including, “I’m struggling and I honestly don’t know the place to commence or what to claim,” “There’s loads of malicious things going on,” “The money did pay for scientific wants,” “I don’t know who to believe,” “This was below no cases a pre-mediated fraud or scam,” “Cory’s ex-wife partnered with a reporter,” “I’ll be paying each penny of it support.” (In ABC News’ Scamanda, Cory’s ex-wife Aletta Bernal denied having partnered with Nancy, the reporter in ask, in any formulation.)
“At this level,” Rebecca acknowledged within the sequence, “I will’t think the leisure that comes out of…Amanda’s mouth.”
Scamanda podcast host Charlie Webster acknowledged within the ABC News sequence of the identical title that she gave Amanda her card after the hearing and so began a text alternate between the two.
Toward the damage of the four-portion sequence, Charlie acknowledged that Amanda suggested her in a 25-minute video call from penal advanced (below the condition it no longer be recorded) that she and Cory were divorcing and that she was unruffled having properly being complications.
“She acknowledged she was sorry and he or she does desire to steal accountability,” Charlie acknowledged, noting that Amanda furthermore obtained very emotional when talking about her kids “and it regarded very precise.” (The sequence infamous that Amanda declined to be interviewed.)
Where Is Amanda Riley Now?
Amanda started serving her 60-month sentence at Federal Clinical Center Carswell in Ft. Rate, Texas.
Her recent dilemma is listed as Lengthy Sea skedaddle RRM, a residential reentry management topic enlighten of job in San Pedro, Calif., consistent with the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ online inmate locator. Her initiate date is listed as Dec. 4, 2025, to be followed, per the U.S. Licensed expert’s Arena of business, by a 3-300 and sixty five days period of supervision.
Cory, who did no longer take part in Scamanda, did file for divorce and was residing in Texas, consistent with court docket documents received by TODAY.com.
In June 2024, Mediate Freeman denied Amanda’s petition for a sentence reduction to time served, the prisoner having alleged she was having properly being complications boring bars.
Based on the skedaddle denial uncover, the determine wrote that the defendant’s “scientific suppliers usually display a colossal gap between her claimed signs and what they’ll medically stumble on.”
Source credit : eonline.com
