A Colorado woman was arrested and charged for convincing her 6-year-old son and her community that he was dying of cancer, the Daily Mail reports. Police officials said the woman scammed her community out of $25,000 and trip to Disneyland after lying that her child was suffering from terminal bone cancer.
Reportedly Sandy Nguyen, 28 from Arapahoe County, Colo., had conned her son's school and fellow parents since September 2012. Police said Nguyen convinced her son and the rest of her family that he had "an aggressive, rare, stage 3 childhood bone cancer and Acute Myelogenous Leukemia," the Daily Mail reports.
A search warrant of Nguyen's home turned up about $23,000 in cash.
"We don't have any reason to believe that anyone other than her knew the truth," Arapahoe County Sheriff's Captain Larry Etheridge told KMGH. "The little boy believed he had cancer. The rest of the family believed he had cancer."
Reportedly the mother had even convinced her son, and everyone else, that there were times his fake cancer had gone into remission. According to police, last June she began telling people that the 6-year-old "probably only had 8 more months with them."
The community held a 5k charity walk for the little boy and helped the mother raise money for his treatments, not knowing that it was all a scam. According to a website set up for the charity walk, the little boy "received 317 days of chemotherapy, 7 days of radiation, multiple blood & platelet transfusions, monthly spinal taps, biopsies, and MRI's."
The tickets for the charity walk was completely sold out and local businesses and individuals had even contributed for the event. The website even said that it was the little boy's third time fighting the rare cancer.
To keep up with the lie, Nguyen posted pictures of her son to her Facebook page (which was deleted after her arrest) of the child with hair and sometimes without.
"Over the last several months, Ms. Nguyen accepted at least $16,000.00, as well as a trip to Disneyland for herself and family, which was paid for by the donated funds," police officials said.
Authorities said that the community and the little boy's school had put the money raised into an account for the family. Following Nguyen's arrest, Rolling Hills Elementary School issued a notice to parents alerting them to the scam.
"We are deeply troubled by these allegations and saddened to learn that an adult may have taken advantage of an innocent child and our school community," Principal Darla Thompson said in the statement. "It is important for our community to continue to show support and compassion for this child, who is also a victim in this case. The child was wrongfully led to believe that he was ill, and he was not responsible for the parent's alleged actions."
Nguyen has since posted the $10,000 bond and was released from jail.
