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July 27, 2023 - The Megyn Kelly Show
01:14:19
20230727_the-disturbing-and-incredible-story-of-fake-cancer
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The 2012 Blog Beginnings 00:10:41
Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
The ruse she went through, the fraud she committed on her friends, her family, her church members, is the subject of the hit investigative podcast, Scamanda.
It kind of gives it away in the name, so I'm not speaking out of school here when I tell you it was a scam.
But how she pulled it off and the lengths that this woman went to to fool people into believing she was ill and to donating to her funds in order to help her with her disease will just leave you stunned in your chair.
The podcast was the number one show on Apple in all categories for weeks and for very good reason.
It is riveting.
I listened to it with my whole family when we went to France.
We had long car rides.
Everybody was into it.
Like Scamanda, more scamanda.
The host and producer of the show, Charlie Webster, is here with us today to discuss how one woman managed to scam friends, family, and strangers out of more than $100,000 with her fake illness.
Charlie, welcome to the show.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
I love that description of your trip to France was just like dominated by Scamander.
Yes, it was.
And here we are.
I mean, I'm 52.
My youngest is nine.
And it appealed to all of us.
So it's got a wide range of listeners and fans.
And it's just completely exploded online now.
And it's kind of, I mean, forgive me because I know some people actually really lost money and were emotionally wounded by this woman, but it was fun.
It was fun.
You made it fun to listen to because the first several episodes, you really are, you know, from the name that it's not real, but you spend the whole time like, how did she do it?
How did she do it?
And that's part of the mystery of it.
So, how did you get turned on to this story?
Just on the name, it's funny you should say that, Megan, because I debated so much.
Honestly, I had 20 names in front of me.
I was scribbling notes all the time because I couldn't decide whether to call it Scamander and whether it would give the game away too much.
Because for those that haven't listened, I actually don't let you really know what happens until the very end.
And Megan, you'll know yourself as a broadcaster and journalist how hard that is to do when you're actually making and producing something.
And but how I actually got onto the story was there's an inventory, there's an investigative true crime veteran called Nancy Moscatello.
And she first looked at this story.
Well, no, it wasn't even a story because that's quite quite a few people have asked me like, why can't I find it online?
And I'm like, oh, no, we like I actually kind of did the story.
It wasn't like we found the story elsewhere.
We are the original broadcaster of the story in a way.
And Nancy found this from an anonymous tip back in like 2015.
But then what was so interesting was she was looking into it for a potential story.
And then she ended up not making it as a story, but became embroiled in the story as a character and as a protagonist herself.
And then she was telling me about it.
So then I started to look into the story.
And then that's when I came on board to build it further as a journalist and then look into it.
And to be honest with you, when I first spoke to Nancy and I mean, we can go into the fact that Amanda wrote a blog, but I started to read Amanda's blog and look at pictures and hear testimony.
And I was like, okay, I need to just, I need to make sure that we've got this right because she is that convincing.
Right.
She might have cancer.
You start, you listen to her blog post and you're like, no, she definitely has cancer.
There's no way she doesn't have cancer.
And yes, this whole episode is a spoiler alert.
So if you're going to listen to Scamanda, you should probably come listen to this episode after you've done that.
And then you'll have fun listening to Charlie and yours truly talk about it.
But yeah, she, this woman seemed to have a PhD in what it's like to have cancer.
So you spend much of the series wondering, well, maybe she had cancer for a little while.
Maybe she had like a small dose of cancer, but like she definitely had some sort of illness.
And then of course you find out at the end, the whole thing was a scam.
If she had devoted one tenth of her energies to actually just working and getting like a great job, and I know she had a job for some of this time, she wouldn't have needed to commit a scam.
But that begs the question of why she did it, which we'll get to in a bit.
So Nancy Muscatello gets an anonymous tip.
She's a reporter.
She gets an anonymous tip.
You might want to look into this person who may be scamming people on cancer.
And just to just to top it off, Charlie, Scamanda is not the only person to scam people when it comes to cancer.
Like this, as it turns out, is a thing.
How is it?
How is it?
I mean, like, how is it a thing?
This is what I, I, when I first looked into it and started, honestly, I sat there with boxes and boxes of papers and documents.
And I tried to access bankruptcy documents, which took me months and months and months.
And, and I was like, no, this isn't, do people actually do this?
And then since I released Scamanda, people started telling me that, you know, oh, my best friend did this, or actually it reminds me of this story.
And I'm like, I don't know.
Why do you think people do this, Megan?
And I didn't realize how common it was, to be honest.
Yeah.
I mean, I think there are lots of motivations, right?
Some people want money.
Some people want attention.
Some people have this.
It used to be called Munchausen's.
Now they call it, I think, fictitious disorder or something like that.
But, you know, they, why does somebody, this doesn't sound like it was Amanda, but those people who have Munchhausen's will actually hurt themselves on purpose.
You know, they'll swallow bleach and things like that to actually get into the hospital and be treated by doctors and I guess feel special.
They're sick.
Scamanda, I think, is a different story.
I don't think she was sick.
I think she was, you know, messed up as anybody would have to be to commit this crime.
But I don't think she was actually mentally ill in the way somebody with Munchausen says.
So how did it start?
Like it was 2000, what, 11?
So Amanda started a blog.
And I think the timing is really key to what she did and a few other things, which we can go into.
But she started a blog in 2012.
And I remember looking back at my own career and, okay, where was I in 2012?
What was I doing?
It's a bit of a giveaway by the way that I sound that I am British.
I am in America, but I am British.
And I was actually hosting the London Olympics in 2012 as a broadcaster.
And I was like, what was that time like?
Well, TikTok didn't exist.
I'm not even sure I was really on Instagram.
And I think it was all about the bloggersphere and Twitter.
And I think that's, that is very key to her story.
So she started a blog at the time where blogging was really a thing.
And it was an automatic credibility, I think, for your narrative and your story.
And, you know, we had the mummy blogger, the fitness bloggers, and Amanda started to share her story of her diagnosis of Hodgkin's lymphoma.
And she called her blog, What the Heck is Hodgkin's Lymphoma?
And she started that blog and she was so detailed in it.
And she was so raw and heartfelt and hopeful.
I mean, a lot of people, this is the thing about her.
She was an inspiration.
And a lot of people came to her blog and she started to get an audience.
To me, she was like an early day influencer.
And that's how it initially started.
But shall I give the spoiler away?
Well, yeah, you said we're going to give spoilers away.
This is for people who have listened to it or, you know, they know they're going to get spoilers.
It's still worth your time to go back and listen to the whole thing.
Absolutely.
Yeah, because I think to that point, I think it's not really about the end result.
What I wanted to try and show in the podcast was how she did it.
And I used her blogs.
So she was part narrator and telling you how she did it herself in a way alongside me, which I had a lot of fun, a lot of late nights doing and a lot of sleepless nights, but a lot of fun doing.
Anyway, she wrote this blog, but then this started in 2012 when she said she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma.
And then I found out that in 2010, she told a couple in San Jose that actually she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma stage four in 2010.
So then, okay, that slightly doesn't add up.
And then I then found out actually after the podcast, that this was going on even before that.
So there's a pattern of behavior.
Like I'm sure we'll get into the motivation, which we've touched upon a little bit, which I think is so interesting and her behavior and the psychology.
But there seems to be a pattern of behavior of lying or saying that you're, you know, I found out that she said she got lupus as a teenager.
You know, I don't know whether she definitely didn't have that, but people think she didn't that I've spoken to.
And then I feel like it grew and grew.
And I feel like she realized that she could get things and not necessarily money, but attention or, I don't know, get away with not doing that project or work or something by not being very well.
And I think it kind of grew from there.
But we can talk a bit more about her past anyway.
But yes, she wrote this blog and then became a bit of a blog influencer and then a local celebrity.
And then she infiltrated the church and then became a known person within the church and was actually called the anointed one.
Jamie's Cancer Miracle Lie 00:05:05
It's so sad.
She took advantage of people of faith who were rooting for her and believing and praying for a miracle for her and donating to her.
It's just absolutely exploitative.
But one of the interesting things about it to me was she's married ultimately to this guy named Corey.
And she met Corey because Corey was married to Alita and they had two daughters.
And one of them did get cancer.
And they hired Amanda originally when Amanda was a teenager, like 18, to sort of come in and be with the two daughters and be a source of light, play with them, teach them cheerleading or something like that.
And she was this super, and I think remained this super bubbly.
positive force, you know, that she happens to be a criminal, we learn later, but that's how she first got folded into this family.
And it seems to me, you tell me, but like she looked at this daughter's cancer and learned, you know, and I bet she saw how much attention the child got.
And thank God that the child survived.
But that seemed to me to be like where she got the idea.
Like, oh, look at all the attention that goes to this, this young girl who's been stricken with this terrible disease.
Yeah.
And the fact that she ends up with Corey, who's 12 years old, she steals the husband.
Yeah.
And I, but I also, you know, when I started to look into that part of it, I did wonder, because I really tried to make sure I didn't have blinkers on and to make sure that I didn't have a preconceived idea of what I thought it was or wanted it to be, because I thought that was very important.
Especially because you've got Nancy is now a character of the story and Amanda, well, hated Nancy and the feelings kind of mutual, really.
So I wanted to make sure that she was a journalist who got turned on to the story and started pushing on it.
Keep going.
Yeah, yeah.
And she pushed on it.
And then it didn't become about making the story.
She didn't make the story.
She just became the story and she ended up a source to the police.
And she ended up being the protagonist against Amanda.
So it's Amanda against Nancy, basically.
And then I wanted to try and play that off in the podcast because I didn't quite want you to know who you believed or who you liked.
And the reason why was because that's exactly how it played out.
And I wanted to show you that as a listener because I wanted you to feel how this went along and why people didn't believe Amanda.
Sorry, did believe Amanda, but didn't believe Nancy.
And so to go back to Corey, Alita, the two girls, Jessa and Jamie, it was Jamie that had cancer.
And yet, as you said, Megan, Amanda was brought in to spend time with them and teach them cheerleading.
And they weren't having a lot of social interaction because of Jamie's cancer.
And she is doing really well now, thankfully.
And actually, she's just had a baby.
So, which is actually a genuine miracle baby for those that have listened to the show, which we can talk about.
And Amanda came to the home.
And one of the things I wanted to make sure was, well, was there coercive control here from Corey?
Did Corey, was there any kind of grooming?
I don't know, because she was so young.
There was definitely a position of power there.
She was 17.
He was much older, like in his, what would he be, like late 20s, 29, 30.
And she went to his graduation.
I don't know, kind of a bit strange for me, why somebody would do that.
And then ended up with her.
But I think you're right.
There was an element of some of the things that Jamie went through and her story and what Amanda picked up.
And now this becomes the pattern of behavior because she went to cancer groups for young people and mimicked some of their stories.
And I think she took on other people's stories and then created her own narrative from that.
She's so detailed though and knew so much.
And people thought she was an she must have known because she was an oncologist.
I mean, people actually thought she was an oncologist.
I actually told somebody, oh no, she's actually not an oncologist.
Because she would say things about the different drugs that we use, the different treatment that was used, all the symptoms of what you're going through, which I don't think is just something you can find off the net.
I think you would have to listen to people's stories and build that your own picture in your head.
And I think that's how, I mean, there's so many reasons of how she managed to do this, but one of them was that it was very, very hard to catch her and to prove that she was lying because it was so genuine in a strange way.
No, it's true.
She, this woman deserves an Academy Award.
She's a great actress.
We showed her picture.
She's super smiley.
She's got this thousand watt smile.
Sky Showtime Nanny Scam 00:11:38
She looks non-threatening.
She looks like somebody you want to root for.
Yeah, she's super charming.
And then when you listen to her talk about it, and you, the podcast is a good job because you hired an actress to read the Amanda blog posts.
And the actress does a great job.
She sounds super bubbly and she sounds like someone you'd want to know and like maybe go out for dinner with.
And then you also intersperse the real Amanda because you have her on tape repeatedly speaking to the church group, speaking to others.
And she too is, she's just like the actress playing her, super bubbly and so on and very, very knowledgeable about cancer, cancer drugs, you know, experimental treatments.
Here's just a little, this is all from Scamanda podcast of the actual Amanda talking about a new cancer drug.
It's Soundbite 4.
I've been fighting stage 4 blood cancer for the past three years to the point that doctors don't want to treat me anymore.
They developed a new drug, immunotherapy, and they wanted to give it a try on me.
We've been warring and praying and fundraising.
And the doctor, you know, told me that I like your positivity, but you need to understand that in your situation, this drug working would be like rain in California.
Sorry, I'm laughing, but that's my favorite, one of my favorite when she says like rain in California, because she comes up with these like poetic quips.
Yeah, she actually does.
If you listen to the whole thing, she's good with the phrases.
She's good at sort of spinning a yarn in a way that's very believable.
So she's out there.
It's starting to grow.
She winds up with Corey, the husband of the family who she was supposed to be there helping.
And then the relationship goes downhill between Amanda Corey and now the ex-wife, Alita, who's the mother of the two girls.
And this is important because Alita, as many ex-wives who are in custody battles over their children, does not wind up really feeling all that great about Amanda.
And Amanda and Corey want full custody of the daughters.
And Alita's angry about it.
And Alita is paying attention.
And Alita's noticing she doesn't, I'm not sure this woman's on the up and up.
And one of her daughters is starting to have the same feeling from inside the family, not the one who had cancer, Jamie, the other daughter, Jessa.
But it's hard for them to really be heard because she's disgruntled.
She's the ex-wife.
You know, it's, and then you've got the sunny, cheery thousand watt smile.
Poor me, I have cancer on the others.
Nobody wants to look at the sweet cancer victim and say like, you don't have it.
I believe the bitter ex-wife, which is how they portrayed the ex.
Yeah.
There's so much in that around human behavior, which is what I find so fascinating.
Like I love psychology and how complex we are, because I think there's so many possibilities in between good and bad.
But I think we like to put them in those, for want of a better phrase buckets, because it helps us identify people or maybe feel safer.
But if you look at the way you, you described it perfectly, Megan.
Because if you look at Amanda yes very, very to me the typical um manipulation master, manipulator they're not horrible as in how we would perceive aggressive horrible.
They're not this big bad monster that comes up to you in the street.
They're somebody who is very, very charming.
That's how they um manipulate and get through the situation.
And then you've got somebody like Alita, who and it really is um, in all seriousness, awful.
What happened to Alita?
Because Jessa got taken off Alita for a year like I can't even imagine what that must feel like for a mother.
And and then, to top that off, Amanda and Amanda were, and Corey were influencing Jessa to make her turn against her mother.
And what?
What do we expect Alita to portray herself like?
Like a charming happy, smiley person?
No, of course not.
So she is yeah yeah oh, it's okay, like she's not going to.
So then she is desperate and heartbroken and and hurt and absolutely devastated.
But then that gets perceived as like the ex, you know, like you said the disgruntled ex-wife.
And then Amanda used that to play into the narrative, you know, she's just, she's just jealous of me.
Because then when Alita did start to say, you know she's faking cancer, why would then they believe the ex-wife?
Because Amanda had already spun the yarn of the fact that she was not a good mom.
She was doing x, y and z, she was um, you know, doing all these things, basically trying to portray her as a bad character.
So then you've got this woman who's smiley, charming Amanda i'm talking about, and now she's got cancer.
That's so awful and she's just trying to protect her, her stepdaughter and her family and from the big bad mom.
So you can see how convincing it became when you talk about it like that.
And you know, I think we've got to remember that there was a child in the middle of this, poor Jessa, who spent, you know, I i've spoken to her a lot and she's in the podcast and she feels.
She feels not only horrifically betrayed and violated, but that was her upbringing.
She was lied to her whole upbringing, her whole childhood, and she feels guilty though, for what Amanda did, because on the receiving end of some of the gifts and the kindness of people was Jessa.
Jessa got free tennis lessons, she got meals, she got um to go and see concerts, she got to appear, you know to, she got to go to sports games.
So she did receive some of that and she feels guilty because she was taking that in a, in an, you know, on under the premise of a lie but obviously didn't realize.
So you know there's a lot of deep yeah, deep complications of relationships here and and it's so much more than money.
In fact, to me, money doesn't even, when I spoke to so many people, money wasn't the thing.
Even people, so many people spoke to me off the record because they were scared of Amanda and what she might do to them.
And it was, it was just about the betrayal.
It couldn't have been about the money because if you look at what the feds say she stole, I mean, she defrauded people out of, it was $105,000 over what?
Seven years, I think.
So that's $12,000 a year.
That's not enough.
Like that's that, it can't have been about the money.
It has to, as you point out, have been about attention.
You describe her almost as like having celebrity status in San Jose, in particular in her church.
And on top of that, it seems like she used it to make other people do her mothering, take care of her household, hold responsibilities.
That I've seen as a pattern in other cases because I'm obsessed with cases like this.
So I absolutely love like the stories about Munchausen by proxy or all that stuff.
But like they use it to make other people do their responsibility.
So poor Jess is over there.
And somebody else is going to have to make Jess's dinner because Amanda's too sick.
Yeah.
And you said about the $105,000.
It wasn't about the money, but also it's important to point out that the way of the law's very black and white, right?
Our justice system.
So the only way that they could get Amanda criminally was for wire fraud, because technically it's not, you know, you can lie.
I could sit here and lie and not be arrested.
It's not illegal to lie.
Even though it obviously has a horrific impact on people, that's not against the law.
So they had to find a way to get her legally.
And the only way was wire fraud.
So if she hadn't, and that was because she did like a an online fund page, like a GoFundMe.
So that's how they managed to criminally charge her.
Now, if she'd have not done it online, where she'd have just collected money through check and through cash, she would not be in prison.
I've just given her away where she's now.
But yeah.
So she would have got away with it because, yeah, because there was lots of money.
So there was so much more money, but it was cash and checks.
And I've got a picture of her in church and she was part of a mega church.
So think how many thousands of people that are.
That is.
That's not just a couple of hundred people.
That's thousands.
And they're putting money and throwing money at her feet on stage.
So then you think, well, how much money was that?
And then how much money over that seven years, Megan, did she collect in cash and check?
Never mind what you said in kind, which was through babysitting.
And there was a lot of patterns of babysitting when she said she was in hospital and Corey was with her.
So I don't know, well, I mean, she actually was in hospital because she took loads of pictures of herself in hospital.
But there was people that were trying to help her, babysitting, cleaning, cooking meals, gifting things, raising money for her.
Even there was somebody who gave a nutritional supplement every month so she could just go on and membership to like a nutritional supplement.
So every month she could order as much as she wanted.
So how much did that come to over seven years?
So I think there was so much more, but none of that counted as a criminal charge.
It was just the wire fraud, which makes you think, oh my gosh, how do people, how does that, I don't know, maybe we should change the law.
Okay, so That is a hell of a lot of people.
HBO Max, Prime Video, Sky Showtime, you name it.
Oh, that's not the same thing.
One of the great moments in the podcast is where you interview the nanny to the family, to you know, the Corey Amanda family.
The Restraining Order Moment 00:15:28
And at one point, the nanny talks about how she had a wealthy friend who wanted to help Amanda, and the person made a donation of like 50 bucks.
And Amanda was mad and mocked the donation to the nanny.
And that's one of those, like, oh, that veils down moments where, like, she's bad.
She's bad.
No, no one would ever mock a donation from anybody helping anybody with cancer.
But there are these little clues there where you start to see who she really is.
She's not the sweet, bright smile, lovely.
She's a fraudster.
She is a fraudster.
And we wouldn't know had it not been for Nancy.
So, Nancy, the investigative reporter, is fun to listen to.
She's almost a co-host in the podcast.
And she also wrestled with her doubts.
Like, I know she's a scammer, but is she a scammer?
She says so many things that seem legit.
So, here's a little bit of Nancy Mazcatello from the podcast talking about her trying to deal with this and how she got sort of involved.
So, this is Sat 3.
I felt really torn more so with: is this real or not?
Does she have cancer or not?
So, every time I would read something, I'd say, Oh no, she's got cancer.
Like, look at this photo.
Like, she, this is intense looking.
This looks like, yeah, she has cancer.
And then I would read on a little bit further and I'd go, Oh, no, she doesn't have cancer.
The detail and the energy and everything that went into it just felt really real.
So, I start looking through the bankruptcy documents, and there's just pages and pages of debt.
I figured the best place to start is going through and see what that debt's all about.
And there's not one doctor, one medical expense, it's just all dead.
That was an exciting moment, too, because Amanda had to file for bankruptcy.
Nancy actually went and looked at the filings.
Like, what's in there?
Are there an actual cancer victim would have had lots of doctors' bills?
And that's, I think, for Nancy and for the audience, that's a big aha moment.
Yeah, there's also this document.
It just reminded me when I first saw it.
That I'm trying to remember the figures now.
It was like a one in front of a 0-5 or something, and or a zero or a 2-5.
And If you look at the bank, we held it up to the light and it was doctored.
So it was actually for like 2,500 or something like that.
And it was to do with, because Amanda ended up having two boys to Corey and it was to do with her pregnancy, but she'd put a one in front of it and done it as if it was for her cancer treatment.
But they claimed bankruptcy several times.
And in the podcast, there's a moment where you hear both of them take the stand and swear under oath and talk about their bankruptcy.
And I was like trying to get hold of that audio for ages and ages because it was a really key point.
And to me, it also pointed about, I have to be careful what I say, but further knowledge of what was happening, not just with Amanda herself, because it was like...
You can say, you say, I can tell you, I've, in my opinion, Corey knew everything.
In my opinion, Corey is guilty too.
And that's one of the mysteries people have to decide for themselves in listening to the podcast whether the husband knew.
But my opinion is he clearly knew and helped her.
How else was he taking these trips to the hospital with her out of town for days where we now know she was not in any hospital?
And he, well, she did.
What the crazy thing about all this is she did go to hospital.
Like she did go to clinical trials.
She did see doctors.
She did sit in hospital and take photos of herself pucked up to IV machines.
There's a picture right in front of your screen now.
She did do these things.
So she wasn't sat behind a keyboard like a keyboard warrior, just putting out this narrative.
She actually did spend her time in hospitals taking selfies.
And I would just want to pick up on what you said about Corey.
So again, remember what we're talking about with the justice system.
Just because you haven't been convicted of something doesn't mean that you didn't do it.
It's just the bar of evidence with our justice system is so high.
And if you listen to the podcast carefully, I planted some things there on purpose.
And one of them was the bankruptcy because they both swear under oath and talk about it.
And the other one is Nancy.
I'm sure you'll want to talk about this, Megan, but Amanda was taken to court by Nancy for civil harassment.
So Amanda tried to sue Nancy.
Vice versa.
Yeah, yeah.
Amanda tried to sue Nancy.
That's a crazy thing.
Yeah.
And Corey, again, took the stand and said that he was at every appointment with Amanda.
So there's lots of little things that I dot in on purpose.
If you listen to carefully, that will give you clues that maybe I'm not allowed to say outright.
Yeah.
Well, the beauty of, you know, being an American, now you are, is you can offer your opinion and that's, it's protected as free speech.
And that is 100% my opinion.
So, but let's talk about that.
I'm learning about the, yeah, I know the UK has much stricter rules about the lawsuit.
So Nancy is on to Amanda.
She's on to her.
She got the anonymous tip.
She starts looking into this woman's blog.
She starts noticing things like the hospital gown she's posting photos of doesn't actually match up with that hospital.
She notices little things.
She's a smart reporter and starts sniffing around her, starts talking to the ex-wife, Alita, who's got other info.
And crazy ass Amanda sues Nancy.
She tries to get a restraining, or that's how crazy this woman was.
Normally, like if a reporter's onto you, most people probably give it up, just like close up your scam and move to another town.
She goes on offense against the investigative journalist and actually drags her into court, trying to get a restraining order against her, all while in role.
I'm a cancer victim.
This lunatic reporter is after me and now completely upends poor Nancy's life to the point where you don't know how the judge is going to rule in this court proceeding, whether he's going to see the truth, what we think is the truth going into this episode, or whether he's going to actually restrain Nancy from any further reporting on Amanda.
Yeah, I mean, I was just listening to when you were explaining it because I think I understand, right?
This might sound weird, but I understand why Amanda did that.
If you get into her head a little bit, which is what I was trying to do, and I don't know what this says about me, but without putting myself across in the wrong way, because if you've lied that long and you've got so many people adoring you and she did, like I said, she was a local celebrity.
People knew her name and knew her story.
She's not going to stand there and run away or take it.
She's in too deep.
So I suppose what do you do when you're in too deep?
You know, you go on the offense.
So she attacked.
She did sue Nancy.
She tried to.
She got a restraining order out against her.
And she accused Nancy of civil harassment.
And it could have, in a way, gone either way, because something I try and show in the podcast is, well, Nancy did call people.
She did try and find out information.
So what the thing about Amanda does that's so clever because Amanda is very clever.
She uses some of the truth to try and showcase that because she said, you know, Nancy was harassing and Nancy was calling people.
Nancy was calling family members.
Not as much as Amanda made out, but Nancy kind of was.
So you do wonder, like, oh my gosh, and could she try and shut her up?
And because Nancy was part of the press, then obviously the laws here do protect, as you said, freedom of press.
And so, but it was on a fine line.
And imagine if that would have happened.
And, you know, that was like two days of Nancy's time, never mind of six months of preparation and $200,000 as well of a court case.
And that would have ruined a lot of people.
And Nancy's worked in true crime for a long time, but Amanda could have ruined her reputation.
So you can see how deep this goes.
But she turns up the heat and then she turns up the heat again.
Because at that point, that's when the local police started looking into her.
And instead of stepping away, she goes forward.
So her MO in a way is to turn the heat up, to attack again, to go in even deeper.
And I do honestly believe it's because she kind of believes her own narrative and is in too deep to be able to step away.
And I'm not going to label her, because one thing I did want to point out, actually, I don't want to go on a tangent, but I did really want to point this out is you mentioned Munchausen syndrome.
And there's Munchausen by internet.
And one of the things I didn't do, which people have questioned, is I didn't talk about Amanda's mental health at all.
And the reason why is because it was never brought up by the police in the case, by her defense, in the sentencing, in any place at all.
So I thought it was really important that I didn't go and diagnose her because this is also kind of textbook narcissist behavior.
It's compulsive lying.
And I've, you know, we can get to it, but I have spoken to Amanda.
I have met her.
I've had conversations with her.
And I genuinely believe that she believes her own lies in a way, maybe not an unconscious level, but definitely somewhere on a, you know, conscious level or convincing herself otherwise.
And when somebody does that, my point is that they're not going to walk away and they're not going to hide.
They're just going to go forward and make themselves the victim.
And that's what she did.
I mean, to the point of lying under oath in a bogus court proceeding against a reporter, that's like, now you really are, you know, you're compounding crime with more crime.
You know, you can be arrested for that too.
She's lucky she wasn't prosecuted for that.
Corey, too, for that matter.
So you mentioned the detective who ultimately Nancy goes to and tries to get interested in this in San Jose because, you know, what's the point of all this other than, you know, there needs to be accountability.
And this guy gets frustrated too.
Like he, he also is trying to figure this out and call people's attention to it.
You'd think once it's in the hand of the police in San Jose, it's nearly over, but it's not.
But here's just a little from the podcast on Detective Martinez trying to figure out whether she actually had attended this hospital, City of Hope, that she posted on.
Detective Martinez was waiting for a call back from City of Hope to confirm Amanda was a patient there.
I sent them the blog that Nancy had sent me.
They took a while to get back to me, like a week.
So they gave me an email basically saying, no, she's not a patient.
She's never been a patient.
And that was from their legal department.
And I got chills because I was finally after all these calls or all these emails, all these phone conversations, I have her.
I know she's a fraudster now.
And Charlie, just that moment, right, it was so big because one of the things you do a great job of outlining is HIPAA prevented the investigation of Amanda time and time again.
So just to get the one letter from the one hospital saying, no, she's never been a patient here was huge.
Yeah, it was huge.
HIPAA laws protected.
So one, we talked about wire fraud.
So how do you actually get somebody?
And Amanda's case was the first in its history in America.
It was the first of its kind in ever in IRS history.
And I have found out since the podcast release that the podcast is now being used as an example for other police in different states, basically.
And I know there's another case going on somewhere else at the moment.
And it's being used to help them build a case, which is amazing that we could tell this story and do that because it's so hard.
Because again, like I said, you can't put somebody behind bars for lying.
And she was protected by HIPAA laws.
So you couldn't access her medical records.
So what Detective Martinez had to do was try and ask questions in a way that wasn't giving away her medical history.
And that was one of them.
Like, okay, was she a patient here?
Because she said on her blog.
So it's like cross-referencing her blog and exactly where she was.
She said she was a patient here.
So can you at least just tell me whether she was a patient there?
And because at one point they were both Nancy.
So Nancy became a source for Detective Martinez.
And then it just hit a dead end every time because they couldn't access the basic thing was to show whether she had cancer or not.
But then you think if she didn't have, if she did have cancer, then you would just, if somebody, you know, accused me, I'd just present them with my medical records, right?
So, but again, that there's no evidence, even if she didn't, that's still not hard evidence.
And Detective Martinez did make contact with her.
And this is a funny story.
And again, shows her behavior.
And said, oh, you know, can you send me your medical records?
And she was like, yes, no problem.
And so she actually marched herself down to the police station with an envelope full of her documents with doctor's letters in them.
Real doctor's letters.
The other interesting thing, and I'm coming from someone who wasn't raised in this culture.
So in the UK, we have the NHS and the National Health Service, and our medical records are one.
So I can go to a hospital in London, and then I can go to a hospital in the north of England, completely nothing to do with the London hospital.
Clinical Trial Honor System 00:14:56
And my medical records will, you know, they'll be able to access exactly the same thing.
Whereas in the States, you can go to a different state and a different hospital and nobody knows that you've just been in that other hospital.
So she would go from one hospital to another hospital and to one, you know, accident and emergency to another accident and emergency.
So then nobody ever connected the dots because you don't share medical records.
I think that is something that's changing actually in the state of California.
So that's how she's got.
That's how she got real medical records because she was faking it even with the doctors and in emergency rooms.
Yeah, because she would, so that's how she did it, which I think is important to talk about because a lot of people are like, but how, how?
And again, when I was speaking to all the people involved in her story, her friends or former friends, some still believed her at the time.
So I had to be very careful, especially because Nancy was depicted as this, like the enemy now, this person who was vindictively going after this poor woman who's got cancer.
So I had to be so careful and be really independent when I was speaking to people because a lot of people still believed her.
And it was because she, people had seen her in hospital.
People had gone to visit her.
So they're like, well, no, it could be.
I'd seen her.
From the hospital in the middle of the next night.
She was definitely in the bed.
Exactly.
So you're like, who would you believe, Megan?
I think I'd probably believe Amanda because I've seen her.
I've sat by her bedside.
I've seen the IV tubes in her arm.
I've seen the hundreds and hundreds of selfies, her shaved head losing her hair.
There you go.
The oxygen tube in her nose.
You know, she collapsed and fainted in church and wet herself and was taken off by an ambulance.
To me, that is proof and evidence of what this woman is saying.
So that's how complex and deep it was.
She flew to New York to a clinical trial.
That's what she said, but she did fly there.
And yeah, she went to.
So what if she did?
She walks in like, hey, I'm here for the clinical trial too.
And they give her the medicine, even though she doesn't have cancer.
No, I don't think she took part in the whole thing, but I think she definitely went.
Well, I know she definitely went to meet the consultant.
She signed up.
And yes, she got that far.
Oh, my God.
Which is amazing.
You point out in the podcast, it's like kind of disturbingly easy to get admitted into the hospital and to get medical supplies.
Like there's, you know, where does the doctor's office get its medical supplies?
There are stores you can walk into.
You can buy an oxygen tank.
You can do all sorts of things to make yourself look like you're actually in a medical facility.
Yeah.
And please don't do this.
Don't use this as our conversation to go and do this.
I was just thinking about that.
But yes, there's no instruction manual.
No, please.
Yeah, I, you know, I could go on the internet now.
I had a look.
I could go on the internet and I could order everything I needed to make it look like I wasn't very well.
I could order a wheelchair.
I could order an oxygen tube.
You know, I could order bandages.
You can order anything.
And you can also walk into an accident and emergency room and get help.
You can say that you're dehydrated because you've got, you know, you're having chemotherapy.
You could say that you weren't feeling very well and they're not going to say, no, let me check your records to make sure you have cancer.
They're going to treat you for what you're, not for the cancer, but they're going to treat you for dehydration, for example.
Yeah, it's an honor system.
I mean, we're not, this isn't such a huge problem that the doctors and nurses are now like, oh, we've got to make sure she's really got the cancer because this is a thing.
Yeah, and it's an honor system.
And it was, it was pretty easy for her to get these pictures, as it turns out.
But Nancy noticed something that was pretty telling about all these blog posts.
And this is where smart investigative journalism comes in.
Not what was there, but what wasn't there.
Here's Soundbite 6.
One thing I noticed right away is Amanda would talk about facilities or names of the places she was going, but there was never any mention of the actual doctors or nurses or the people, you know, that were basically saving her life on a daily basis.
It was always very generic.
And that stood out to me as strange.
Right.
Because it's a different matter altogether when you say it was this doctor by name who treated me.
Now it's a lot easier to check.
Yeah, there was things like you could zoom in in some of the pictures and see logos and you're like, hang on, does that logo match with where she says she is?
No, it doesn't.
You mentioned the hospital gowns.
And the other thing that I looked at was there's a picture of some pill bottles.
And I didn't notice this until halfway through making it, to be honest.
And I zoomed in and I was like, because I was cross-referencing things and I was like, oh my God, there's a different name on that pill bottle, but she turned it.
So you could only see like it, but it was a man's name.
You could see the first few letters.
So again, it's just, it was just very well, very detailed and very well, yeah, orchestrated.
You put out a, like a mashup of some of her lies, the actual Amanda, not the actress reading the blogs, to promote the podcast.
I've got to play it for the audience as it's entertaining and it gives them a feel for just the number of things she said.
Here's Soundbite 1.
I'm a stage four refractory blood cancer patient.
I'm still a patient.
I'm a four-time relapse.
I'm in a clinical trial right now.
I still have active cancer.
Technically a survivor too.
I'm in the hospital a lot of the time.
So I'm traveling to New York for my clinical trial.
No, I'm a terminal patient.
I'm in a clinical trial just trying to buy more time.
I have a website.
So anybody interested in learning more about my story, just supportamanda.com.
So anybody who wants to go on there and follow my story and root me on, I love prayers and happy thoughts and anything else.
Oh my God, Charlie.
It's so good.
Oh, God, we had a laugh making that.
I couldn't stop laughing.
I've seen that a million times and it still makes me laugh.
And I'm still laughing.
So well done.
There is obviously like a seriousness under it, but you just, when you look at that, you it kind of fits home, I think, and puts it into perspective.
Her reference there to I'm sure I'm a terminal patient reminds me of another strain in the show, which is about how she did infiltrate actual cancer support groups.
I mean, this is where it's sick.
And was working with the American Cancer Society on, like, you know, not fundraisers for her exactly, if memory serves, but just sort of, you know, let's beat cancer type events.
And they didn't know either.
You know, you, in their defense, they don't, again, it's the honor system.
If you go to them and say, I have stage four Hodgkin's lymphoma, they believe you.
They don't ask for medical records to make sure.
And she took advantage of all these good hearts.
Yeah, she really did.
And I think we've got to be careful that we don't end up living in a totally cynical system where because a few people, and Detective Martinez actually said this to me, well, they should have checked, or the church should have checked, and where's their protocol?
And I was like, well, should they though?
Because I don't know, I'm a survivor myself of abuse.
And I would hate to be questioned like that because we do live in a culture where we still sadly blame the victim.
And you shouldn't need, you shouldn't, for the people that genuinely need help, I think is what I'm trying to say.
To walk in somewhere in these amazing charities and non-for-profit organizations that do help so many people, you shouldn't have to go through a checklist and show your medical records or prove that something's happened to you.
I think that's a really awful and sad world.
So I don't think it should be on them or on any, because a lot of the people who I spoke to were like, you know, I don't consider myself a naive person.
Like, I'm not stupid.
I don't understand why, why I was taken in by this.
And I'm like, no, no, no, you're thinking about it all wrong.
It's not Hodgkin's, it's not the American Cancer Society's fault.
It's not the Hodgkin's lymphoma society's fault.
It's not the church's fault.
These people or the people that were victimized by her, these people are just that good.
Groomers and manipulators are that good.
They infiltrate society and do these things and spin a narrative as this charming and lovely person that's helping people.
And to go to your point, is well, she did fundraise and help people.
She even sent cancer patients packages because she said, I know what it feels like and I know what you need, which is obviously a lie, but she did send care packages to people that needed them.
So you're like, what's so fascinating about her is she was inspirational.
She did stand on stage.
She did offer hope to people, even though it was a lie.
But at the time, it inspired people.
It gave people hope in a situation that, you know, this was coming in, you know, but the back end of this was coming into COVID times.
And, you know, she inspired people and raised money for people.
So it's very conflicting.
It's one of the worst parts of it because it's like inspiration that you then find out is totally false and this is a fraudster is like you're going to be more cynical.
You just can't help it.
The IRS is ultimately who got her.
So, you know, we just had on the show these two IRS agents, these whistleblowers who investigated Hunter Biden.
And these guys know the law forward and backward.
They know exactly what you can and cannot do when it comes to raising money, wire fraud, all of it.
I mean, you do not want to get sideways with IRS agents.
And that's ultimately who got her.
The feds got her.
So they looked into this for a long, long time, got all the records, and ultimately brought her to court.
And we don't need to speculate or couch whether she did it because she admitted it.
Ultimately, she pleaded guilty.
She admitted she never had cancer.
The whole thing was a fraud.
And she got one of the most remarkable prison sentences for something like this that we've ever seen.
Yeah, she got five years in federal prison with no appeal.
And it was Special Agent Lee.
I'd love to give her a mention from the IRS, who's amazing, who ended up taking her down, obviously, with the information from Detective Martinez and then backing that with the information that Nancy had collected and given to the police.
Now, the thing about that is it became very personal for these people.
So again, you look at a few people, oh, it wasn't a lot of money.
And it's like, that's not the point.
For Agent Lee, we've all been affected by cancer in some way, whether it's through ourselves or our family and through a loved one or a friend.
And so Detective Martinez, it became very personal.
How could somebody do this?
She could be asking money from my family.
And then Special Agent Lee had someone close to her who had cancer.
And she was like, how can somebody do this?
So I think it was very emotionally driven, which I think is important to point out.
But you know, Megan, you said about her saying that she didn't have cancer.
Now, now, this is what I find.
So I looked into this really closely and I played out the statement in the podcast on purpose, the full statement, because I wanted to showcase you exactly what she was like.
This is the statement she made to the court, read by actor Kendall Horne.
Your honor, there aren't enough words to adequately express how horrific I feel and how sorry I am that this happened.
My heart aches every day, thinking that I did something that hurt other people.
This is the worst thing I've ever done and the worst mistake I could have made.
I don't sleep well at night because this haunts me daily.
I was there in the sentencing and I met her, I watched it.
And so I worked really closely with the actress Kendall, who I brought on board to try and mimic exactly that.
So we had, you know, we were stood in this room recording and I was mimicking her, her body language.
Kendall was copying me because she didn't actually say that she never had cancer.
And she actually didn't, yeah, she pled guilty in the end.
Initially, she didn't.
Initially, she didn't plead guilty until the very, very end until she was backed into a corner where she had to because they had proof, like physical proof that she didn't have cancer.
But again, I find that so interesting.
The reason why I bring that up is because I have spoke to her and she thinks that she was victimized and she was targeted by Nancy and Alita.
Oh my lord, still?
Yes.
Tell it to your cellmate.
Okay, the jig is up, Amanda.
I hate to tell you you've been caught and your guilty plea tells us everything we need to know.
So she's off.
It is a big sentence and it's a great sentence.
It's a totally appropriate sentence.
So the husband gets no charges for the reasons that you mentioned earlier, but they have two boys.
And what happens now?
Like, did they stay, are they still together?
She's in prison until, what, 27?
Yeah, it's a good point you made, actually, about the sentence.
I'd love to bring that up because the recommended sentence was 12 to 18 months.
So you can see how hard the judge went on her.
Five years.
And that was in a courthouse in San Jose, which I believe you could probably inform me more is fairly liberal.
Sentenced for Pure Damage 00:05:37
So I think it was really unexpected.
And I remember sitting in the court and everybody just gasped, even the, you know, even the prosecutors, because I didn't think they thought that would happen.
And I feel like the judge was like, no, I can see through you.
And we need to show that this is not acceptable and it's not okay.
Yes.
And the people that you've hurt.
And again, you know, we talk, I find the law very interesting because it's very old-fashioned in a way.
It's very adversarial where it's about, you know, I don't know, belongings, money, you've stolen my property, this is mine, et cetera, et cetera.
And less about behavior, which is why it's harder sometimes to convict these crimes.
But I thought that was really important sentence to show that these things are serious.
They might not be your typical thing.
And a lot of it is an emotional trauma and damage, but that is as valuable, if not more, than materials.
So she did get five years in prison.
She's actually got a slight early release.
I think it's, there's about 10 months off the last time I checked.
I presume that's for good behavior.
She's been in prison since September of last year, 2022.
Megan, you asked me about the boys.
Yes, she's got two young boys.
They are with her father, their father, Corey.
And I believe the parents are, as in Amanda's parents are also helping look after the children.
But then you've also got a, you know, there's Jessa, who we mentioned.
And that was the daughter who, that's Corey's daughter and Alita's daughter, who Amanda, they did get custody of for a year, who they called her bonus daughter.
Amanda, they have this like weird thing for names.
Yeah.
Mergle baby, bonus daughter.
Merkle baby, bonus daughter.
I mean, Amanda's mum referred to herself as goddess.
I mean, that's me.
She's a questionable character.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So you got to think about these two young boys who thought that their mom was dying.
I mean, at one point, Jessa.
Right.
Thank you for raising that.
That's another thing.
You feel like, oh my God, she led her own children to believe that their mother had cancer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's when you start to go, okay.
Like, what?
Right, because sick person.
Yeah, because at one point.
Not in the way she claims.
Yes, exactly.
They've got these two boys and Jessa.
And at one point, the three of them were told that they might have to donate some of their own, you know, organs or blood and platelets, bone marrow for her.
There was no reason to do that.
Like that didn't bring him more money, you know?
What was the reason behind doing that?
I mean, and also at one point, she she was given money for a funeral that she'd planned.
Like it goes.
So I'm kind of like, I feel like I'm stuttering, but purely out of trying to, trying to bring to the audience, to your audience, how deep this went.
This was so much more than, you know, we called it scam and it goes back to the question you asked me in the beginning, Megan, and you started talking about the title and giving things away.
And to me, the reason why I was like iffy with the name, because the name is brilliant and amazing and clever, was purely because it, to me, it's so much more than a scam.
Yeah, it is.
I mean, you get into like the harm she did to her own children, the psychological damage.
And speaking of psychological damage, none of hers has been addressed.
She's not getting the help she needs in federal prison.
And so when she gets out, what do you think is going to happen?
I mean, I think she's going to go back to it.
I really do.
I think she's going to perpetrate another scam because it's inside of her.
She did it for too many years.
You know, she's pathological, this woman.
What do you think?
Million dollar question, right?
Because I suppose that's why I brought up that she, I don't think she believes that on a, I know this might sound like on a surface level.
I don't, you know, you know, deep down, she might know, but, you know, we can separate ourselves, can't we?
And convince ourselves of things.
I think we've all done that to an extent.
Obviously, nothing like this.
But I always think of like relatable behavior to try and understand, which I think is important because it helps you maybe predict of whether somebody is safe or not.
And if she doesn't think she's really done something wrong and she feels like she's been a victim of this kind of witch hunt again from Nancy and Alita, then how could she possibly not, if she doesn't think it's wrong, how can she then redeem herself and change?
Exactly.
So that a lot of people think that she will.
And I must tell you this, because when she was sentenced, she was originally raised in California and she was sentenced in San Jose and she perpetrated her scam, let's say, in San Jose, in Northern California.
But then she moved to Texas afterwards before she went to prison.
And we found out that she was going into hospitals even after she was sentenced because there was a gap of about, I'd say, three or four months before she went in prison.
San Jose to Texas Prison 00:05:40
So I mean, what does that tell you?
And I was kind of shocked myself, even though I shouldn't have been because I spent so much time looking into this and making this show.
And then, you know, it does beg the question of, well, is she was still doing it after she was sentenced and called out and going into hospitals.
But she also thinks that she's not, she thinks there is, she says there is something wrong and then people don't know the full story.
So I think that's why the judge put her in prison for so long and gave her a five-year sentence because the judge said, I don't, I believe you're a threat to public safety because I believe you're going to do this again.
And even when I spoke to what I also find quite surprising with the people I interviewed was how forgiving they were.
I don't think personally I would have been as forgiving or as kind.
You know, some people really, you know, shows all these people in the faith community who are generally forgiving to begin with.
I wanted to say two things.
Number one, you've got to listen to the podcast to find out the extraordinary job that Amanda had and was promoted to during the midst of all of this.
I mean, if you think it's not happening in any town that you would ever frequent, think again.
It could be closer than you think.
So I'll leave that as a tease for the podcast.
And the second thing is, this is a reminder to be very careful about those online GoFundMes.
You know, like be careful before you, if you want to help people with cancer, you could consider St. Jude's.
You could consider making a donation to the American Cancer Society, but you should look at them too, just to make sure there's an online charity website that will tell you how many dollars, how many cents of the dollar that you donate goes to actually help victims, as opposed to like line the pockets of the charity organizers.
And those, I always check those before I make a donation.
And I have to say, I almost never support a GoFundMe because I've just seen too many of these stories.
It's also why I don't give money to homeless people on the street.
You know, like there is an unhealthy percentage of those folks who are scamming too.
If you want to help, there are actual organizations who will make sure the money gets to the right person and people who are really suffering.
Nothing's foolproof.
But, you know, randomly going to supportamanda.com is not a good idea, as the podcast makes really clear.
And you know, you like, it just made me think about this era we're in as well with social media and what you can put out there.
You have to be careful what you believe and what you see.
But then I just feel so sad listening to you because I'm like, oh, God, maybe I'm just being too empathetic.
But I just feel sad that we're in that situation where you won't donate to a GoFundMe page because you're questioning whether that person's lying or not.
And then there's people that really do need support and help because I don't think it's as, you know, misfortune isn't something we necessarily bring on ourselves.
You might be brought up in a really tough environment.
You know, you might, a lot of people that are on the street is through domestic abuse or through divorce.
But again, you know, who do you know who's real and really needs help and who doesn't?
And then Amanda just make this Samanda story.
I didn't want it to be a case where you then start to doubt people.
But hopefully a way that can showcase these behaviors because there are red flags that you can look out for and there are genuine people.
Yeah.
I mean, you don't want to get to the point where somebody's like, I need a month leave of absence because I have some hideous cancer diagnosis.
And you're like, I'm going to need to see a note from your doctor.
Bob does have cancer.
Okay.
All right.
Now, you know, that's not how we've operated in our society.
And this problem's not so ubiquitous.
We need to change that.
But when it comes to actually donating your money, do be careful.
We, Yahoo, responding to the huge popularity of Scamanda podcast.
Again, everybody should listen to it.
It's such a good summer podcast.
You know, like you want something that's like, again, it's not frivolous, as we've been discussing.
It's quite serious, but Charlie does such a good job of presenting it in a kind of fun way, for lack of a better word.
You'll enjoy it.
In any event, it got their attention.
And they went on to talk about some of the many, many examples of people who have done this over the last few years who have been caught.
Just to tick off a couple, TikToker, Madison Russo, arrested, charged with defrauding 439 people out of more than $37,000 after she faked a cancer diagnosis.
19 years old said she had acute lymphoblastic leukemia, stage two pancreatic cancer, and a tumor the size of a football.
She was caught after people with a background in medicine pointed out discrepancy in her story.
Taiwanese fitness instructor, Mian Bobo, confessed she'd lied about having late stage pancreatic cancer for three years.
She too posted photos of IVs, the hospital, her alleged hair loss, just like Scamanda.
Her ruse was up after a man who said he was her ex-husband revealed it was a lie.
Rhode Island woman Sarah Jane Cavanaugh pretended to be a former Marine with cancer, received more than $280,000 in donations and benefits over five years before she was caught in 2022.
This person went all in, said she was wounded by an IED in Iraq, developed cancer from the burn pits.
She got nearly six years in federal prison.
I mean, we could keep going.
So beware.
Come on, people.
You know, God, how do you think it makes people feel that really do have cancer and that have lost people from cancer?
Bonus Episodes and Thanks 00:03:49
Why would you ever want to use that as a thing?
But again, that's why they get away with it.
Well, maybe not because we've just read people that haven't.
So clearly they're not anymore, which is great.
But it's again, using that cancer ruse because you're not going to question somebody who says they've got cancer because it's awful.
So I think I'm sure you're already considering this because the show is such a success.
I think part two, you got to find these other people.
Like we need more stories just like this.
You know, it doesn't necessarily have to be one that hasn't been out there, but I would 100% listen to a podcast about this TikToker, Madison Russo, and how she did.
Like, what's act two going to be for you now?
Because you got to keep this going somehow.
I know.
I mean, I'm not short of stories.
I've actually had so many people contact me that have had stories like this.
Or actually, there's a few people that I've looked into that haven't been caught yet.
And I'm seeing if there's something I can do around, yeah, where there's like evidence gathering or people are suspicious.
So I'm having a look into a few things.
But yeah, if people have a story or want me to look into something, then please, along this line, then definitely please contact me.
You can contact me by my website or social media.
But yes, I do have a little thing up my sleeve.
Because again, people, people absolutely loved and really did enjoy it, which, you know, I'm so grateful for because I think, you know, you all know Megan, but I think people sometimes don't realize how much work goes in behind the scenes to put these things together.
And, you know, it took a long time.
And then to see and hear it being, I don't know, appreciated and received in the way it has just means everything because I can create something.
And if you don't hear it and get this response, then it doesn't really mean anything.
And then it was funny because so many people have told me now different stories about Amanda.
And I did record a few bonus episodes.
I listened.
Oh my God.
I was like, I have to tell this story.
And there was this poor teacher who actually left her teaching career because of Amanda.
I'll say no more.
And gosh, in the end, I was like, please, please go back into teaching.
And actually, somebody messaged me earlier in the week who was like, if this woman, she was anonymous, I can't say her name, because she was slightly concerned because she's still in the community.
And believe it or not, there are still a few people supporting Amanda in that community.
Yes, exactly.
But the bonus episodes make one thing clear.
They remind me of something that I've known, which is people who do this kind of thing tend to have a long history of dishonesty.
It's if you just dig a little, you know, you go, you went back to her college years and those are, I'll leave that as a tease.
But there was a man I knew in New York City who was accused of not being a Bernie Madoff, but being like a mini Madoff.
And they, it turned out this guy had, he tried, he was trying to pass to get it.
I think it's called the Series 7 exam, where you get your license to participate in the financial industry in certain ways.
And it turned out he had had another person take the exam for him.
Now, that's what, 30 years earlier by this point.
But I'm telling you, like, once you cross that ethical line, you stay on the wrong side of it.
It's like once you cross it, it's very hard to get back onto the other side where you were not a criminal.
It really is.
And we've just seen it so many times.
So it's not, it's, you were right.
It was smart to go back once you realized what you had and see what else we could find in Amanda's past.
Listen, I am so happy to meet you, Charlie.
I'm so happy for the success of the show.
And I look forward to the next submission and the next scam end.
Crossing the Ethical Line 00:00:31
I'll keep you updated.
Thanks so much for having me.
All the best.
Thank you all for joining me today.
I want to tell you that tomorrow we are going to bring you my interview with Governor Ron DeSantis, the very first time he sits down with yours truly.
I would love to hear your thoughts about it once you hear it, so make sure to send me a note after you watch at Megan.
Email me at M-E-G-Y-N at MeganKelly.com.
Talk to you then.
Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.
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