On the heels of one other docuseries a couple of girl who faked being sick comes Scamanda, which chronicles the life and lies of 1 Amanda Riley.
Riley is “a younger spouse, mom, and religious Christian whose life immediately takes a horrible flip when she is identified with stage 3 blood most cancers,” as ABC Information says in a press launch concerning the documentary collection, which debuts on ABC in 2025 (and will probably be out there to stream on Hulu the next day).
That “horrible flip” was a horrible lie, although, and now, greater than a dozen years later, Riley is serving jail time. Learn on for details about her case and the brand new present exposing her deception.
1. Amanda Riley is a mom and former faculty principal who faked most cancers.
Because the San Francisco Chronicle stories, Riley is a mom of two who was beforehand a principal at an elementary faculty in Gilroy, California, a metropolis south of the Bay Space. In 2021, she pleaded responsible to wire fraud in connection to a seven-year ruse through which she solicited donations for a pretend case of Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
“Though she was not really sick, Riley fastidiously cultivated a social media presence, utilizing Fb, Instagram, Twitter, and a weblog,” explains a press launch from the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace, Northern District of California. “She used her presence on these websites to ‘doc’ her nonexistent medical situation, and to aggressively solicit donations, supposedly to cowl her medical bills.”
As a part of the charade, Riley shaved her head, falsified data, cast letters from docs, and bought members of the family to corroborate her story, the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace added.
2. Riley bought lots of of donations totaling greater than $100k.
The jig was up in 2019 when the Inside Income Service’s Legal Investigation division and the San Jose Police Division uncovered Riley’s deception. And the federal government recognized 349 people and entities who donated a complete of $105,513 to go towards her purported medical bills, cash that Riley then used to pay for her residing bills, the U.S. Lawyer’s workplace mentioned.
ABC
3. She was sentenced to 5 years in jail — and ordered to pay greater than $100k in restitution.
Riley pleaded responsible to at least one depend of wire fraud in October 2021, and the next Might, she was sentenced to 60 months behind bars. As well as, U.S. District Choose Beth Labson Freeman ordered Riley to pay restitution of $105,513 and to bear three years of supervision following her launch from jail.
“I’ll spend the remainder of my life working in direction of the amends for the harm that I’ve precipitated,” Riley mentioned on the sentencing, per the Chronicle.
4. Prosecutors say Riley remains to be faking maladies in jail.
Riley was taken by ambulance to an emergency room 24 occasions throughout her first 18 months in jail after experiencing an elevated pulse, chest ache, a head laceration, and different medical points, in response to federal court docket data cited by the Chronicle.
However U.S. Lawyer Michael Pitman mentioned healthcare professionals noticed Riley making an attempt to tamper with take a look at outcomes. Riley allegedly held her breath throughout an oxygen saturation take a look at and deliberately gave herself tachycardia, as an illustration. And prosecutors suspect Riley remains to be faking well being issues, even whereas she serves her jail sentence for her scheme.
“Maybe not surprisingly … Defendant’s medical data clarify that she doesn’t really endure from any acute well being issues in any respect,” Pitman mentioned in a response to a movement for a sentence discount.
Moreover, prosecutors identified, 4 docs and a nurse urged or said that Riley has factitious dysfunction, in any other case often called Munchausen syndrome, a psychological dysfunction through which somebody fakes sicknesses and accidents.
5. She tried to get her jail time diminished.
In April 2024, Riley filed a movement to get her five-year jail sentence slashed by greater than half and tried to get herself freed on time served — or, alternatively, to get her sentence diminished by 13 months, the Chronicle added. Riley’s attorneys cited her ER visits and psychological well being points, plus diagnoses starting from cardiac arrhythmia to sleep terrors.
However Choose Freeman denied the movement. “Contemplating the variety of victims (over 300), the fraudulent monetary advantage of over $100,000 acquired by Ms. Riley, and her continued efforts to pretend her illnesses, the Courtroom is happy that 60 months of imprisonment is the honest and correct sentence presently.”
6. Successful podcast about Riley’s case is now a docuseries.
Within the Lionsgate Sound podcast Scamanda — throughout 11 episodes launched between April and July 2023 — journalist Charlie Webster “explores this unbelievable and weird, however all-too-real story of a lady from San Jose, California, whose secret ripped a household aside and left a neighborhood in shock.”
The podcast received two 2024 Webby Awards, as each the Webby Winner and the Folks’s Voice Winner within the Podcasts – Crime & Justice (Restricted-Collection & Specials) class. It additionally ranked as the most well-liked new podcast of 2023 on Apple Podcasts, as Selection reported.
Now that podcast has been become a docuseries of the identical title, with Webster as an govt producer. Additionally on board as an EP is investigative producer Nancy Mosciatello, who delved into Riley’s story for 5 years.
“The collection options new and unique interviews, together with police and an IRS investigator who coated the case, former mates of Amanda’s, and a neuropsychologist who supplies perception into the thoughts of a scammer; communications between Amanda and podcast host Charlie Webster; unique entry to archival property; supplies collected by Moscatiello throughout her investigation and extra,” ABC says in a press launch.
Scamanda, Collection Premiere, 2025, ABC
