Juicy Scoop with Heather McDonald - I Faked Cancer, The Scamanda Doc with Journalist Nancy Moscatiello
Episode Date: February 4, 2025I get all the scoop from the journalist responsible for exposing Amanda, who lied about having cancer for financial gain. Nancy Moscatiello explains how she got a tip about a young mother who was cons...tantly online sharing her cancer battle. She shares how her investigation revealed that she never had cancer but lied for years to get out of work, collect donations and torture the mother of her step daughter. This is an unbelievable story which is now on Hulu as the documentary “Scamanda”. This is one liar who did not get away with her long grift. Thanks to Nancy. So juicy. •Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @lumedeodorant and get 15% off with promo code JUICY at https://Lumedeodorant.com #lumepod •Sign up now and join the over 13 million all-time customers who have already saved and invested over $22 billion dollars with Acorns. Head to https://acorns.com/juicyscoop or download the Acorns app to get started. •Start your initial free online visit today at forhers.com/JUICYSCOOP for your personalized weight loss treatment options. • Start the new year off right with Honeylove. Get 20% OFF by going to https://www.honeylove.com/JUICY •Go to HTTPS://RO.CO/JUICYSCOOP to see if you qualify! Go to HTTPS://RO.CO/SAFETY for boxed warning and full safety information about GLP-1 medications. Stand Up Tickets and info: https://heathermcdonald.net/ Subscribe to Juicy Scoop with Heather McDonald on iTunes, the podcast app, and get extra juice on Patreon: https://bit.ly/JuicyScoopPodApple https://www.patreon.com/juicyscoop Shop Juicy Scoop Merch: https://juicyscoopshop.com Follow Me on Social Media: Instagram: https://www/instagram.com/heathermcdonald TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@heathermcdonald Twitter: https://twitter.com/HeatherMcDonald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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From streaming to shopping, it's on Prime.
Heather McDonald. full of harmonies with chillers. From streaming to shopping, it's on Prime. Hello and welcome to Juicy Scoop. You guys, I'm so excited for you to hear this interview about the show Scamanda and the woman who brought it all down.
But first, I just want to remind you again
to go to heatherringdahl.net and get your tickets,
because you're going to see the funniest show for Valentine's
Day.
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So get those at HeatherMcDowell.net
and now for our show. Hello and welcome to
Juicy Scoop. I have a very juicy one for you. This is about the show called Scamanda. I've
talked about the podcast and I have the person who brought it all down, Nancy Mosquitello, who was the investigative reporter is really your background, and how
you discovered what was going on and really brought this woman to justice. And I want
to ask you all the things, but just so people know, this is a really juicy story that involves things that I am fascinated by,
liars, grifters, fake cancer.
She was the nanny who then married the boss.
I mean, it's-
It's got it all, right?
It's got it all and it's called Scamanda
and it was a long form podcast
and now it's on ABC and Hulu premiering January 30th.
So welcome, thank you.
Thanks for having me.
This is great.
I mean, let's just tell a little bit about,
why don't you give the little intro of like,
who this woman was and everything
and then I'll just kinda tell you what I remember
and why I was so fascinated by the story.
Yeah, no, Amanda Riley was a normal, average mom,
raising kids, raising two young boys.
And if you've listened to the podcast like you did,
her bonus daughter, right, from her husband
that she married, a stepdaughter,
and raising them in the suburbs outside of
San Jose, California, attending church every Sunday, very, very active in her
church and in her community up there. And she was diagnosed with cancer in 2012
and became, I guess what you would, I mean nowadays people refer to like, you
know, cancer influencers or stuff on TikTok
or in different places where they document their journey.
Their whole journey.
Yeah, and so she started doing that in a blog back in 2012.
So way ahead of social media as we know it now.
She had an Instagram and she had a Facebook
and she would post on there also,
but her blog was kind of where if you lived in the community
or you knew of her or were touched by her story, because she got pressed back
then in the community, you would follow along.
And it was this years long journey of her going in and out of remission.
I mean, I was just fascinated by it.
And to me, completely unforgivable, horrible person, she never had cancer.
Nope.
And there's so many layers to this story.
First of all, how she came into the family,
I felt didn't get enough freak out
as far as like the breadth of like the whole show.
And that was, she was a nanny for a couple.
Right, right, so she was brought in.
So there was this couple, Alita and Corey,
and Alita had children from a previous marriage,
and one of them, the one daughter, Jamie, had cancer.
And so when she married Corey,
and then they had their daughter together,
the older daughter, Jamie, had cancer.
And so they brought Amanda in, who was in college,
a freshman in college nearby in San Jose,
to help with cheerleading and fun stuff at home.
Somebody she could be with, because the child couldn't be out
in public during the cancer treatments.
So yeah, so they brought her in that way
and she came really close to the family.
I mean, she was involved with birthday parties
and going on the boat and anything they did as a family.
Amanda was someone that was brought into the family.
And then, like I said, I don't think they covered it enough,
and I don't know how much you can, if you were,
like, when did their marriage end
and the romance between the nanny that you brought in
when she was only 19 years old and Corey start to develop?
So it's a little unclear, but it's somewhere,
there's a gray area, let's say that.
Yeah.
So I mean, I do think it was after the marriage dissolved
or there was problems because there was other,
Corey had multiple women apparently at the time.
Oh, he did?
Yeah, I think things were found out later on,
as time went on.
But at that point, they had broken up, they had separated rather quickly.
And then Amanda came back into like, because she had finished school, so she was around
during all that time, four years of college.
She had moved back to Southern California briefly.
And then when she came back up is when it kind of was launched as this relationship.
So, and at first, you know, Alita,
as she discussed in the podcast, she was like,
Oh, great, I know Amanda, like, whatever, I'm over him.
Like, that's fine.
At least there's someone that I can trust with my daughter.
So the one daughter that they had together, of course,
they shared custody with.
So then they get together and she,
and so they have the one daughter that they share custody with. So then they get together and she, and so they have the one daughter
that they share custody with.
It was Alita, the first wife's older daughter.
That had cancer.
That had cancer and at that point she had recovered
or she was in remission?
She took about a year or so after,
I think Amanda came into the family.
Yeah, she's doing great now.
Okay, so they get married and she has the two boys before she ever starts saying something's
wrong with her?
No, no. So when Corey and Amanda got together, there was no cancer. They had met, it was when they wanted custody of Jessa, which is the daughter, as Amanda always
referred to, the bonus daughter, that things started to deteriorate very, very quickly
for the family. So that's when there was a huge custody battle ensued. And then during
that time is when Amanda was diagnosed with cancer.
So the story is just crazy in that she switches, goes to multiple churches, does all these
things and it's all going on. What I didn't understand was why, at least in the podcast,
why Alida, the mom of Jesse, Jesse?
Jessa.
Jessa wasn't more furious.
Oh, she was furious.
It was a really trying time.
So when I found Alida or learned about the story, right, because remember she's
diagnosed in 2012.
She was in the community for about three years before I even, she was even in On My Radar.
So she had three years of being in this situation with Alida and her husband, Corey, like trying
to get custody, trying to make Alida's life a living hell, which she did.
When I finally reached Alita in 2015,
she had just lost custody.
She had lost custody for a handful of months by then
and was in the process of desperately trying to get back.
I mean, she had to go through the whole
supervised visitation.
It was a very drawn out situation.
Because there was just lies and things brought up.
Yeah.
I mean, when you go back in the court records like I did and you read the transcripts from
the different judges that handled it.
Because I learned a lot about this particular family court case.
Every two years, you switch a judge and stuff.
And the first judge that they had actually cited a
lot of things about Corey having caused parent alienation towards Alita. So there was a lot
of stuff, not him lying in court, they caught him in so many lies. And then when it switched
cases where a different judge was assigned after the first two years is when things kind
of took a turn. and he then got representation from
he was representing himself for so long and he got representation funny enough from a
very high ranking member in the church that she was scanning.
So let's talk a little bit about your role. So what is your background as a journalist?
You're an investigative?
Yeah, I'm an investigative producer and TV producer. So it depends on the type of shows
and stuff I'm working on, but I work a lot in true crime.
And I started off back in the day on a TV show called Hard Copy.
Oh, I loved Hard Copy.
So I ran the news.
I just remember every night was about OJ.
Yes, I wrote the OJ case to nauseam, yes.
Really?
Yeah, so I wouldn't be the one in the courtroom, let's say, but I'll do all the preps, get
all the interviews, do all the research,
pull the stories together, and then work with the person
that would then be on air in that aspect.
And I've done that for years.
I started at Hard Copy with Menendez,
as was when I first got there, and I was a desk assistant,
and then Amy Fisher and the Butterfucka,
I've worked hordes of cases.
Oh my God, Amy Fisher.
So when our hard copy, let's talk about that for a minute.
Hard copy was on like every night at 7 p.m.
and with those big high profile cases that just,
oh my gosh, yeah, the Butterfuckos,
for those of you guys that don't know,
this is a juicy case out of, was it New Jersey?
New York, Long Island.
Long Island, a couple with two teenage kids.
He ran the car.
Auto body shop.
The auto body shop and he starts having an affair
with this girl who is 16.
16.
16 and she goes over to the house one day,
the mom opens the door, his wife, and she shoots her.
Amy Butterfoucault.
No, sorry, Amy not.
Amy, what was Amy's last name?
Amy Fisher?
Amy Fisher, and it was Mary Jo Butterfoucault.
I mean, I feel like that's going to be, even though these stories have been regurgitated
50 billion times
There's probably another Ryan Murphy thing going on in that even though so that one they did three
Made for TV movies when they used to do the old yeah, and it was for one was
From Amy Fisher's point of view. Mm-hmm, which I want to say drew Barrymore might played that one
then there was a Then there was one from Mary Jo and Joey's point of view, which was this crazy obsessed girl.
She came out of nowhere.
Came out of nowhere.
All he did was fix her dent.
Like what?
And they were high school sweethearts and they're gonna stay strong together.
And then the third made for TV movie
was from like a reporter's point of view.
And they were all like competing,
like one was on ABC, one was on NBC,
one was on CBS, it was crazy.
But I feel like hard copy would give us
the realness of that every week.
And so when you're working on a show like that,
do the powers that be say like, I
don't care how miniscule element there was a dog walker who knew Kato the dog or like,
I mean, is it just like every day we need a story about OJ? Like we need something.
Yes and no. I mean, for us, like we tried to get some stuff that had some subsidence
to it. I mean, like for Amy Fisher, people did tons of stories on Amy Fisher because they slowly
released footage at the time of her talking.
I think she was working at a gym and her boyfriend at the time, it made her look really bad,
right?
Like talking about, oh, you know, I like older men, or whatever she was talking about at
the time.
And then in time, you know, for a hard copy, I got the first interview with Amy Fisher.
I went to prison and interviewed her with our correspondent
and I had been corresponding with her over time.
So like things take time.
I'll reach out and say, listen, she was 16.
And I think that got kind of not glossed over.
And I, listen, she should not-
They called her the Long Island Lolita.
Yeah, they really, yes, she shot Mary Jo,
and I don't condone that at all.
But you look back now, like she was a 16 year old girl
taking her car in to get fixed.
And I mean, he convinced her to do this.
So do you, her defense was always that
she just went over to meet her and like...
The gun went off by mistake.
Yeah, and the gun went off by mistake.
I don't necessarily.
After you did all the research, what do you think?
Do you think he told her to do it
or do you think she did it on her own?
No, I think he told her.
Oh, you do?
I think he hinted, you know, it was always like,
if she wasn't in my life, if we could be together,
you know, if only.
That goes a long way.
Yeah. And well, I remember I met Mary Jo when her book came out. And in the book at that
point, I read the book, and at that point now she had left him and realized. And then
so in the book, it's all the crazy shit he did leading up to that point.
Like with money and drugs and cheating
and driving fast cars.
And I think she like diagnosed him as,
kind of self diagnosed him as something.
I can't remember what it was, but yeah, that was crazy.
He was like trying to do stand up and just like every night,
I feel like we just saw it.
Something new.
Yeah, they came to LA as a family and they broke up.
And yeah, that's another one that I'm just still really
obsessed with.
It'll come back.
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slash juicy scoop.
So I know you can't reveal the source of who said, hey, but how much can you tell us
of how someone directed you towards, like, I think this chick's lying or what was that?
Yeah, the source was really adamant.
They had experiences in their life that they felt it was obvious that this was going on.
They were able to talk to me at length about it and then also I was able to talk with others
in the community also to source beyond just them to understand that dynamic and how the
dynamic of why they knew this was so, that you didn't have cancer.
And why did they think?
What were some of the tips that you can, or some of the things that they believed didn't have. And why did they think what were that some of the tips
that you can some of the things that they believed weren't true because in listening
to it it felt like there was just so much that she put out there. Yeah I think just
by them reading the blog and the fact that she had this very detailed blog about stuff
was what is kind of what led them to go, okay, it's time,
we need to say something. So, but they, you'll learn about them in the documentary.
Okay, good.
So I don't want to give too much away because it gets explained better.
But what was some of the things that I remember that really stuck out to me was that she would say, you know, I need these donations, this money, to go to New
York to John Hopkins to get this special treatment. And then she would go and she would post stuff
in New York, also like, you know, the band aids and all of looking like she got the treatments and things like that.
But then what you guys discovered is, yeah,
that there were no trips to this hospital.
I know, she was going.
This is fascinating.
OK, explain that part.
Because that part was confusing.
I was like, wait.
So what I ended up figuring out at the time, so it was Columbia.
But she did John Hopkins also.
She had a doctor in John Hopkins too.
And that was, he was early on that I was able
to speak to him directly.
And I said, can I show you a portion of this blog?
And like, you're discussed
and you recommended certain things.
And he answered me right away.
He's like, I have no idea.
I have never consulted on anything like this.
Not even name wise, just the scenario
that I set up for him.
But with Columbia, she did go.
She, you know, and to, you know, I guess being clever,
she did make an appointment.
And you can make an appointment, I can make an appointment,
you can make an appointment and go in and say,
hey, I have Hodgkin's lymphoma
and I'm thinking of changing my treatment plan and I would like a second opinion and what can you tell me about
your facility and the type of trials you do here and you can have a consultation.
And then that'll be on the books then?
Yeah. Yeah. And that's at least and then you have access to their offices and then you have access
to walking around Columbia.
Here's a tour, like, okay,
so this is where we do our infusions,
here's our lab work.
And they're not asking you to prove it,
they're not giving you a blood test.
Well no, because it's a consultation.
Oh, got it.
I guess when you think about it,
they have changed since this all happened.
Oh, they have.
Oh, absolutely.
When I contacted them to go, okay,
I know you can't tell me about patients and with
Hippolos, I don't want to know about her.
What I want to know about is, and I gave them again, the details that she would put out
to the public.
I was there, my lung collapsed, I was treated with this, I had this happen, I overnighted,
she would give a lot of detail and I would ask, and on the dates, today I'm here in New
York and this happened, and so I would call and I would say hey do you
have a patient there today that had their lung collapse in which that is a
member of this trial we're not doing that trial it was all like and they knew
I had sent them the blog and said can you talk to me about her they said well
let's look at what this is and then they let me know that they changed all their
security and all their methods of how they did stuff.
They were quite thankful, which I guess I just never...
Why would someone think...
Why would any place think people are utilizing their facilities for this, right?
It's such an odd thing.
And then what about...
Now I can't remember.
Was it that she instead went to Broadway plays or that
they also, people also treated her to a Broadway play?
So she, you know, some friend would say, oh, I know someone that works on, she did Saturday
Night Live.
I think her brother knew someone there.
So she went and watched that.
And she went under the guise of my friend is, I'm sure, you know, you make a cancer.
I think that's part of it.
You know, and did she do like the shaving?
Did she shave her head and all that?
Yeah, the beginning of 2012 is when she posted in the blog,
it's like, oh, Cory's gonna help shave my head.
I have cancer, I don't want it to fall.
So she did a whole posting all about that.
So yeah, no, she did.
That was the only time.
And then it grew in for the rest of the blog.
It was slowly, she went and got, she would go to services for cancer patients, wigs,
makeup.
Like if they had a local thing that was like, you know, hey, we're donating, we're donating
this come to the salon.
She would go.
She would go for the whole thing.
And then she would post, you know, on her blog blog showing her pictures with all these wigs. Yeah. Yeah it was she
became a spokesperson for the Hodgkin lymphoma area up in San Jose. And I
let and I you know I reached out once once once it was out there in the
community and she knew about me. And how did she find out about you? She found out, well,
I called. I got to a point where I, the first, I was told that police had been notified at some point
from my source. And when someone reaches out to someone like you, what, yeah, you're just doing
that, you know, it's paying you to do this at this point. You're doing this because you're like, this
is a story that could become something like
what is the goal?
Like originally back then, did you think it could be a podcast, a documentary, a book
or you were just like, I'm just so curious and I got to know more.
Like what is it?
No, I was working on a show at the time called Crime Watch Daily.
It's a daily crime show.
So I always work in television doing different types of true crime stories.
And so on that type of show, since it was a daily show,
we would do one or two stories a night,
every night for an hour.
So we always looked for different stories.
And scams are hard to tell visually.
So it's always been one of those things,
our boss at the time was always saying,
I want a good scam.
I want, you know, a cancer scammer.
We were like, how do you do?
Like, it's hard, right?
To figure that out because you can't just go on air
and say, hey, I'm Nancy and this woman doesn't have cancer.
I see it a lot more now on TikTok, people calling people up.
But you can't do that.
You know, and I would never want to
unless I knew I was correct.
I feel like American greed does it pretty well,
but it's more about someone coming to a community
and saying they have a big business
and taking money from all the old church people
and stuff like that.
Yeah, and that's how it started.
So I had posted in a Facebook group
about people that were outing people
they thought were scammers, right?
It's about different things.
And I posted, you know, just that here's who I am,
this is the show I'm working on,
we're launching in September,
and this is what, I'm looking for different types of stories
and people that are willing to talk,
to understand how to tell these stories.
And that's where the person saw it and reached out to me.
And they had gone to police, they had said,
we went to local authorities, we told people,
and we've never seen it handled. and now this was a number of years later
and they were like, we don't know if anyone's doing anything. So I ended up calling Detective
Martinez who's in it and he's part of the financial fraud. He was like the one investigator in San
Jose and I spoke to him at length and said, do you already know about this? Have you been contacted?
And he said, let me look back and see if we've ever,
and he's like, no, but I'd like to know more.
And so then, you know, I started giving him
as much information as I could,
because it was so egregious watching her posts.
Like, this was all happening in real time.
Right.
You know, she was still actively scamming and still,
you know, besides taking the money,
what she was doing to Alita during that time,
they were in and out of court so much.
So he had reached out to her, to Amanda,
saying, hey, here's who I am, and I'm looking into this.
Right off the bat, it was,
oh, that's just my husband's ex-wife,
and she has a friend pretending to be a TV person
and it's all lies and blah, blah, blah.
So I knew she knew about me during that and then Alida, the wife, put it into her court
papers.
She finally said to her, she said, it's more important you get custody back of your daughter
and stuff than worrying about me.
So if your attorney wants to mention, hey, there's this investigation or hey,
this is what's going on, help sort this out.
Do by all means, you know, do what you want to.
I mean, I felt like, you know, all that she was doing,
cause it was like, someone, let's talk about some of the
things that she does, you know?
So she joins many different churches.
They were like, there were lots of different people.
Yeah, after, kind of after each other.
She was
mostly in this one particular mega church. And then after that got, after a couple of years of me being involved with that, she moved on to a different community where she became principal of a little
Christian school. So, but the main church, because she wasn't a religious person at first, Amanda, but we
go back and just doing more research of kind of the family and where she comes from, they're
not religious.
She got involved with that church through an old roommate from college that was very,
very active in the church and I think brought her into it.
I'm curious because, and maybe you discovered more like, what was she like in high school?
Was she, were there people that were like,
oh, I remember she made up this weird lie at a slumber party.
Like what makes somebody become Scamanda?
Yes.
So we have a little bit more of that in the documentary
meeting some of the older friends or people in her past.
And it seemed like it was very much you know
white lies for no reason or why why they need to maybe exaggerate something or or
or not you know those like small things like that yeah I find that you're just
so fascinating and then you put an element of a you know a little bit of
fame with it right you get that in touch. So I do think that that's the early on.
So you get that social media fame and then, you know, and then the sympathy.
And then these then, oh, now the lie is too far for me to turn back.
Well, I think that's what she thought.
Right. Yeah.
I always laugh about that because it's like, well, is it really too far to turn
back? Because
you don't have to keep asking for thousands of thousands of dollars or you're going to
die, right? You don't have to.
So that's what she was doing, like GoFundMe's or what was she?
No, she was, not GoFundMe. She had her own website. So GoFundMe wasn't, I don't know
if it was a thing then, but she didn't have that. So her brothers, she enlisted her family,
her brothers built her a website, a support Amanda website, and that's where people donated.
But they both donated there, so if they were out of town
or they were from wherever they could,
and then through the church or just directly to her.
And that's where people get, you know, they were like,
oh, God, she didn't really raise that much money
for all this trouble.
That was just what they could charge
via what they would consider wire fraud via the internet.
She got plenty more, a couple of hundred thousand,
if not more than I tracked just from like,
so-and-so did a fundraiser and handed over $5,800.
So when she raised money, like this is what I'm saying,
okay, it snowballed, then you make Christmas ornaments that you're selling for $25,800. So when she raised money, like this is what I'm saying, okay, it's snowballed. Then you make Christmas ornaments that you're selling for $25 a piece that they believe
on it.
That are worth a dollar.
Well, but she's making them and saying, can you buy these for, I need to get this next
treatment. You know, you could just make them and hand them out if you want attention, right?
But the idea that it was always for money.
And that's where it became criminal.
If she had just lied about it and been a weirdo lying about it, then it's not really criminal.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, that's what it comes down to.
They use cancer for everything.
In the court cases for bankruptcy, because they declared bankruptcy, as we talked about
in the podcast, the first thing they said was, oh, my wife has terminal cancer and we've
spent so much, that's why we'd have bankruptcy.
And then the bankruptcy, it's 160,000 to 180,000.
There was not one medical debt.
There was nothing in there.
So, you know, they would make appointments.
We had recordings that,
bankruptcy court, they have public information.
You can get some copies when they testify
about the initial debt.
And, you know, they talk all about,
oh, I can't come on this day, I'm here judge,
but my wife has a bone marrow transplant on the date you would like us to be here so we can come back, I can't come on this day. We're here, Judge, but my wife has a bone marrow transplant on the date you would like
us to be here so we can come back.
We can't come to court.
What's that?
That's not a snowball.
At any time when you started, did you always think the husband knew?
Did you not think the husband knew?
Do you think he discovered halfway through?
What is your opinion about the husband's involvement?
My opinion?
Yes. He absolutely knew.
From the first moment.
Yeah.
So they thought of it together.
Yeah, I think it's like a perfect storm,
you know, where that attention stuff was something
she dealt with prior, you know, kind of her way of being,
getting attention and doing whatever it is,
being sick about other things.
And then I think this presented itself.
Yeah, because Corey handed in to the courts for the child custody case, his income, right,
his pay stubs.
Seven to eight years of pay stubs, right?
And when Alida had me go through stuff, probably towards the four or five years in,
I finally said, let me go through all these pay stubs
and stuff, this is crazy.
You know, how the, cause he would get a medical hardship,
a reduction for childcare costs.
And she was paying him for a while.
So she was paying child support.
Aleta, yeah, for a little bit.
And then when they, you know, he would submit his pay stubs,
he would get, the judge gave him a medical hardship
because he claimed five or $6,000 a month
in medical expenses.
And he submitted bills, right?
So Alita subpoenaed eight years of pay stubs
after, like when I figured this out, because I looked at the stubs and the amounts that were taken up for taxes were more than they
should be for the amount he was making.
So what they found when she got the subpoena back with all the documents from each of the
places he worked, the three places over time, they were all fake.
He submitted eight years of fake pay stubs
so that he would pay less, he would show a lesser income.
It's tens of thousands of dollars.
So he like photocopied it for what was he doing?
Yeah, yeah, they're completely different.
They don't even match the real, you know, stuff.
Of his real job?
Mm-hmm.
And so then-
Yeah, so that, when someone says,
well, you sure he knew? For me?
So did she have it, you said she started it,
like, did she do it
in between pregnancies?
Or when was...
So she was diagnosed in 2012
before she... Faked diagnosed, yep.
Before the first child.
Okay. And that was the first child
and the miracle baby.
And it was a miracle because she was terminal? Oh, I miracle because I'm sorry spoke. Sorry. She gave birth. Okay, and then that's when they noticed it to the first child the second child the miracle baby
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And that's where I remember a couple of these close like church friends were like, wait,
how the hell did you get pregnant?
You're like, you're like stage four.
Yeah stage four.
Not only that she posted on her blog.
This one's a funny thing.
Some things I can laugh about.
Yeah.
At the time, I know people who have been through hell with this, but yeah, you know, she posted, I'm stage four and I have an IUD,
but somehow I am pregnant with my miracle child,
my second child.
And then where was-
And then baby was late, so there you go.
And where was the, so the daughter was kind of living
with them because they were fighting to have Custy.
And why do you think they were so determined
to have Custy of that daughter and punish Alita like that?
Like what was the purpose of that, do you think?
For me, I think it was twofold.
It's I want what you have and this is my family
and I'm gonna take this over.
You know, this, she, cause she would crush any
thing in her path.
Like, yeah.
Scamanda, Amanda, yeah.
Yeah.
So this was important for her to have this perfect family and for her to be this perfect
mom and perfect family life.
And with that came, they don't have to pay child support if they have custody.
Alita has to pay them. Oh. Yeah. And what did he
do for a living, Corey? Fire sprinkler sales and stuff. No, he did well. He did well. He always
worked during all this. So, you know. And so what is your opinion or what did you find out of like,
So what is your opinion or what did you find out of like, what was the day?
Like, did she ever admit to like the day that she just decided to say, I'm sharing some really bad news?
Like, was she blogging prior to the cancer stuff?
And then one day her entry was, I went to the doctor and I'm scared.
No, it was, it started with, as many of you may know or heard,
they weren't sure what was wrong with me,
but now I know, and basically once I gave birth,
this is what they found out, my numbers were off,
my da da da, they ran some tests,
and I have Hodgkin's lymphoma,
and so I will need to start treatment,
and so, and then it was the first post where all like,
oh, I got all these gift baskets.
Oh, look, everybody's giving me all this stuff.
And then you think that she just loved the attention.
She couldn't stop.
The stop with the lie then because she liked it.
And I don't like.
Well, I think there's obviously factitious disorder
or Munchausen where it's the attention and all of that.
And I do think that's how things start possibly with her,
but then the additional aspect was,
because it was fairly quickly that it turned
to the need for money, not to mention,
and then this is, she had Kaiser through her husband's work.
Like she had insurance.
So the fact that she was going to all these places
supposedly and not Stanford or not UC San Francisco,
which are in her backyard.
So she was going to New York.
To New York, which involved everybody paying for it.
So she could have a fun New York trip.
Or whatever, she went eight times.
Eight times.
And she did go see Broadway plays and stuff.
So that's one hell of a snowball, I guess. And she did go see Broadway plays and stuff.
So that's one hell of a snowball, I guess. You know, like, you can't stop.
Yeah.
And that came up in my court case. And I think, you know, we talked about it in the podcast.
So then she comes after you.
Yeah.
And tries to, like, sue you? Or what did she do?
Yeah. For civil harassment, trying to get a restraining order. Yeah. And that was, this was a, you know, she had, she knew about the investigation. Why are these scammer grifter types like dirty
John and Seth so good with that? Like they like they're saying they do the legal abuse.
Like how do they even know? Like, I think that that she was really kind of backed in
a corner, I think in her mind, like this good, because she had moved on to the new, she became principal, which as soon as I heard that, I was like, oh hell no, like I got it.
So I called. Did she have a teaching degree? Yes, yeah, so she has a bachelor's, yes. Okay. Yeah,
and then I believe now, many years later, I think she also did an online like for her master's. Okay,
now many years later I think she also did an online like for her masters. Okay. And then you found out she was teaching at a principal at a small
Christian school. And she was saying the cancer there too. Yeah the cancer was in
remission when she started. Okay. And then and again talking with all these
people it breaks my heart there was a teacher's aide, Miss Cindy, who had her
cancer reoccur. And so the school really got behind this woman and they did fundraisers for her.
And she joined in. Right as Miss Cindy was getting all that attention, Amanda, all of a sudden,
her cancer came back. And they gave her more than half of the money raised
because they said, oh, she has kids,
Miss Cindy doesn't have kids.
Like it was, they felt so bad that their principal,
so, and she willingly like, yes, oh, great, thank you.
You know, took thousands of dollars.
And did her parents believe that she had cancer?
Yes, yeah, I do believe the family,
at least here's what I know, when the raid happened on her
house in September of 2016.
So there's two times that I reached out, there's an email attached to the website that said,
if you have any questions, email, which was one of the brothers.
So that's what I did.
I emailed and I said, here's who I am,
here's the show I work on.
I have these questions about how the money is handled.
There's, you know, you must know
that there's an investigation going on.
I didn't know if they knew or not,
but I said, there's an investigation.
Here's a list of questions I wanna know
about how this money gets to Amanda.
I never heard back.
The raid happened a few months later.
I sent a second one with a follow-up.
The raid, explain the raid.
The raid was the federal agents went to her home
at six in the morning with a battering ram and a warrant.
It was wild.
And what, like got computers and stuff?
Yep, computers, anything, metal equipment,
whatever they could take out.
You know, I watched, they were taking stuff out.
But yeah, I guess documents, all kinds of stuff, yeah.
Wow.
So it's pretty, pretty serious.
That's why I don't think people realize it was,
they had a federal grand jury that took place,
which, you know, I saw, and many people had to testify.
Did you have to pay for an attorney to defend yourself?
Via my work, yes.
So yes, there was a very expensive court case.
Because it became a First Amendment issue,
because I'm a member of the press.
And so I don't think she realized that.
But by asking for a restraining order and the way it was done, I was in Los Angeles,
and this was up in San Jose, and they served,
they put papers in my mailbox,
they never served me on a holiday weekend,
and I opened it, I was like, oh, what's this?
And so when I called the attorneys for where I was working,
they were like, oh, you don't have to go, you weren't served.
And then by not going that first thing, they sent some outside representation, and the judge was like, well, you don't have to go, you weren't served. And then by not going that first thing,
they sent some outside representation
and the judge was like, well, she's not here,
so we're gonna issue a temporary restraining order.
And they were like, well, wait,
she's a member of the, like this is, you can't do that.
And she was like, well, come back in 10 days
and we'll talk about it.
So they issued a temporary,
and then in the 10 days that
we were supposed to go up to present our you know who I am this is what I'm
working on she got sick. Every time I went up I flew up two days of prep you
go to court she was in the hospital that night so it got canceled for six months.
I did five or six trips up so that adds up we had to do a mediation.
You had no doubt that she was lying but I think in the five or six trips up. That adds up, we had to do a mediation. You had no doubt that she was lying,
but I think in the beginning,
some of these people, probably the people
that contacted you on that Facebook group,
it's like even if you were suspicious,
it's like you look like such an asshole.
You're like, I'm 90% sure, but for the 10% that I'm not, like, how could you?
Like, I had an incident,
I've talked about on the show before,
where we were in this theater group,
and I was convinced this girl was like a liar
and like off and kind of dangerous.
And they were like, like, you're a jealous bitch.
Like you're an awful person.
And they promoted her to be in the main group.
And all of us got kicked out.
And like eight years later,
she's like the first person in the history
of this theater group called the Growlings
that they were like, we need to kick her out
because she
was so problematic. And there were so many things. And, you know, I was like, vindicated
once again, but nobody cares. Nobody but I'm like, I told you so. And it's like, but it's
hard being that person because it's just like you look like an insensitive evil bitch. Yeah.
And also it sounded like she was this really appealing personality.
Oh, yes.
Like gracious and sweet and thankful and Christian and this and that.
She was involved in every group thing at that church and in the community.
And she, if anybody else was diagnosed or like someone said,
oh, my sister, my friend, my friend, let me help them.
I mean, she would go and like offer her service
counseling these people and giving advice
and telling them, don't use that hospital.
Go like, this is what I found this out afterwards.
I'm like, are you kidding me?
Like she did not care.
She was a spokesperson, like I said, being paraded around.
How do you think she chose that particular kind of cancer versus others?
That is very close to what Jamie had, Alita's daughter.
So then she just had, so she already had knowledge of it?
Yeah, to a point.
I mean, Jamie was an eight-year-old little girl, so it's different, but that's what she had. So that's a man if it's different, but it was you know that that's yeah, that's that's what she had
So that's my guess you know because I just wonder like if you're gonna go make something
I mean, it's gonna. It's
Maybe one that's not as
People can walk around and have it and maybe you don't notice it
There's other ones that you know people did you know she was stage four she was running like you know Yeah, like I'm just I don't know I mean that's other ones that you know people deteriorate. You know she was stage four. She was running marathons. I don't know. I mean that's a terrible.
In doing research, like in doing research, if you're gonna do this lie like
picking one like I said that that you know has a lot of remissions or it can be
very dire but then you can come back from it. Versus one that's like
pancreatic or like or lung.. Like there's those ones where the minute you hear,
you're like, wow, that's gonna be a harder challenge than,
oh, like when people go, well, she has this cancer,
but it's like the best kind you can have or whatever,
you know, when people say stuff like that,
like it's the least or it has a very good chance of,
you know.
So when, so when this all finally comes down and they do the raid and everything, she's still making
excuses and...
She posted that night.
I laugh because I was there when they did the raid and she leaves, Cory leaves with
the kids, they leave the investigators in the house, they go off to work or whatever they went off to.
And basically said, like, lock up when you're done.
And so that's what the feds did.
They took computers and phones and all of that.
It's my understanding.
But she must have wanted got a phone.
I don't know what, but she posted that night a picture, an old picture of her bald commemorating
Hodgkin's lymphoma month or something.
Like she didn't miss a beat.
There's choices, right?
There's a lot of choices that you can say, federal agents just left my house.
Maybe I should like stop with the snowball, right?
You know, I should get better fast.
Did you see the other doc about Grey's Anatomy?
No, I read a lot of articles about that though.
The Grey's Anatomy writer is another one that I could relate to being a writer on a TV show
too.
And she did the same thing, created all this.
She did more lies than just the cancer.
She put herself in a terrorist attack at a temple and all these things that just were
not true.
But part of it in watching that doc I was like oh she's like she's lazy like
she she got out of work. Yeah. She made other people do the work. Yeah. Like she'd
maybe come up with the idea for the script but then everyone else would have
to actually go in the final draft and write it which is the harder part you
know like. Well Amanda did that like so she got hired as a teacher, right and
gets hired English teacher at a different community school
religious school and
Within I would say a month after
the appointments I'm sick it's back it's this it's that and
after the appointments, I'm sick, it's back, it's this, it's that. And when I went to court, we subpoenaed all her human resource records from there. And so by
reading through all of that, the teachers were covering for her. They were donating
their sick leave and their time so she could get paid during the whole time. So
there's that, right? So that's lazy. Yeah, like what is she doing just bed rotting and like watching TV and like just enjoying
the time off?
You know, curled up at home, I guess, you know, but whatever, you know, but that's so,
you know, these are things I found that as I kept digging, I was like, are you kidding
me? Like, so she, people donated not just money. So when people see that figure, you
have to step back and go, wow. Like that's
a, that was months, right? She started there in August and then they let her go in like
February.
I also wonder having like two young boys, were there times where people were like, we'll
waive the baseball fee.
Oh, I know.
The karate fee or all take the kids. So they have all these people helping with your babysitting
for free. Yeah, that was one of the things
Jess feels horrible about,
because she knows now, you know, she's always older.
The older...
And we've talked about that before.
The stepdaughter?
But that was one of the things
that really she had so much guilt about,
that I think she talked about in the podcast,
that people paid for everything for her.
And that, you know, that's a tough thing.
Oh, because her mom was...
Yeah, because her tennis lessons, her gymnastics., because her mom was struggling. Oh, okay.
So there's so much more than that figure that's what they charged her with.
So was there finally an actual trial or did they just do like a plea?
No, she pled guilty. So she first pled not guilty, which is that's normal. And then she
had to change of plea for guilty. And yeah, and then that's how they wrap.
Cause when you, federal cases, it's, they're tough to,
not that, any, you can take it to court.
And plenty of people do.
But usually when there's a federal indictment,
there's so much, they had so much evidence
and so much to present.
They, the grand jury and stuff.
And was it federal versus state?
No, just federal because it went through the IRS, which is a federal agency.
Oh, okay. That's why.
Yeah, it went from a state agency in San Jose to federal. Yeah. And it was the first type of case
prosecuted, not a wire fraud that's done all the time, but on the grounds that she faked having an illness,
that she was basically lying,
but the money came in because of those lies.
Yeah, it's interesting, it's the first time.
So now hopefully, I know for Agent Lee,
that meant a lot for her because she really wanted
to set a precedent and the Department of Justice
to be like, this isn't okay, and there's now something
to kind of work from.
Yeah, because with the Gypsy Rose case
of the Munch House and by proxy,
and there was a lot of crimes that the mother did
before she had her boyfriend murder her,
was they went and did the make-a-wish a bunch of times
and did all this.
And it's just, I just, like, did she ever,
so now she's still in prison.
Yeah, so she's been moved just recently to,
it's still within the federal system,
but it's a, I would use the term halfway house,
but it's like a reentry program.
So it's a facility that she, I guess, goes through more programs there or whatever.
And then by the end of this year, the end of 2025 December, she has a release date.
So she'll be—now she's in Riverside, California.
So I don't know if it's like—I'm sure eventually in this program she'll be out,
like they reintegrate into working somewhere and whatever.
But I think even though she did all this up in San Jose, I think what's going to be interesting
for the Riverside community is that's where her family's from and many of the victims
that donated were friends and family from Riverside.
So they, she will be back, you know, with the community and I guess that's the next
step in them all handling.
So yeah.
How does this work?
Do people forgive her?
Did she ever apologize or write a letter to anybody
since she's been behind bars?
Not that I know of.
And she still blames Alita and I. She takes responsibility
to a very small point.
What does she take responsibility?
Well, she did her change of plea.
She spoke at the sentencing and she apologized.
She never said, I don't have cancer and I'm sorry I did this.
She just says how much it affected her and the things she lost and how she feels so bad
that she did this to you, Jess, or she never said anything to Alita ever,
and that she destroyed that woman's life
for a number of years.
Yeah, it's like you'll never get those childhood years back.
18 months she lost her daughter and had to be humiliated
going through supervised visitation
and meeting in a parking lot.
And money.
And just disgusting.
Yeah. Yeah.
And yeah.
So that's, you know, there was never an apology to her
and anyone in that family.
I wonder if Alita Amber was like, you know,
it's like one of those things like in the movies,
like was there two girls that applied for the nanny job,
you know, and had she chosen the other one?
No, because she came...
You know what I mean? Like something like that.
It was like very, very part-time. It wasn't like a steady nanny.
And Amanda worked part-time in a gym, a local gym, where Alita's sister like managed.
So that's how they knew her. So it kind of came through the sister like,
oh, there's a young girl that works here.
Oh, God. I'm actually for the sister. And you're like, oh, God, I feel so bad. You'll hear from her in the documentary, yeah.
Yeah.
So in doing this, this is such a crazy story.
But like we said, you are hearing more
about these people lying about things.
I remember there was a, you remember there
was the GoFundMe story where this couple said
they met this homeless former Marine that gave them $10 to get gas or she was alone.
And then they highlighted him and then he got $130,000 and then he came forward and
was like, they took the money.
They took the money.
But in the beginning, all three of them were like part of it.
And which is such a bummer because then you kind of always wonder about these, you know,
GoFundMe's and it's like...
Well, and it's hard.
Like I do think there's two things from this.
It's disappointing that we have to think this way, right?
You would hope that all the GoFundMe's that go up or the people you know, and people ask,
what advice would you give?
I said, it's hard because Amanda,
like I would tell people if they're in your community
and you know them and you see it
and you know like, okay, my money's going to them.
But that's what she was, right?
Yeah.
And that didn't work out so great, right?
So it's really in this day and age now with AI,
I'm afraid to see what's gonna be in social media
because it's too easy to put yourself on a hospital bed
or put yourself in a hospital bed
or put yourself somewhere else and just document.
There is a story out right now
that this poor woman believed that Brad Pitt
was calling her and the photos are so funny
and I don't know how much they.
Those weren't even done well,
but imagine if someone knows how to utilize that stuff.
Yeah.
Better, because it's, yeah.
And that's, I.
So the story was that Brad, she thought Brad Pitt
was like contacting her and they were having a relationship.
And I mean, I know you'd be like,
why would he need money?
Because of his divorce.
Yeah, because of the divorce.
And like, and you know, I just, I think anything, just like a Dirty John,
you need a connection and you want to believe it.
You want to believe it.
Yeah.
And I had a friend, a very attractive friend,
and she was like, oh my god, Russell Crowe just DM'd me
and saw somehow my photo popped up. And she's just like a'd me and like saw my,
like somehow my photo popped up
and she's just like a normal woman,
like she's not in the business and she's attractive.
So it's like, it's not like unhurt like, but,
and I go, wait, what?
And then we looked at it and we're like,
that's just someone like fishing for any woman over like 45
that might actually think that a Russell Crowe,
like it wouldn't be unheard of for this girl
to end up dating Russell Crowe.
Like it was just though.
So I'm like, oh my God, this is happening like all the time.
And it is really scary.
So what happened with the husband?
Did he stay loyal to her?
So what happened with the husband? Did he stay loyal to her? No. Yes and no. This past year, he filed for divorce.
No, 2024. Yeah, beginning of 2024. So they're divorced now.
And do you know if anybody brings her sons to visit or anything?
I think that was going on. Yeah, I have, believe it or not,
prisoners contacted me and people that have gotten out of prison, because they were, this is funny,
I got contacted via someone that was in prison,
got out. With her?
With her, got out, but they didn't know
why she was in there,
because she's telling all different stories in there.
She's not in there for faking cancer as far as they knew.
But something was so off and they were so put off
by what she would say and what was transpiring in there
that when they got out, they just Googled her.
They were like, what is with,
let's see what she's really in here for.
And they saw the podcast and they listened
and reached out to me.
And I've had so many conversations
with different prisoners now,
some that are still in there because the lies.
And what are they saying?
Well, she's just back at it. She's got every kind of disease, you know, And I've had so many conversations with different prisoners now, some that are still in there because the lies... And what are they saying?
Well, she's just back at it.
She's got every kind of disease you can think of.
I have a lung, I have a heart problem, I have this problem.
And then court papers were filed on her behalf for an early release.
And in it, they detail 24 trips to the emergency room, to the hospital.
In the prison?
Well, no, outside of the...
In the prison all the time, and then outside of the, like in the prison all the time
and then outside of the prison
where other doctors would look at her.
And in there, the Department of Justice talked
to those doctors and got statements where they said,
yeah, we saw her like messing with the equipment
and like holding her breath during tests
and doing things to screw up the testing
because she was trying to say she was so sick.
And you know, I would get these, you can contact them via your email back and forth.
And I would, you know, wake up sometime and they'd be like, oh yeah, she's back at the
hospital.
She's saying, you know, her lung or something with her lungs.
And things that she'd said over time that I've always heard over the years, just not
even in prison, but just in general, were all making a, and I asked, I said, well, is she talking about cancer again?
And they said, no, not to the main group,
but that there was a couple of women that got out
that kept in touch, and they would hear her on the phone
saying, oh, my cancer's back.
They think I have cancer again, and that kind of thing.
But they didn't know for the very,
for quite a while in prison why she was in there,
because she was telling them it was like embezzling
from a school.
People that go in and out of prison, or they kind of learn what makes sense.
So she was telling them that she got five years
for embezzling $2,000 from a school.
The feds aren't gonna put you away
for $2,000 for five years.
Like that's a hefty.
Right.
Yeah.
So they knew something wasn't right.
They knew from what she was telling them that you're in here for something else.
You just don't end up here.
Do you know about the classic Real Housewives of OC story when Vicki Gunvansild's boyfriend
faked cancer?
I do.
Because that was, I think I want to say, while this was all going on with me with Scamanda,
it was like there was a time frame that it overlapped.
Yeah.
So did you watch it or were you a fan of it or somebody turned you on?
No, no, I just would read it, you know, read TMZ.
I was like, oh my God.
I mean, that was-
That's bold.
The juiciest thing.
So Vicky was on the show
and she was married to her second husband,
but they'd been married a long time.
And they got a vow renewal.
And then you always get divorced after a vow renewal.
And they got divorced.
And then she was with this guy
who I think she was sort of seeing before
if she broke up with
her second husband. I think they've alluded to that anyway. So his name was Brooks and he was just
Southern and like such a dirty John. And she gets some new teeth and makes them a little cuter for the OC. And then he says my I want to think his might have been the Hodgkins too. I think it was the Hodgkins, yeah. Yeah, and then he's like, I had this, it's back.
So the reason she says, what I recall, that she believed him is that he said he had this
prior and now it's back.
And so she's sharing it, she's asking one of the housewives, a husband who was a Dr.
Terry about it. And then this girl, Megan King Edmonds is all who was a Dr. Terry about it.
And then this girl, Megan King Edmonds is all just like, I don't believe it. And then it was the whole thing about the HIPAA and the HIPAA rules.
Right.
And what, you know, did they go to this Hogue hospital in the OC or not?
And she's like, I had all these binders and he would be tired, but I didn't go to the doctor.
And the whole thing was, did she know?
And it's like, it's one of those things
that only she knows,
because she's lied about it.
And then if her castmates are mad at her,
they say you're lying.
And then when they make up with her,
they're like, she never knew.
And I always think she believed it in the very
beginning, discovered it, and then was like, holy fuck, we're filming this show.
Yeah, now what? Now we just have to keep it going. And he's
my boyfriend. And I don't want to be single. And I don't care that he lied. Like, I think
at the time she just was like, I have to get, and then when it was exposed,
she was like, and then she goes, I just thought, you know,
why is everyone being so mean and like looking,
well, I just thought we'd get casseroles.
Like she literally said, I just thought people
would give us casseroles and be nice.
And like, she didn't, I really don't,
I think she's so not self-aware that she did not realize
that just the idea of like lying about something that
affects every single family.
That should be enough to be like, I'm out of here.
Yeah.
And so then they did break up and then he married someone else.
Like in another state.
And then she still is like, I hate him.
And you know, and she's very defensive, but it's like, yeah, she'll say I never knew.
I never knew, I believed him.
I think she discovered it halfway through.
I think I know, because that was the same thing
I felt like with Amanda.
Yeah.
Like I said, once I sent these emails and contacted,
hey, this is going on.
Time went on, and when my lawsuit came up,
she brought those emails in, the two emails,
but she had said that I sent hundreds of emails and this was an example of what I sent.
She didn't bring the other hundreds because there weren't any I sent too.
But with that, it was forwarded amongst family members and that was her evidence, but in
it the family's like, who the F is this?
And that's it, they got these emails,
sent it to the parents, sent it to Amanda,
and then at that point, I don't know if it was my family,
I think I would have been like, why would they,
who is this person, and is there a federal investigation?
Were people at your house?
And yes, but you would think the wheels would start thinking,
wow, you know, we've never been to treatment with her.
We never, I guess you want to believe
that your family wouldn't do that, right?
I don't know.
I think that would be enough for me to be like,
if I don't, they just don't show up.
Yeah.
Right?
So.
There was another girl I interviewed,
her podcast is No One Should Believe Me.
I think that's what it is.
And she had a sister that had munchausens and also munchausens by proxy with a child.
And you know, lied about having a double miscarriage of twins and like lie about pregnancies, which that's a whole
other thing too, people that lie about pregnant, women that lie about pregnancies. And I'm
just like, I mean, in you investigating, is there any kind of like factor that that makes
someone a more likely candidate to do something like this? I think, you know, there definitely seems to be when people get caught for this or maybe
they look back, even with the man, like you try and look at the trauma, like where they
came from the trauma.
There must, there could be something.
I haven't really seen that from the family.
I've been contacted by different family members now as well that just had questions for me. They asked if it was okay, would I talk to them? I'm like,
yeah, sure. Nothing to... And even they were confused by where this all stemmed from.
Because she seemed to have like a stable childhood.
Yeah, very much so. Yeah.
Well, Dr. Drew Pinsky said, or no, no, it was Matt Murphy actually, he's a prosecutor, said that serial killers actually,
it's that they were like spoiled,
like that they're overly given whatever they want
is something that he has discovered.
It's not like a horrible childhood
or being neglected or anything like that.
And so yeah, it's like I do think, not like a horrible childhood or being neglected or anything like that.
And so yeah, it's like I do think and it sounded like the girl from Grey's Anatomy had a very
nice parents and a brother and everything that she lied about.
And I think sometimes it's just you're like a bad seed.
You're just you're like nothing makes sense.
You're just like all of a sudden you have a couple kids.
Did she have siblings? Yeah, three brothers. Yeah, like you have a couple
So and they're all like fine, but bright from the start, you know, like
You know, yeah, she was the oldest girl. Okay oldest
child and then three brothers, so I think you know
it seemed like there was a I of pressure, more so like perfectionism
was expected or like, you know, this is our little doll and she's, you know, she did some pageants,
she did some things like that, but like, but also that attention that like, actually, like, I want
to be a star, but I don't really want to do the work. So how else can I do it, which is also a
lot of Real Housewives and a lot of and also on Real Housewives, there was this one girl, Kim Zolziak, she lied about cancer,
kind of said she had it. And then there's like crying at a reunion and they're like,
and Annie Cohen's like, well, did you have, well, I thought I did. I thought I did. I
thought I did. And then I didn't. And this other girl, Mia, who she comes from like,
both of them kind of come from fucked up backgrounds,
but this one, Mia, she then, you know,
on one of the seasons said that she had something
wrong with her, but then she really didn't.
And it's just like, yeah, it's certain types.
I think that's the attention part of it.
And that probably started fairly young
in high school through college,
because on the podcast we had,
we talked to some of the people that were in college
with her at one point, and they were like,
you know, it's weird, she would get us
to do the work for her.
You know, they would be, she'd be scheduled,
oh, I'm so sick, I don't, she told everyone
that she had, I believe it was lupus.
So she had this world.
Oh, so she was doing that before?
Yeah, there's different things that, yes, definitely.
Illnesses were things that would kind of come and go.
And a lot of her verbiage was,
they say it's that, but they're not sure, right?
That's, but yeah, then that just kept escalating.
So I do think it did start with this snowball,
and she sees, oh, getting out of doing the
work I have to do as an RA at college, like they're covering my shifts.
So, okay, I'll go on with my life.
And I think, you know, she meets Corey and there must have been a need for money because
it was pretty fast and hard with needing extra money.
But he has never admitted to anything.
No, no. I guess that's one of the things. needing extra money. And a lot of it. But he has never admitted to anything.
No, no.
I guess that's one of the things,
well, just like Vicki and Brooks, we won't really know.
You think he knew from the start,
but I, in listening to it, I'm like,
I think she started it to get his attention.
And then he was like, who is this crazy bitch I married?
And he was just like, all right, fine,
if it's bringing money in and whatever.
And then just kind of went along with it, but knew like,
I don't even want to fight with this freak
and now she has two of my kids
and like, what am I supposed to do?
Well, remember in the podcast,
I had found people that predated her diagnosis, remember?
So in 2012, she was diagnosed,
and we interviewed in the podcast,
a couple that knew her in 2010.
And what'd they say?
They were told that she had four months to live.
Corey told them that she had four months to live.
They were a very wealthy couple
that had participated in fundraisers in the community
for other members of the community. Oh, then you're right. Yes.
Wow. Wow.
So that happened prior.
So then she, I guess, as far as Corey's concerned,
she cured that one and moved on to a new one.
So does, so is the wife in the podcast,
um, what's her name? Sorry.
Alita? Alita.
Alita. She is.
She was in the podcast, but in the docu-series. In the doc, I mean. Mm's her name? Sorry. Alita.
Alita.
She's in the podcast, but in the docu-series.
In the doc, I mean.
Because I just can't even imagine.
I just felt so infuriated for her and her struggle.
And then you also have to wonder what she's going through.
How did I marry him?
And then this woman, what did I ever do to deserve this?
Well, you know, and it came out in the podcast,
we interviewed the babysitter Mahasti that,
and she'll be in the docu-series as well, but in the podcast,
Mahasti talked about how when she first met Cory and Amanda
to watch the first baby, she was at a daycare,
Cory said that, oh, I have an older daughter and it
was from a one-night stand. They were married for four years. So, you know, he was lying
on top of lies mixed in too.
Maybe that was their attraction. You know, the two sociopaths find each other. Would
you say they're sociopathic?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he told people he was a fireman,
and he was working shifts, and so the families
would volunteer to...
Oh, so he's super comfortable lying as well.
I think so, yeah.
God, that's amazing.
Well...
It's like that perfect storm.
Somehow they found each other.
Now, this is not really her face, or is it?
Yeah, that is her.
Oh, it is!
Absolutely.
Oh, so she was like real cute.
Yeah.
Yep, that's her. Oh my God, but she doesn't give an interview to you guys, or so she was like real cute. Yeah. That's her.
Oh my God, but she doesn't give an interview to you guys,
or does she?
There are bits and pieces you'll hear from Amanda.
Oh, okay.
Some uncovered stuff that, you know,
from way back and then some current stuff as well.
What if at one point she really does get cancer?
Well, you know, it's funny you say that,
because when they moved,
they moved,, Northern, California
moved to Texas after she got indicted and they moved there waiting until like
She had to plead out and all that just to be away from just again. Yeah, whatever
And I got contacted really quickly after they moved to Texas that she was already at
hospitals and showing up they
The person contacted the the assumption was it was almost like pill shopping
or whatever, but that wasn't the case.
I was told through random people that she had about,
she was complaining about back issues or whatever,
like, I don't know, something like 20 something MRIs
or CAT scans in like-
Well, who pays for all that?
I guess whatever insurer, I don't know.
And I kind of didn't go down that hole
as much because I was like, this isn't stopping.
I wonder if there's just something almost like a weird
addiction of just like, I love hospitals, doctors.
I can't stop the attention.
I get off on it.
Like someone who has like a shopping addiction.
Like I just can't.
Well, and what is, if that's accurate,
and I wasn't able to vet it enough to know 100%.
But if that is like just the exposure to that radiation,
and that's not okay.
They say don't do that.
Yeah.
Not like dozens of time in a very short, yeah.
Oh my God, you're right.
Yeah, so I don't know.
So when does she, so you think she'll get,
she is gonna get out pretty soon now.
Yeah.
How much time did she do?
Seven years?
No, she got five.
Okay.
She's now at like three and change.
And then by the time December rolls around
is when she's, when her day out.
How does she feel about this is the fame?
Like here's her face.
Oh, I don't know. Yeah, I wonder, like, I wonder if now How does she feel about this is the fame? Like here's her face. She's on Juicy Scoop.
Like I wonder, like I wonder if now
there will be a part of her.
And if you come out, Amanda, come on.
Because just like the girl from The Grey's Anatomy,
I like, I wanna know, like if you do decide to come clean,
because you've done the time,
there's nothing to lose, right? She could come clean because you've done the time. There's nothing to lose, right?
She could come clean and really say what motivated her
because the girl in the Grey's Anatomy,
she did say finally,
she still didn't take full responsibility,
but she said she hurt her leg or something
a long time before she lied about the cancer.
And she was always sounded like
she just didn't have that many friends or was always whatever,
an outsider a little bit.
And for the first time, everybody was really nice to her
and gave her all this attention.
And then that's when it began.
And it was just like, she just,
but then she didn't take responsibility for all the stuff.
So like, that's what I really wanna know
from someone like her, but maybe they're never
mentally well enough to say it.
But like I would love to know like why, yeah.
That she gets whatever help she needs to be able to function in society.
Especially because now she's divorcing him.
So it's like, I'd love to know the truth.
I don't want her to come and then blame it all on him. But like,
I would love to just know. Yeah.
But it sounds like if she's still lying to people in prison,
she's probably not there yet. But you know, people, everyone has a podcast.
So it's probably have her own buddy. If you'd like to launch it here, I mean,
I would just die. I mean, I'm just so curious. And then, you know,
and then you don't get to be with your sons and all that.
The gobbledygook that's gonna come out of her
is to me useless and just self-serving.
But then it's part of it, it's like,
oh, it'd be interesting to hear what's next.
Yeah, would she ever, yeah.
No, I get that, but yeah.
Well, thank you so much for coming.
This was so great.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Besides watching, besides listening to the podcast,
which you did, and then the Hulu, ABC and Hulu, Scamanda,
is there anything else that you're working on
that you want to talk about or people can follow you or?
Oh, yeah. I'm on Instagram.
I don't do much on there, but I keep people apprised
of the stuff with Scamanda and some other things.
But yeah, I run a TV show called True Crime News,
which has been a syndicated show that's on.
And yeah, I'm always doing different projects.
Oh, at Nancy Muscatello.
Okay, great.
Well, thank you so much.
This was great.
I mean, I loved the podcast.
I cannot wait to watch the special.
And it's four weeks and you gotta wait each week,
which I kinda like.
I like having something to look forward to.
And I wish more shows would do that.
I mean, I think they're gonna do it
with a white lotus and stuff,
like where then you have time to talk about it
with other people and stuff.
It's like, don't give it to me all at once.
I don't wanna binge, like I wanna savor it. But all at once. I don't want to binge. I want to savor it.
But thank you so much.
This was great.
Thanks.
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