Original subtitles

Amanda, at this stage is cornered, really.

They raided her house.

My mom sent me videos of them hiding out

in the back of the car.

Wow! Going in.

And I remember my mom being so happy.

- There's so many of them. - I'm shaking.

Now, looking back, I-- I get it.

They put my mom through hell.

- Oh, my God. - Oh, my God.

But you don't ever want to know people are living in the world

faking cancer and stuff. So, for me, it was kind of, um,

not something to be celebrated.

I was like, "Okay, this is done. They're caught. This is over."

But it wasn't over. Not even close.

She's not under arrest at the moment.

It just takes time for-- for stuff to happen.

At the time, Jessa was back in my custody.

I got her back abruptly

because Amanda's family went on a cruise

for Amanda's 30th birthday. And apparently,

there was some heavy drinking on board,

and some behaviors that made Jessa uncomfortable.

And I got full physical legal custody back.

After the raid, it was important for me to be completely,

100% truthful with Jessa.

And so, I told her that there's suspicion

that Amanda does not have cancer.

And at that point, she did know something was off

because she had found a portion of an IV

in her little brother's playroom.

And so, Jessa texted Amanda about the raid

and was asking questions.

Aletta felt it was necessary to explain to Jessa

what had happened.

Amanda couldn't even tell Jessa the truth at that point.

It was very much like,

"You don't know what you're talking about.

"You're being fed lies. This is all your mom's doing."

And Jessa knew that wasn't the case.

And so, she pressed, you know, Amanda.

Amanda had got upset because I had discussed it with Jessa.

But, you know, of course I have to.

I was very sad by the situation,

and I wish it had never come to that.

The emotional distress that Jessa had to go under,

thinking that her stepmom was gonna die,

saying that she might have to go into surgery

to save Amanda's life, that's abuse.

Amanda told Jessa that... she and her brothers

were gonna have to get some of their bone marrow

to possibly save Amanda's life.

Now, not only are you lying, you're terrifying your children.

Imagine the two little ones...

thinking that their mom's gonna die.

Wow. The-- How can a mother do that?

Then Cory,

supposedly he went to the hospitals with her.

He did treatments with her.

She has an IV pole and IV items in the house.

How could he not know?

He stood next to her crying to me.

He backed her up.

I think at some point, Cory believed her.

And I think at some point, he knew it was a lie.

Proving where that line is, is a harder go,

because then you can say,

"She fooled this entire congregation.

"She fooled her mom.

"Why is it far-fetched to fool a husband

"who sees her with a shaved head and shivering in the bed

"and oxygen tubes?"

Literally hours after federal agents left her home...

...Amanda posted on Facebook.

It was lymphoma cancer awareness month,

and she's posting an old picture of her bald.

I just couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Nothing stopped her.

She told me that what she was

getting in trouble for was the tax evasion.

Amanda told everyone that it's just all a mix-up

to do with tax 'cause she didn't realize

she had to pay tax on the money that people had gifted her.

So, Amanda actually didn't hide away from it.

But the police and the IRS investigating her

weren't gonna go away.

My father-in-law,

the senior pastor of Family Community Church,

came to me privately and said, "Hey,

"there's an investigation going on. I need to know.

"Does Amanda have cancer?"

And I said, I... "She says she does."

And that's when he said, "I just caution you,

"uh, to not give any more to Cory and Amanda."

Uh, he said, "We're not gonna be donating anything any further."

And that

made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Um, so many people read my blog and hear my story,

and ask about my faith. Um, that's all God.

We would see less and less of her at the church.

She stopped coming, really, to the main service.

My father-in-law loves his congregation.

And anytime anyone's giving their testimony

or sharing their faith, especially from the pulpit,

he expects that it's genuine and authentic.

Don't ignore Jesus because he is always there,

and it would be unfortunate if he brought you your miracle,

and you weren't watching.

It was very painful

to look at these videos and pictures

and see somebody that claimed to be a person of faith

give false testimony to a room full of believers.

She had thousands of people duped.

I don't think, in that church, that there was one person

standing in the background going,

"Something doesn't add up."

She doesn't care.

She doesn't care that people are looking into her.

She was now away from the FCC church,

and she wasn't gonna stop.

And sure enough, someone said to me,

"Well, you know, Amanda's now gonna be principal

"at a elementary school in Gilroy."

She moved 40 minutes away,

and I just knew this school was gonna be her next target.

When the police went after Amanda,

she pulled away from the church.

But she was very, very charming,

and Amanda used it to her advantage.

Amanda was teaching,

and then, she was hired as a principal

at a school called Pacific Point.

Interview Natalie, take one, A, B, C, common mark.

I am a parent at Pacific Point Christian School.

My daughter attended Pacific Point

when Amanda was principal.

When she was first hired, everybody loved her.

The kids loved her. My daughter adored her.

She was charming, charismatic, seemed very caring.

There were no red flags.

No one at that school would have had any idea

that she was being investigated.

Hi.

My son, James, was going into kindergarten.

So, we went to Pac Point to take a tour.

When we got there, we met Amanda Riley.

My husband and myself thought she was so amazing.

And we wanted to find a school that would accommodate us

in our situation.

Because of James' older brother, Jonathan,

having Niemann-Pick's type C disease,

we refer to it as childhood Alzheimer's,

I had told her how we are in a clinical trial

and have to go to all these different places.

And because James is so young, he needs to come with us.

And she understood.

And then she had told us

she was in remission from cancer.

And at the end of our tour,

she prayed with me and my husband, and Jonathan,

and told him, "I understand how you feel."

"I went through treatment as well."

I knew it was only a matter of time till she started,

you know, "I'm so sick.

"My cancer's back, I need money, my family."

And that's exactly what happened fairly quickly.

There was a fundraiser for another staff member

at Pac Point that had her cancer come back.

And soon after that,

Amanda announced to the community at the school

that her cancer was also back,

and that she was going to

be going through more chemo and more treatments.

Miss Cindy was sick, and you could see it.

But she worked as long as she could

because she loved our kids so much.

We learned about Amanda's health pretty quickly on,

and the kids at our school prayed for her.

They made her little gifts.

It was her first year, but everybody supported her,

and wanted to help.

So, the school sent out the emails

that they were doing this fundraiser

for Miss Cindy and Miss Riley.

Gilroy is an amazing community.

The people are generous.

People would write checks. They would give cash.

Teachers went to go visit Amanda at the hospital.

The school... did what I think Amanda expected,

which was to fundraise for her as well.

And all the money that they raised

over the next months and year,

um, was split between Miss Cindy and-- and Amanda.

I noticed one of the families she was involved with was,

uh, Rebecca Spencer's family, and Rebecca's son, Jonathan,

who was a young man that had a terminal illness.

And I reached out.

I got a phone call from Nancy.

And honestly, when she first called me,

I thought, "This lady's crazy."

But then as I talked to her, then I got angry because...

my son is only alive because of people's donations.

And for somebody to lie and say that they have a disease,

and they don't have it, this is beyond disgusting.

She prayed with Jonathan,

and said, "I understand how it is

"to have a terminal illness, a disease."

And, no, she didn't.

She didn't go through what Jonathan goes through.

Um, Miss Cindy was a wonderful person.

She had a tragic story.

I was there, uh, with her the day before she died,

my husband and I. And she is so missed.

So, when we all found out Amanda was being investigated,

we were heartbroken for her kids and for all of the victims,

but we were also angry that Miss Cindy died...

...and that those kids grieved for her,

and that she put our kids through torture.

It was at that point

some of my colleagues at my office

made the decision to reach out at the school.

"Hey, I wanna know more about your principal.

"I may be sending my child there."

Amanda, I think, quickly figured out it was, uh,

somehow related to me.

And she filed the restraining order against me.

It was a Friday night on a holiday weekend,

and I came home,

went to get the mail out of the mailbox,

and there was just all these papers stuffed in there.

I thought it was junk mail, and I'm pulling through,

pulling all these papers out, and I see Amanda Riley,

and I see my name, and I'm like, "What the hell is this?"

And I-- I start to realize it was court papers.

Amanda had filed a restraining order against me.

In the paperwork to the courts,

she claimed I was calling her workplace hundreds of times.

She was claiming that I got her fired at her past jobs,

that I got Cory fired.

She claimed I was taking on these pseudonyms

and reaching out to random people

accusing her of things

and harassing her on every level.

It took months and thousands of dollars

to get to the point where we could finally

have our day in court.

I testified. Amanda testified. Cory testified.

Cory testified that he was by his wife's side

at appointments for the last five years.

But as a member of the press and doing, uh,

this for a news organization,

this was a First Amendment issue.

Nancy was in the right of,

basically, the freedom of press.

But it became so personal for Nancy.

And then, you've got Amanda

with the same tenacity and determination,

to then quiet Nancy down.

Subjects in criminal investigations

will often say that it's a mistake or a misunderstanding.

I just keep going on with my case

and get the proper evidence

for her to eventually get charged.

It took a long time,

but the good thing was that it's still happening.

It's just gonna show, you know, how brazen this person is,

even after they know it's at this level.

I remember when that press release went out,

that Amanda Riley had been indicted.

These were the charges, and here's what she did.

And places picked up on the story

because it's not every day you get a headline

that someone was faking cancer for eight years,

taking tens of thousands of dollars.

At that point I knew also that all the victims,

if they donated through the Support Amanda site,

were receiving a letter saying, "You are the victim of a fraud."

I had a little email thing flash

and it just said, "Department of Justice."

And I read through it.

I just remember going cold.

I started Googling it.

I was like, "Wait, what?"

I've given, on the low side, 20,000,

on the high side, 30,000.

And that's in actual cash. That does not include gifts.

I felt like I w-- was owed an explanation.

So, I reached out to her mom.

I asked Peggy, I was like, "Peggy, like, what do you know?"

And she says, "Rebecca, you know Amanda has cancer.

"You know Amanda's innocent.

"I was at those doctor's appointments."

And that was all I had to hear.

Rebecca couldn't get her head around

that Amanda was capable of something like this.

Amanda, within the next couple of days,

reached out to me, and she's like,

"I'm so sorry that, like,

"you're even being brought up in this.

"It's... This is, like, my nightmare."

And so I said, like, "Amanda, listen, I believe you."

"I am trying to answer a lot of people right now

"in my life that are challenging me with this.

"Like, can you give me anything?"

And she said, "Well, I have an appointment.

"Y-- You can come with me."

And I was like, "That's amazing."

And she texted me the day before.

And she's like, "Unfortunately, because of all the protocols

"right now with COVID, you're not gonna be able

"to come in with me, but I can FaceTime you."

And I was like, "Totally understandable.

"That totally makes sense." Um, and so, she FaceTimed me.

And she had on one of the little medical hats,

and was wearing a mask. And I could see a nurse

in the background kind of moving around.

And I could see the... the metal from the IV.

And you could see the IV in her arm.

And I'm like, "Okay, she's...

"...she's having treatment."

I even took a picture when she FaceTimed me,

and I sent it to my friends and family.

And I was like, "Look, she is in treatment right now."

Like, "This is all going to get blown over."

I had no doubt about it at all. I mean, to a fault.

At what point in the process

did you call [bleep]?

When she pled guilty.

After I got the notice from the Department of Justice,

I let Amanda know, "Hey,

"I was just given this notice that you faked cancer."

It was all so surreal.

But, looking back...

there are things that...

...I wish I would have paid attention to.

I knew she was getting a port. There were posts with pictures.

I knew it was infected. I saw the bandage on her chest.

And then, there was never any scar tissue.

And looking back, I just think,

"How could I have dismissed that?"

But the narrative that she was dying,

and a miracle was just so much stronger

than any doubt could have been.

So, once a criminal complaint was filed on Amanda...

she was charged with wire fraud.

And she was charged with a bankruptcy fraud charge.

And it was basically, you know,

false information on a bankruptcy filing.

And it was the fact that

they submitted this filing saying she had cancer,

and the medical records proved that she did not.

Cory may not have been charged,

but it doesn't change the fact that I think he knew all along.

When you have a husband and wife,

there's a-- a privilege.

And so, how could we prove that Cory was part of it?

The only person who'd be able to show us

would-- would have been Amanda.

Initially, Amanda said she's not guilty.

What I was told was that Amanda didn't wanna plead

to the bankruptcy fraud charge.

But it's not uncommon, uh, that when you plead,

that if there are other charges, some of them could be dropped.

I attended every single Zoom hearing.

And it was on my calendar as "Cancer Scam Zoom Party."

There was a lot of back-and-forth

that prolonged her pleading guilty.

She pled guilty...

and it was a relief because the truth came out.

So, I just felt this satisfaction.

The sentencing hearing, it was really, uh,

a wonderful day, really, for justice.

It was crowded.

Amanda was there with Cory, with her parents.

There was a lot of people there that had been scammed by Amanda.

Her sentencing was the very first time

I had been in a courtroom.

And I decided to take the opportunity

to give a impact statement.

"Amanda, I first met you in a church.

"You were the poor, young Christian woman,

"fighting a battle undeserved.

"I couldn't do much,

"but I could pour my blood out for you.

"As a lifelong atheist,

"the first time I prayed to God, it was for you."

And...

she gave me a look, as I read this to her.

We were wearing masks, but her eyes said...

"I'm so sorry."

And isn't it so true of a narcissist that she wasn't?

I wanted to make sure the judge knew

that she had done this before,

and that she would absolutely do this again,

given the chance.

"Your Honor,

"two years before she publicly claimed

"to first be diagnosed,

"she told me and my husband that she had cancer.

"They manipulated our emotions to get what they wanted,

"attention and money.

"Years later, I learned that

"Amanda and Cory were at it again,

"scamming on an even larger scale."

When I was up there, I was shaking so bad

that my husband was literally holding me tight

to stop me from shaking so I could read the paper.

"My daughter believed that her stepmom was dying."

"How Amanda Riley could do this

"to a young girl is beyond disgusting.

"It's abusive."

"This was truly a nightmare.

"And it has never stopped."

I couldn't find the strength

to get up in that moment, but I did write something.

"Do you remember me, Amanda?

"I was the little girl with barely any hair.

"You came over and taught me how to dance.

"I was dying. You were my friend.

"Do you remember me, Amanda?

"I was the young woman.

"A group of us cancer survivors

"and yourself stood out on the field.

"You looked over to me, and you smiled.

"I can't help but wonder

"what was going through your mind.

"While you have taken so much from so many people,

"you cannot take my strength.

"I have been through a lot

"and continue to heal to this day,

"but I am a proud cancer survivor."

She likely won't ever hear it.

But putting everything down on paper, um,

felt very freeing.

And then, Amanda gave her statement.

This is the worst thing I've ever done

and the worst mistake I could have made.

She didn't have any remorse.

I have been dealing with...

I remember her saying,

"I'm so sorry that this happened."

You should be sorry you did this,

that you hurt these people.

She didn't care.

She... She was sorry that she got caught.

I'm here to accept responsibility...

She never admitted to faking cancer

in her statement.

She was more worried

about herself and how much time she was gonna do.

Eighteen months was the recommended sentence,

and I certainly didn't think that was enough.

And neither did the judge.

When the judge spoke...

the whole courtroom gasped.

The judge really...

really understood what this case was about.

And how dangerous someone like Amanda could be.

This is part of the statement that the judge gave

during Amanda's sentencing.

"In considering the seriousness of the crime,

"there is no doubt this is a very serious crime.

"I have to further consider public safety

"and the need for deterrence.

"I do find the public to be at a significant risk from you.

"I do believe that this will happen again.

"I will impose an upward variance

"of the guideline sentence,

"and I will sentence you to 60 months in prison."

We were stunned.

And you're quickly calculating...

...what that meant. That meant five years.

The judge also ordered Amanda to pay restitution,

which I think is fantastic.

One of the things that really struck me

that the judge said was...

that she was giving her a stiff sentence

because she was gonna do it again.

If she didn't have a stiff sentence,

she would do it again.

After Amanda was sentenced,

I really wanted to try and approach her.

And I waited for everybody to leave.

And then Amanda did come out with her lawyer.

So, I followed them...

around the side of the courtroom.

Amanda, sorry to disturb you. Um, I'm Charlie.

I just wanted to give you my card.

And she took my card, and then,

I didn't give her a chance to speak.

She kind of like went, "Oh, thank you."

And then, I walked off.

Later that night,

I got a text message from Amanda.

"Hi, Charlie, thank you for reaching out to me

"in the way that you did.

"You were kind, polite and courteous."

And then she said to me,

"Let me know if you want to talk."

So, I replied.

And then, that's when we started to build a relationship.

This went on from September 2022,

right through to the day that I released the podcast,

which was May 2023.

Hey, Scamanda listeners, it's Charlie here.

Amanda couldn't listen to the podcast in prison,

but Cory and her mum listened

and told her that I was objective

in the way that I told the story.

I was happy to hear that.

And I've been building that trust,

hoping that she'll decide to put more of her story out there.

All right.

I'm just waiting to do a video call

with Amanda in prison.

And I've got three minutes to go.

She's agreed to speak to me, but for it not to be recorded.

So, I'm gonna go and have a conversation with her,

and then I will report back, see what she says.

Let's just wait.

Hi, Amanda.

Gosh, I don't even know where to start.

So, we had a 25-minute conversation.

She told me that, um, Cory and her are divorcing.

We talked about Cory.

Amanda said that a lot of the money that she, um,

raised through saying she had cancer

actually was spent on Cory's divorce to Aletta

and child custody, and child support for Jessa.

Amanda got really upset at one point in the conversation

about her children.

It seemed very genuine.

She was really crying and very, very upset, sobbing.

She said she is sorry

and she does wanna take accountability, and...

But she... It-- You know, she looked well.

That was one thing that surprised me.

She looks well. And she is st--

still saying that she's got health problems.

I honestly don't know...

...um, what I think about that.

I don't know. I d-- I don't...

I honestly don't know whether that's true or not.

When you're the victim of a con or a scam,

or someone lying to you, like,

you feel like you should have seen it.

You should have recognized it,

and it makes you feel less terribly, um,

when there were other people that went through it as well.

What you are about to hear

is a true story.

Doing the podcast, it was a great experience.

I knew that the story was going to resonate

with a lot of people.

But I was really shocked at the response that we got.

- Scamanda. - Scamanda.

-Scamanda. - Scamanda.

People were talking about it all over the news,

over social media, posting about it.

Amanda has a huge problem. She's a liar.

Who would do something like this?

The story is completely unhinged.

And it was such a great feeling to know,

"Okay, this is resonating with people."

And it was great to give a voice

to so many of the people I had been in contact with,

over the years.

Hearing all of these other pieces,

it made me not feel alone,

because other people had been affected as well.

But I went through, like,

more than a decade of history with this family.

I don't want to say I always felt "Special,"

but I felt like I was owed an explanation.

And I tried to go down this rabbit hole.

Okay.

"May 4th, 2022."

Which was after the sentencing.

I just sent the text, "Amanda, I'm so sorry

"for what you and your family are going through."

Then she said, "This really means a lot.

"I do want to talk to you, now that I can and explain."

And, um, she wrote this one to me

a couple of days before she was... Went to jail.

"Hi, Rebecca, how are you doing?

"I'm really sorry it took me so long to get back to you.

"I'm struggling and I honestly don't know

"where to start or even what to say."

I still don't believe her.

At this point,

there's no possibility of her recovering my trust.

Because how can you,

when you've been lied to for years and years?

At this point, I can't believe anything

that comes out of either Peggy or Amanda's mouth.

Because Peggy emailed me as well.

"She finally came clean

"with the family last September,

"and I've never felt so betrayed and stupid

"that I didn't recognize it sooner."

She had made all these claims that she'd been

to doctor's appointments for years.

And that did not add up with the fact that she said

that she just found out in September.

I felt so targeted by both Peggy and Amanda.

And I don't know that we'll ever know the truth.

I don't know if something happened

in that household, that created it.

I don't know if Amanda naturally...

was looking for attention. I don't know.

I don't think that Amanda sat down

and masterminded this plan,

but I did wonder where she got the idea

of lying about cancer from.

Was it from Lisa,

who had a friend who fundraised for cancer?

Or was it Jaymie?

Amanda got very close to Jaymie at the time

that she was being treated for cancer.

I'm going on almost 20 years cancer-free.

I don't know that she got the idea

to fake cancer from my experience.

I don't know what goes on in that woman's head.

I think Amanda and Cory just wanted things

to go their way.

And they would do

whatever they felt they needed to do,

wanted to do, to get their way.

You have highly aggressive blood cancer.

It's metastasized to your lungs.

My kids weren't the only ones

that went through this. She hurt tons of people.

And I don't think she's gonna come out reformed.

I really don't.

She's full of crap.

And she'll always be full of crap.

She's smart enough to be devious,

and to another level.

And she knows that it has effect on people,

how she looks, how she carries herself.

Because she's an actor,

she's in that character 24/7. She's still a victim.

Somebody's done her wrong.

I don't think that's gonna change.

I highly doubt

she's gonna step out of the prison gates and be like,

"What good can I, you know, bring into the world?"

I'm sure she's got something else lined up already.

So, like, what's the next level for her?

I've always lived this battle so publicly.

I was like, "God," like,

"I don't wanna have such a sad end to the story

"for everybody," you know? But-- But it is.