“Are you sure?”
That was the question that Arlette Lee, a Special Agent with IRS Criminal Investigation (CI), was asked over and over—including by her boss—as she worked on a California fraud case. But the crime-fighting veteran was sure: Amanda Riley was running a scam by pretending to have cancer.
Lee, now retired, remembers the exact moment she knew she would pursue a career in law enforcement: She was watching “Silence of the Lambs” and was fascinated by FBI Agent Clarice Starling, played by Jodie Foster in the film. Starling’s background was psychology, and Lee decided to follow that path at the University of Hawaii. While in college, she had the opportunity to intern with CI, investigating tax fraud. By 1996, she was named a special agent in the department.
Lee fit right in at CI. While in university, she had added accounting and business classes—a requirement for the law enforcement agency—which helped her navigate the particulars of an underreporting taxpayer in her first case as a special agent.
The job of CI agents, she explains, is to find the facts. CI is the sixth-largest law enforcement agency in the U.S. It is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for investigating financial crimes such as tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, and identity theft. Because of their reputation for following the money, CI agents also play an important role in fraud cases. That’s how Lee found herself involved in the investigation of Amanda Riley.
Amanda Riley
Amanda Riley was a wife and mother from California who, in 2012, started a blog called Lymphoma Can Suck It. Amanda used the blog to write about her “battle” with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a form of blood cancer. Despite her diagnosis, Amanda became pregnant two times (she claims that she learned about the cancer while she was pregnant with her first son).
Beginning in 2013, Amanda began to monetize the blog. She added a link to a support page and asked for donations to pay expenses related to her alleged illness. In 2014, the blog announced that while Amanda “beat” her cancer in 2013, the cancer had returned. She explained her treatment plan, which allegedly included rounds of chemo, and asked for financial help. “Open your hearts and help Amanda and her family through this difficult time,” the blog read. “No donation is too small; even $5 a month can make a difference.”
By 2015, the blog had attracted a lot of attention—and free stuff. Because of her diagnosis, Amanda was on the receiving end of free merchandise, free meals, and free babysitting. Friends, neighbors, and strangers on the internet all wanted to help. But not everyone was convinced that Amanda was telling the truth.
The Tip
Nancy Moscatiello, a TV producer who had previously worked on the 90s investigative show “Hard Copy” received an anonymous tip that Amanda might be lying (her work would eventually result in the podcast, Scamanda, which was recently made into an ABC News docuseries for Hulu).
Moscatiello—whose father-in-law was a retired IRS agent—began digging into Amanda’s claims and eventually felt she had enough information to alert law enforcement. (Amanda attempted to sue Moscatiello in response to the investigation, but the case was thrown out.) She explained her findings to local police. Detective Jose Martinez of the San Jose, California, police department became involved and eventually contacted the IRS. That’s when Lee stepped in. At first, she was a bit incredulous. “It’s hard to believe,” she remembered thinking, “that someone could do this.” And worse, “What if we’re wrong?”
The Investigation
It can take months, and even years, to build a criminal case. That’s because you have to gather evidence that proves allegations, and it must be solid before you can refer it for prosecution.
As a first step, Lee sought out a paper trail—specifically, medical and financial records. The medical records offered no evidence that Amanda was experiencing a recurrence of cancer, nor that she had ever been diagnosed with cancer.
At the same time, Martinez was also working the case. When Amanda’s lawyer asked him to stop work, he agreed—if Amanda could produce evidence that she had cancer. She eventually produced a doctor’s note. When Martinez followed up, the note turned out to be fabricated.
It was another piece of an elaborate scam that ran for years. “You can say whatever you want to say,” about your health, Lee says, noting that most people would never question a young mother who claimed to have cancer. Lee went on to explain that it’s not hard to get an IV at the hospital or treatment at the ER—all of which could later be used as photo ops to suggest a diagnosis. Amanda produced pictures of medications—with the names always just out of sight—and treatments that could have easily been staged. And according to court statements, Amanda shaved her head to make it appear as if she were receiving chemotherapy and falsified medical records and certifications.
Investigators say that Amanda researched cancer and related treatment so that she could write about her “experiences.” She also had the benefit of a close look into the potentially devastating effects of cancer. Years before she started the blog, Amanda (then Maneri) met Cory Riley who was, at the time married to Aletta Souza. Aletta had a daughter, Jaymie, who had been diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia. Since she was sick, Jaymie couldn’t participate in many of the activities girls her age did—like cheerleading. Amanda, then 17 years old, was hired to teach Jaymie to cheer.
Jaymie eventually got better, but Cory’s marriage to Aletta didn’t survive. They divorced and in 2011, Cory married Amanda. He was 12 years her senior.
Initial Disbelief
Remarkably, Amanda had continued the ruse even though she knew she was being investigated. Some have suggested that those around her, including Cory, had to have known that she was faking, but he was never charged. Lee acknowledges that there was no evidence that proved that anyone else was involved, but notes that the bar for prosecution is high. (Cory and Amanda divorced after her trial and he has since stayed out of the public eye.)
Even a raid at her home didn’t slow Amanda down. When CI showed up on her doorstep in October 2016, Amanda spun yet another story, arguing that she was being investigated for taxes.
By that time, Amanda had received donations from hundreds of people who were sympathetic to her cause (court records put the number of donors from Amanda’s support page between September 13, 2013, and March 15, 2016, at 447). Lee initially found that those people didn’t want to talk to investigators—they believed Amanda’s story. While Lee knew that Amanda didn’t have cancer, she wasn’t able to share that information while the investigation was ongoing. That made getting potential victims to talk to her a bit tricky.
As Lee made phone calls, she realized she had to change her tack. She began asking whether supporters would have donated if Amanda didn’t have cancer. Most, she said, answered with some form of, “Absolutely not… but she has cancer.”
Lee acknowledged that this line of thinking is common in fraud scams. Even after they know the truth, people do not want to believe they’ve been duped. They will wonder, “How did I fall for this?”
Lee was eventually able to build a case, and in 2020, Amanda was officially charged with wire fraud—she had received $105,513.43 from 349 people and organizations through her online platform. Donations made in person weren’t part of the charges (they don’t meet the definition of wire fraud), including donations of cash, checks, gift cards, items, and other goods or services (like free childcare). It also doesn’t include money donated through fundraisers (local restaurants donated profits to pay for Amanda’s “treatment”) nor money that was donated through other organizations (on at least one occasion, church members tossed cash at the altar as they prayed for Amanda).
It wasn’t the dollar amounts that stood out to Lee, but rather the number of potential victims. Lee refers to this kind of matter as a “righteous case”—one where the importance to law enforcement is about the overall impact to the community.
Plea and Sentencing
Amanda initially pleaded not guilty to the charges. In October 2021, she switched her plea to guilty, hoping for a brief six-month prison sentence. That didn’t happen. In May 2022, she was sentenced to five years in prison, three years of supervised probation, and restitution.
At her sentencing hearing, Amanda apologized for her actions, claiming, “This is the worst thing I have ever done and the worst mistake I could have made.”
Prison officials and law authorities aren’t so sure. Amanda began serving her sentence at Federal Medical Center Carswell in Ft. Worth, Texas. According to court documents, during her stay, Amanda made repeated trips—at least 24 trips by ambulance—to the hospital, eventually resulting in a motion in June 2024 for compassionate release, a move usually reserved for persons with extraordinary circumstances.
The government claimed that Amanda was attempting to manipulate the system again, citing episodes suggesting that she was faking illnesses in jail and trying to create false test results by holding her breath during oxygen saturation tests and accelerating her heart rate for other tests. In response, Amanda’s attorneys argued in court documents that she was sick and required additional care. (The public defender assigned to her case did not return a request for comment.)
The motion was denied.
Where’s Amanda Now?
Currently, Amanda is incarcerated at a Residential Reentry Management (RRM) facility in Long Beach, California—a sort of halfway house to transition to life outside of prison. Her scheduled release date is December 4, 2025.
Lee is hopeful that Amanda will choose a different path once she’s released, noting that she’s still young (Amanda is now 39), but she notes that it can be a struggle to turn your life around after spending years caught up in a lie. “That’s what she knows how to do,” Lee says, adding, “She’s good at it.”
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