Brandi Lee Weaver-Gates, a former Pennsylvania beauty queen, lied about having cancer and faked going through chemotherapy to scam people out of money.
On Tuesday a judge sentenced her to two to four years in prison, five years probation. She was ordered to repay the money.
Weaver-Gates pretended to have leukemia to raise about $30,000 from hoax fundraisers, local NBC affiliate WJAC-TV reported Tuesday.
“Many, many people have been affected by cancer and when someone takes advantage of that to make money as fraud in a calculated and elaborate way, it is incomprehensible,” prosecutor Stacy Parks Miller told the Centre Daily Times last month when the former Miss Pennsylvania U.S. International pageant winner pleaded guilty.
Weaver-Gates faked cancer to garner more attention—namely from her family members, who didn’t know the truth, she told a judge.
Weaver-Gates had her family and friends take her to Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore for fake cancer treatments, WHP-TV reported in 2015.
