On the heels of another docuseries about a woman who faked being sick comes Scamanda, which chronicles the life and lies of one Amanda Riley.
Riley is “a young wife, mother, and devout Christian whose life suddenly takes a terrible turn when she is diagnosed with stage 3 blood cancer,” as ABC News says in a press release about the documentary series, which debuts on ABC in 2025 (and will be available to stream on Hulu the following day).
That “terrible turn” was a terrible lie, though, and now, more than a dozen years later, Riley is serving prison time. Read on for facts about her case and the new show exposing her deception.
1. Amanda Riley is a mother and former school principal who faked cancer.
As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, Riley is a mother of two who was previously a principal at an elementary school in Gilroy, California, a city south of the Bay Area. In 2021, she pleaded guilty to wire fraud in connection to a seven-year ruse in which she solicited donations for a fake case of Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
“Although she was not actually ill, Riley carefully cultivated a social media presence, using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and a blog,” explains a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of California. “She used her presence on these sites to ‘document’ her nonexistent medical condition, and to aggressively solicit donations, supposedly to cover her medical expenses.”
As part of the charade, Riley shaved her head, falsified records, forged letters from doctors, and got family members to corroborate her story, the U.S. Attorney’s Office added.
2. Riley got hundreds of donations totaling more than $100k.
The jig was up in 2019 when the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation division and the San Jose Police Department uncovered Riley’s deception. And the government identified 349 individuals and entities who donated a total of $105,513 to go toward her purported medical expenses, money that Riley then used to pay for her living expenses, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
ABC
3. She was sentenced to five years in prison — and ordered to pay more than $100k in restitution.
Riley pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in October 2021, and the following May, she was sentenced to 60 months behind bars. In addition, U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman ordered Riley to pay restitution of $105,513 and to undergo three years of supervision following her release from prison.
“I will spend the rest of my life working towards the amends for the hurt that I have caused,” Riley said at the sentencing, per the Chronicle.
4. Prosecutors say Riley is still faking maladies in prison.
Riley was taken by ambulance to an emergency room 24 times during her first 18 months in prison after experiencing an increased pulse, chest pain, a head laceration, and other medical issues, according to federal court records cited by the Chronicle.
But U.S. Attorney Michael Pitman said healthcare professionals saw Riley trying to tamper with test results. Riley allegedly held her breath during an oxygen saturation test and intentionally gave herself tachycardia, for instance. And prosecutors suspect Riley is still faking health problems, even while she serves her prison sentence for her scheme.
“Perhaps not surprisingly … Defendant’s medical records make clear that she does not actually suffer from any acute health problems at all,” Pitman said in a response to a motion for a sentence reduction.
Furthermore, prosecutors pointed out, four doctors and a nurse suggested or stated that Riley has factitious disorder, otherwise known as Munchausen syndrome, a mental disorder in which someone fakes sicknesses and injuries.
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5. She tried to get her prison time reduced.
In April 2024, Riley filed a motion to get her five-year prison sentence slashed by more than half and tried to get herself freed on time served — or, alternatively, to get her sentence reduced by 13 months, the Chronicle added. Riley’s attorneys cited her ER visits and mental health issues, plus diagnoses ranging from cardiac arrhythmia to sleep terrors.
But Judge Freeman denied the motion. “Considering the number of victims (over 300), the fraudulent financial benefit of over $100,000 received by Ms. Riley, and her continued efforts to fake her ailments, the Court is satisfied that 60 months of imprisonment is the fair and proper sentence at this time.”
6. A hit podcast about Riley’s case is now a docuseries.
In the Lionsgate Sound podcast Scamanda — across 11 episodes released between April and July 2023 — journalist Charlie Webster “explores this unbelievable and bizarre, but all-too-real tale of a woman from San Jose, California, whose secret ripped a family apart and left a community in shock.”
The podcast won two 2024 Webby Awards, as both the Webby Winner and the People’s Voice Winner in the Podcasts – Crime & Justice (Limited-Series & Specials) category. It also ranked as the most popular new podcast of 2023 on Apple Podcasts, as Variety reported.
Now that podcast has been turned into a docuseries of the same name, with Webster as an executive producer. Also on board as an EP is investigative producer Nancy Mosciatello, who delved into Riley’s story for five years.
“The series features new and exclusive interviews, including police and an IRS investigator who covered the case, former friends of Amanda’s, and a neuropsychologist who provides insight into the mind of a scammer; communications between Amanda and podcast host Charlie Webster; exclusive access to archival assets; materials collected by Moscatiello during her investigation and more,” ABC says in a press release.
Scamanda, Series Premiere, 2025, ABC
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