It’s the summer of Scamanda.
The Scamanda podcast, about a woman who was able to convince her friends and family that she had cancer for nearly a decade—and to give her more than $100,000 for “treatment” in the process—has captivated listeners.
Amanda Riley, a former teacher and principal from Northern California, was sentenced last May to five years in federal prison for wire fraud in the scheme, which she pleaded guilty to in October 2021. From 2012 to 2019, Riley had told friends, family, and internet strangers, via social media and a blog, that she had Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the US Attorney’s office said, and that she “used her presence on these sites to ‘document’ her nonexistent medical condition and to aggressively solicit donations, supposedly to cover her medical expenses.”
In order to keep up her grift, Riley shaved her head, falsified medical records, and even sued Nancy Moscatiello, an investigative producer who was originally tipped off to her scheme and had begun to dig into Riley and her blog. All told, federal authorities identified 349 people who had given Riley a total of more than $105,000 over the seven-year period.
Journalist and host Charlie Webster of Lionsgate Sound first began investigating Riley and her case in 2021 and, after years of reporting, released Scamanda, a deep-dive podcast into Riley and her scheme. Since its release on May 15, the show has become the top show on Apple Podcasts multiple times during its eight-episode season, become the subject of its own dedicated subreddit, and sparked countless discussions on TikTok and Twitter about Riley and her twisted web of deceit.
Listeners can’t get enough of the podcast’s truly outrageous moments (at one point Riley claimed that she was able to inject an experimental chemo drug at home) but also have been shocked by the brazenness with which Riley was able to deceive those who loved and cared for her.
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The show’s finale airs Monday, but Webster is releasing four bonus episodes in the upcoming weeks due to listener interest. Ahead of the finale, she sat down with Glamour to discuss her show’s viral success and burning questions from listeners. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Glamour: How did you first hear about Amanda Riley’s case?
Charlie Webster: I knew Nancy [Moscatiello] from being in the same industry, and we were talking one day and she told me the story. She wasn’t doing it as a news story; it became really personal for her. She said she was basically trying to prove that this woman didn’t have cancer. And I was like, Oh, tell me more. And then I was like, Who is this woman? I started to look into it independently because I wasn’t sure at this point what was going to happen. There’d been no conviction. Amanda hadn’t pled guilty. I knew the police were investigating her, but I didn’t know where it would go and I thought there was so much more to it. It just felt so complex to me, behaviorally and psychologically.
When was this?
CW: 2021. I was like, This is just a really interesting story. Let me see what I can first find out. And then it was later that I was like, Oh, this could be a really good podcast.
It seems like, just like the listeners, the story hooked you immediately. What drew you in?
CW: When I first looked into this, I’d not really heard of anybody faking cancer. So I was shocked but also curious. I have to say, as a human being, I was really curious as to why and how somebody would do this. You know, I’ve been through quite a lot in my own life and I know how manipulative people can be. I found it really fascinating and the depth and the complexity of what she did, and her as a character.
Amanda’s scam really took off due to her blog about fighting cancer, which is now defunct, although fans have dug up posts from the internet archive. Were you able to read the full blog?
CW: Yes, I have read all of her blog posts and there were a lot! To give an idea, she had her blog live for over seven years. She would go quiet for a bit and then come back on and go quiet again. There’s roughly seven-plus years’ worth of blogs, and at times she posted two, three times a week. So you can imagine how many that is.
Were there any parts of the blog you wanted to include but couldn’t?
CW: The pictures. There’s pictures of her in New York after she said she was a part of a clinical trial, going on Broadway and such. You just look at those pictures and, and you’re just like, what? And there’s the pictures of her family at fundraisers, her and her husband and the kids. There’s a picture that matches every claim she made, basically. And I think that’s what I would’ve loved to have been able to give listeners more of. But legally I’ve gotta be careful of what I put out. I can’t just post the blog posts everywhere. I’d love to do that, but I can’t.
Speaking of photos, I think the number one thing listeners want to know is how on earth did she get photos of herself in the hospital for her blog? People have posted them online, and it truly looks like she was a patient. How’d she do it?
CW: So my understanding is she did actually go to the hospital. They’re not fake photos. She did things like said she fainted or that she wasn’t feeling very well and then took herself to the emergency room. And then she would say things like she got dehydrated or she had cancer and she was dehydrated. So then they immediately put her on a drip, and then, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap. She’d turn up in different ER rooms and then take photographs. She also would get medical equipment, which I was like, How’d you get medical equipment? Actually it’s really easy to get medical equipment. You can go and buy it from a medical store.
The second big question listeners have is about Amanda’s husband, Cory. He was never charged in the case. In your opinion, did he know what was going on?
CW: So the way I would answer this is, if you listen carefully to the podcast—and there’s four bonus episodes on their way after the final episode—if you listen very carefully to the nuances of what was said, it will give you the answer. People are smart. I was really careful to make sure that I stuck to the facts but also showed you the facts so you can decide.
Okay, well that’s another mystery for the online detectives to dig into. I understand that the podcast can’t make accusations against him legally, though, since he has not been charged with anything. Where is Cory now?
CW: He is looking after his two kids in Texas, where Amanda is serving her sentence.
Two characters in the story who I think have really resonated with the audience are Jessa, Cory’s daughter, and her mother, Cory’s ex-wife, Aletta. While Amanda was perpetuating her cancer scam, she and Cory were simultaneously waging a custody battle against Aletta for full custody of Jessa, and were ultimately successful. Jessa then became one of the first people to grow suspicious of Amanda. How are Jessa and Aletta doing now?
CW: It has been a really hard journey for Jessa. With the podcast, she really wanted it to be out there, but it is still very vulnerable for her of course. And it’s hard for her to hear not just from her angle but how much the web spread and how many other people were involved and the harm that was caused. But she’s doing really well. She’s got her own little place and got a lovely husband who she went to school with. I think she’s doing a lot of healing.
And the same with Aletta. I think for a long time Aletta was made out to be a bad mom, which I can’t even imagine what that must have felt like. She was made out to be the bad one and the one that was lying. And I think for the first time she feels like she has credibility, you know, it wasn’t her lying.
What do you think the main motivation was for Amanda to do this?
CW: In my opinion, from the conversations I’ve had with her and just conversations with everybody, I do really feel that it was attention. In her church she was seen as a miracle because she survived cancer and had a baby, who was seen as a miracle. She was idolized, she was like a local celebrity. I think that just carried on and carried on. People gave her things and were surrounding her all the time, and she felt that kind of adored love.
You now have this huge community really interested in this story. What’s next? Are you interested in exploring other scammer stories?
Yeah, I think so. I’m looking at, without saying too much, let’s say other stories of this kind of manipulation.
