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Hey, Scamander listeners, it's Charlie here. We are so glad you love the show and we know there's still so much discussion and things to talk about and so many questions you want answered. We really, really appreciate all your support and for listening and some of the comments you've made. We've loved reading them. So for a little treat, we wanted to give you kind of like a peek behind the curtain and dig a little deeper into the show.
into who Amanda is and what she did. So we've got a few bonus episodes for you. I've brought in Nancy Moscatello into the studio. She was the woman who, I suppose in a way, brought Amanda down. You're the reason why she's in prison. Yes, I think so. A little bit, as I like to say. How many years was it in the end that you went after Amanda? I started in 2015. So she went to jail in 2022.
How does it feel that we're still talking about this? It's really surprising that we still are. I thought for sure way back when that this would be a quick story, that this would be, oh, they're going to get her quick. This should be great. You know, let's just wait and then I'm going to be able to tell this story. Didn't happen that way for sure. Nancy, there's been so many questions around this story, around Scamander and around the show we've done.
Amanda herself, we both had contact with her. You're on a very different level to me. And, you know, when we talk about scam, because I was quite reluctant in the first place when I was kind of writing the description for the show and we were thinking about the title with the whole scam thing, because I feel like it's so much more than a scam. It's so much more than a con. And it's so much more than money. Was it...
the fact that she needed attention, do you think? Or do you think she believes her own lies? What do you think it is about Amanda that she did this for so long? I do think that on some level, adolescent years or something, it was for the attention. I think that that's what it's embedded in. But I think as she...
you know, grew up and honed whatever these skills are, manipulation skills, I guess, or whatever you would call them. I think she saw the payoffs, whether it was in, you know, oh, let me help you with that. Or, oh, that's okay. Stay home. I'll take care of that. Or don't worry about that class. Like she got rewarded for the behavior on many, many levels. And then with that came, came the money.
because people are naturally, you know, want to be helpful. So I think it grew into money. And then once the money was there, it was game on. It was too much to resist, I think. Because we've actually found out. So during our series, we did so much digging. Nancy, you'd kind of been digging for years before and you kind of went after and it became very personal for you.
and which you explained to us in the series. And then you contacted me, we had a chat, and then we started to look into it a lot further. And we're like, right, how can we tell this story? What else, you know, what else can we find? And this was before she'd pled guilty and before she was convicted. But we've actually found out since we released the podcast...
that this was going on a lot longer than we realized. And that's coming up in some of our future bonus episodes. So stay tuned. But how does it feel that it was you that she kind of blamed and targeted for what's happened? And it's down to you, really. I don't feel like she's really taken responsibility for what she's done. And
Amanda still to this day blames you and Alita, who is Corey, Amanda's husband's ex-wife, that you both went after her and it was out of being vindictive. Yeah, I mean, I can't help her with that. I mean, you shouldn't fake cancer, right? I don't know what to say to that because there were so many times and so many outs for her that she could have just quietly gone away or rethought what she was doing.
It just misplaced anger in a way. It's, you know, she got caught and she's sorry she got caught. I don't know. Yeah, because actually, not to interrupt you, but there was many points that, you know, when you first started to call people and say, look, you know, I'm trying to find out some more information, but I don't think this woman's got cancer. She could have just gone quiet then because she knew that you were
Yes. Around. Then when Detective Martinez contacted her, initially was looking into the investigation, she could have just gone, oh, yeah, sorry, and walked away. And she wouldn't have actually ended up in prison or being caught. So there was so many times. What I thought was interesting was we all went to Amanda's sentencing. And I remember speaking to you, Nancy, before, and we were looking through some of the documents. And...
The only thing that Amanda contested to was having you speak at the sentencing. Because you wrote a victim's impact statement because you were actually listed as a victim by the police and by the IRS. Yes, because of, you know, having to go to court and the expense involved in that. So when she did her, you know, like a sentencing brief, which kind of is her what was me speech, as I like to say, like to the judge of court,
These are the things, this is how it happened. Whatever she wants to say. At the end of that was on all of this, you know, please, you know, I want home confined, whatever she was asking for. And the other thing I want is for Nancy Muscatello not to be allowed to speak and read her impact statement in court. And it's like, really? Like, I'm, how am I still the issue? Like, don't you have bigger problems, you know, than me personally?
I just, I found that crazy. And then the assistant U.S. attorney had to file a brief back saying she can speak. Like, she's a victim and if she needs to speak or wants to speak, you know, that's okay. Like, the fact that there had to be this exchange is whatever. I mean, at this point. Yeah.
So you didn't end up speaking, though, did you? No. Why didn't you end up speaking? I think at that point I had submitted it to the judge, and I know the judge read lots of impact statements. And I thought it was important for the victims that she emotionally destroyed, people like Alita and Jessa and Lisa, Lindsay. You know, there were people that...
It was so personal and so vindictive towards that I thought it was more important to keep the focus on them. How did it make you feel, though, that you weren't allowed to read your victim statement? We included a small piece of your victim statement in episode eight, and I've seen the whole victim statement. You know, I remember when you first read it for us, or you read it to me, you were upset. My sister was loved by so many, but at 41, she lost her life to lung cancer.
The anguish my sister suffered knowing her time with her young children would be cut so short was ingrained in my mind. It is infuriating to see a perfectly healthy person take on the plight of true warriors of cancer for financial gain and attention. For me, it's a very emotional, you know, I'm kind of connecting all the dots back into my life and why this case became so important.
important to me or why I wouldn't let it go. And that focus was around my sister, my father, my mother, people that have died from cancer that, you know, it's still a hole in your heart. And so that was all contained in there. And just my, on a professional level, like what it meant or what it did to me.
But again, I really wanted to... Just to give some context so people remember, she tried to discredit you and did actually take you to court to try and sue you for you accusing her of faking cancer. Yeah, for harassment. Yeah, in various, you know... We'll go into more detail on a later bonus episode. I think for me, I really wanted...
Alita and Jessa to have their day in court and for the focus to be on them and to show the judge, let the judge hear how they were destroyed. Because to me, that toll that Jessa missed out on a year and a half of living with her mom, like that's just...
You know what makes me think, Nancy, is it goes back to when I was speaking a few minutes ago about the whole word scam. Because I think that's why I've struggled with it. Because I was trying to sum up this whole story because it seems so much more than that. And you just put it into words because it is. It's emotional trauma that this impact had as well. It's not kind of just somebody that went after a con to get some money. Oh, yeah. The emotional toll on...
Everyone that donated or is trying to wrap their head around what really was going on, the betrayal, I think, is really the big thing. Again, we've heard from a lot of the different people that donated. Yeah, sure, they got taken to money and that's annoying, but it's really like, did it dent their spirit? Did it dent their way they look at life? There's some people it's really scarring. This episode is brought to you by Shopify.
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A lot of people have contacted us since. What have you found out since we released this podcast? Who's contacted you? I heard from different folks from the different schools that she worked at. One school as a teacher, an English teacher, and one as the principal. And there were some similarities there, you know, the idea that she would have like special prayer sessions around her, asking the kids to come and pray together for her after school or whatever.
a lecture-type thing at one point where kids came to specifically hear her testimony, let's call it, just like she did in church. She did that to kids in middle school, you know, to be inspirational and to be all of that. So, you know, Amanda, she pulled the kids into everything. Mm.
I had quite a few people reach out to me via different ways and through social media. And one of them was called Hannah. And thanks, Hannah. I've reached out to her and she's let me share this story. She contacted me and said that in 2015, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma herself. And her brother's close friend from his church reached out to help me through the process.
And guess who that was? Amanda. It was Amanda Riley. Hannah said that she began to text, call, Facebook message me and even sent care packages and a handmade blanket to me. I felt smothered by her and uncomfortable by how happy she was to have another member of the cancer club. She was just too happy to be sick and too happy that I was now sick with her. She wanted me to join clubs and support groups, to go to events where cancer patients can get things for free.
etc. Honestly, I tried to ignore her, but she kept reaching out. My husband and brother told me I was being rude and to just accept her help. I remember her actually advising me not to go to Stanford Cancer Center because she claimed to have had a horrible experience with their doctors and said that the treatment and doctors at USF were so much better. To Facebook, and then she kind of carries on and says,
Before starting chemo and radiation, Amanda sent this care package and then sent me a picture of the care package, which I have in front of me and a note. I mean, in the care package, there's like books and like supportive messages and like quite a few beanie hats and like a little blanket. And there's even some like small...
boxing you know like the boxing gloves you can kind of hang in your car yeah with some slippers as well and yeah so she sent a picture of that and she said i've been blown away by the lens she went to in order to make her story real even reaching out to me a stranger to her to mentor me through the process she was so good very convincing and so likable to this day my brother has had a hard time accepting that she was faking the whole thing
And then she says, thank you again for exposing the truth. There is closure, comfort and validation for me listening to it. It's really interesting because I've got quite a few more, but that was Hannah. And thank you, Hannah, for sharing with us. Thank God she didn't listen. Right. Thank God. And I remember Amanda on Facebook or one of the Twitters mentioning Hannah way back. And I kind of like looked into it. And if I remember right,
I think there was a long drive for them to go to Stanford. And like there was like the husband and her would post about sleeping in the car or having to drive in the middle of the night to make sure they were there in time. Like, thank God they listened and got the best care. Yeah, she says, I'm so glad I didn't listen to her and I followed my gut to stay with Stanford. I mean, that's somebody's life. Yeah, why? The audacity to think that, okay, let me give my two cents on this when...
Amanda knew then. She knows she doesn't have cancer.
Another person that's contacted me, she says that she met Amanda in preschool. She was my first best friend. I had pizza dinner at her house. Did you know that she was a child? What do you call it when you're in a pageant as a child? Like a toddlers in tiara? Yes. She had trophies upon trophies. I grew up with her until she moved to a different elementary school, but we connected as adults.
And she says that this podcast is actually helping her put her timeline together. When did I arrange to drop off dinner while she was in New York receiving treatment? When did I ask for her, where's Jessa? Because she stopped appearing in family photos. And what it made me think about was even the people that we spoke to in the podcast, they didn't actually know other people's stories. They only knew their own and they only could see their own lens. So it's kind of putting together stories
the complexity of this whole thing and how deep it went when we collected all these different stories. And even people reaching out now are listening who knew her to kind of put their own story together. People didn't really realize how complex this went, did they? No, they didn't realize the levels. I mean, as you know, we heard from Steve and Lisa, right? By the time I found them, like I was expecting a regular phone call of, yeah, isn't it terrible? She was sick or whatever.
When they dropped that bomb of 2010, that's a whole 'nother level. I remember going, "What?" I remember quite distinctively that evening, we were having just a fantastic time celebrating Lisa, and we broke out cigars, and I was having a cigar with Corey and a couple of other guys. It was a summer night, perfect weather, and a perfect evening.
Then Corey got this sort of look on his face and he said, Amanda has stage four. She's progressed to stage four cancer. That was another level that I didn't see coming. So, yeah.
Also, when we've reached out to people, there was quite a few people I spoke to off the record, actually, that didn't want to go on record. But they did want to share their story, but they just didn't want it to go out public. And the reason why was because they were actually scared of Amanda. But, you know, she's behind bars. What do you think it means that they're actually scared of telling their story, even though she's convicted and she's in prison right now?
I think the sophistication of her manipulation, I think the fear that can that be done with her with idle time on her hands in prison? Can she access the Internet there? Can she like that's what I'm hearing from people like they just don't trust that she won't be vindictive at any point, whether it may be when she gets out or when, you know.
There's, there are deep scars. There's like, she's done, she's behind. I don't, I don't even think about it anymore. I understand it. And I don't blame people to not want to. I like when they share because I think we learn something each time. I mean, look, what I went through when I speak to the different sources I developed over the years,
I was very honest with them and I said, well, they'd say, well, do you think she's capable? And I've always been honest and said, well, I do. I mean, she sued me, right? So I've gone through that. Capable of going after people. Going after people. And she had multiple different personalities online, like different names and people she was online that she would use to attack from different sides. So she created accounts to...
sandbag someone else, right? Add someone else. And so... I'm going to pause you. Can you explain a little bit? Like, give us an example maybe and explain what you mean. So, at one point there was an account from Amanda's sister-in-law. This is Corey, like a half-sister to Corey. And...
He was knocking down like Alita and different people and making comments on their different accounts. And it was pretty vicious. And at one point I reached out to her. I reached out to Corey's half sister and said, hey, here's who I am. Anyway, she was like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Right? So I sent her the links and I sent her the stuff and she was like,
Yeah, not me. Not me. But this is making a lot of sense now. She said they didn't have a very close relationship. And she said, I live across the country. I'm not really in touch with them much. So, but that's not, you know, I'm not doing that. That's not me. So, you know, it's little things like that. So I think people were just afraid of being on her radar. Because there's a, it's almost like there's people in two camps. We've got the people that...
are saying, oh, I kind of knew something wasn't right and are fearful of her and her manipulation. But then there's another camp of people that still can't believe that the Amanda they knew could do this because it doesn't match up with the Amanda that they knew. And even when we went to her sentencing and spoke to a few people, I mean, Lindsay was one of them. You know, she...
We're still in contact with Lindsay and shout out to Lindsay for sharing her story with us. But even she believed her right down to the last minute because it was so confusing. Not just why somebody would do this, but the Amanda that they knew would never do this. Yeah.
You've put so much stock and faith in someone and they're, I mean, she wasn't, you know, outwardly mean or rude or anything like that. I mean, if anything, she was so giving. I mean, look, she reached out to Hannah, right? Like here she is with all the weight of the world on her, but she took the time to reach out to Hannah. Well, she did that in many circumstances. Like if somebody knew someone with cancer, oh, let me talk to that person. Oh, I'll talk, you know, she put others first.
You know, and I think that's a very endearing quality that helped with the manipulation as well. Yeah. And I mean, I've been interviewed for a few different podcasts and we've done a bit of press together, haven't we, Nancy? And one of the things I've found myself saying quite a few times is, well, she was inspirational. Yes. I'm not condoning anything. No. I'm just saying that like, you know, she was inspirational and in telling her story, you
Which wasn't true, but you know. Yeah. Like, yeah, she was inspirational to people, which is like you said, part of the manipulation. There's the different lens. Like I keep saying, like when I would see her post something, you know, being so endearing to someone else or, oh, you know, help get together and raise money for this. Like my blood would boil because I knew I'm looking at it from the perspective of she's so full of it. And this is so horrid. But she was bringing community together. But she was bringing community. So it's like, wow. Yeah.
It's not right on any level. But I mean, like she, her team, Amanda, raised money for Lymphoma Society. Like she had, when she did the walks, like she did genuinely raise money. So yay for her. But, you know, in the same breath, she's also fleecing them for even more for her. So I think that's part of it, right? You give a little...
of yourself to others and then they're just like, oh my God, she's, look what she's able to do. Yeah. Right? And this, this case is, well, it's the first and only federal case of its kind and we know that Amanda's got the longest sentence for fraud where it's about cancer and faking cancer. Yeah.
And we've been contacted. I don't want us to give any details away because we can't because we don't want to cause any problems because we know that there's some live cases going on right now. But...
the podcast is being used and people are listening to the podcast to learn how to make sure these people are stopped and to stop people and get people convicted for this because it was hard to get Amanda convicted. Yeah, I think the work that Special Agent Lee and Detective Martinez did is a roadmap now. Not that it's an easy road, but it's a roadmap now
to help other agencies kind of know, like, this can be done, or this is how I went about it. Not me, like how Special Agent Lee went about it. It's interesting how prolific this type of manipulation and stuff is. And now, hopefully, from this, there's a roadmap of...
fantastic work that the agent agent Lee did and that it can be replicated that's the goal now there's something out there and on the books that I think may you know really help have you got anything you want to say to listeners just a big thank you yeah no fantastic I mean I it really like I enjoy reading you know going through the comments and seeing the passion and the
just the way that they're liking it, the way it's unraveling or how it's unraveled now that you're hearing us, you're finished. But yeah. Well, thanks for coming in, Nancy. And we do have a few more episodes, little surprise bonus ones for you. So definitely keep on listening. We're so grateful for you. And thanks again, just like Nancy was saying, we are loving reading the comments. And if your friends haven't heard about it, make sure they do go and share. And we'll be back soon. Thanks so much.
and Nancy Moscatello.
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