Chapter 6 — High As Hell 59:42

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Amanda's journey so far has been more than four years long. With more than four cancer relapses, most people were as supportive as they could be, donating gift cards, classes, time, babysitting, tips, and cold hard cash. But not everyone was on board the Support Amanda train. You really learn who's there for you when you have nothing else to give. Although it hurt when some friends and even family haven't really shown support,

Amanda's blogs had gotten into the head of investigative producer Nancy, and she just couldn't let it go, even as those close to her became concerned about how obsessed she was. Nancy wasn't the only one who was suspicious, though. Detective Martinez of San Jose Police joined the slowly growing Team Nancy.

I was talking to a man. Her response was not consistent with what was happening. It was fake concern, like, "Oh my God, are the kids gonna make it to school? Okay."

Amanda had found out about Nancy, and she wasn't going to let some faceless investigative producer ruin her life from the comfort of a laptop. I was getting the mail out of my mailbox, and I opened it up, and it's just stuffed with paper. I'm looking through it, and I'm like, what is this? And I see the name Amanda Riley. I see Nancy Moscatello. I'm like, what is this?

I see restraining order, civil harassment, and my mind is catching up to what I'm reading and putting it together like, "Oh my God, she was taking me to court for a restraining order." Amanda had some good news. She was going back to full-time work for the first time in four years. I'm happy to announce that this Monday, I'm a middle school teacher. And she wasn't going to let Nancy get in the way of it.

I'm Charlie Webster. You're listening to Scamander. There was somebody else questioning Amanda in her very own home. When I lived with my dad, I just kind of had to follow everything they did. I had to be perfect. Jessa, the 13-year-old, boner's daughter. I remember Amanda saying she was in pain and she just didn't feel good.

She would stay in her bed all day. She couldn't get out of bed. What would you do? Go to school, handle all my responsibilities and all my after-school stuff. I took a big part in taking care of my little brothers too at home. What else did you have to do? Most of my job as their babysitter was just

just being there with them from like the time I got home from school to the time I had to go to sleep. And I was the one there with them all the time. Amanda was always upstairs in her bed. My dad was always doing something else, working out. I don't know what he was doing, but I was the one taking care of him most of the time. It was really stressful.

They'd always put a lot of pressure on me to exceed in school and do really well in my athletic activities and everything. And then I had to come home and take care of the kids. And it was a lot of pressure. It was a lot of pressure. After finding the IV in her brother's room, Jess has started to put two and two together. I told my mom about the IV thing. And I told her, I don't see Amanda go to appointments anymore. My dad doesn't go to appointments with her anymore. I don't even know where she goes.

And my mom then told me that there was an investigation going on and that Amanda didn't have cancer. When she sat down and she told me, why did I find the IV? I found an IV when she was talking about the IV. And then she started asking me about her dad not going to chemo appointments. Basically, this kid was telling me things aren't adding up, right? So I had to tell her. Why didn't you tell her before? I guess to...

to protect her as long as possible. The kid was just too damn smart. She knew. She put it together fairly quickly. I really didn't have to keep it from her very long. At the same time, it was still an investigation. Even though I knew it was true, I needed proof to prove anything in court, right? But even though we had people for the court system to talk to and the people in the court system to talk to, they still didn't do anything. What was it like for you to hear that? It was really hard. It was...

Life-changing. I believed for so many years that she was sick. I'd been told that she didn't have that long to live. My emotions were just toyed with, pretty much. She was fooling all those people. And then, like, having to go back home with my dad and just kind of sit there knowing that that was going on was really hard. My mom had, I think it was weekly visitation, and we had, like, two hours in a parking lot somewhere to sit in the car and talk. So I lived with my dad and Amanda for...

quite a while knowing that she didn't have cancer. I wasn't able to do anything, but it felt like me and my family were living a lie because it seemed that everything was based around Amanda being sick. And that's how we were getting our money and our food and our Christmas gifts and my gymnastics lessons, my tennis lessons, everything like that. Everything that was going on in her life was based around Amanda's cancer.

What do you mean by your gymnastic lessons and your tennis lessons? The instructors, I guess, felt sorry and donated those lessons to me. Did you ever feel like saying anything to your dad? I knew I couldn't. I knew that not only would it cause a lot of problems for me, but I knew I probably wouldn't be able to see my mom anymore. I knew he'd take it to court and say, "She's telling Jess all these horrible things," and I didn't want that. What was your dad like during that time?

I don't know how to describe it. He was very, I want to say not himself, but I don't think I really know who he actually is as a person. He just kind of looked numb all the time. He knew he was doing something wrong. What was his behavior like? He was always taking us everywhere. He was always going to the gym. With my dad, he'd always just kind of be like, oh, you know, Mandy's sick and we can't do this. It kind of was with Amanda,

"Oh, I can't because I'm sick. I can't do this, I can't do that because I'm sick." She always tries to put on a nice face in front of me. I think it's part of her trying to win my trust back or try to make me feel sorry for her. And I never did. I see right through who she is and like, it wasn't going to happen. They would take us to the hospital almost to kind of prove that, oh, something's wrong with her.

I just remember hearing that, "Oh, Amanda's really, really sick this time, and she's going to have like a big surgery or she had a big surgery." My dad was like, "Yeah, we should go to the hospital and you guys can come visit her."

So we did. It was really strange for me because I knew she didn't have cancer. I'm like, what are you telling the doctors? Like, what's the reason you're here? You know what I mean? Jessa had said she was really upset and she asked me if she was going to get in trouble because she felt like because she was getting, you know, free this and free that.

I mean, she thought she was going to get in trouble at one point. And I said, "No, absolutely not. This is not because of you. This is because of what Amanda did." What Amanda was doing was getting the attention of Detective Martinez from the San Jose Police Department. I started talking to Amanda's attorney, and I ended up getting on the phone with him. And I said, "This is a real simple case. It's so simple that it's complex."

All I need to know is does she or does she not have cancer? Do you know? He said, well, she told me she had cancer and you've seen all of her social media. I said, again, do you know? And so that's when days following, he showed up to the police department with a note from the doctor saying something to the effect that she was in remission of cancer.

It was something specific because it's a doctor and it's a hospital name. So I thought, this is easy. I'm going to contact the hospital. They actually have an investigative division in there. A lot of them are retired FBI directors. So I had to give this whole case spiel again. And they weren't

100% cooperative. They were kind of like, "Well, we'll accept your information, but we can't share with you what we're doing or what direction we're going to go in with this." "Okay, but I just need to know whether or not this doctor knows that their name is attached to this communication and this is him that made this statement. Can't you just say that?" So then, you know, I send that down the rabbit hole.

Detective Martinez showed us a letter with the doctor's header and signature, stating that his patient, Amanda C. Riley, was in remission from cancer.

Having cases, it's kind of like, you know, the person in the circus that has all the little sticks and they're spinning the plates on all the sticks and they're holding two in their hands and one on their nose and one on their head and they just keep spinning the plates before the plate wobbles off and falls off. That's what you're doing all day. You just keep spinning the plates. I just keep giving a little turn and keep it rolling. And so that was another little plate spin for me. I'll see what comes back from this. So I sent that one down the line.

Then I got back on the horse calling people again. As the blog continued and the information was continuing to come in, Nancy sharing with me, oh, she blogged again. She was here or she was there or she was out here on these dates or whatever. I said, okay, I'm going to follow up with all these little pieces. That's what sent me down to the first break in the case. I remember thinking, oh, God.

Detective Martinez spoke to her. Oh my God, this is great. She's going to stop. Because I really, at that point, I just wanted her to stop. It was really hard to look at what she was doing. And I just thought, oh, she's going to stop. This is great. She's going to, you know, shit her pants. And a detective from the police department she's now in contact with, it's going to stop. He was like, no, Nancy, like she's in too deep. I was like, no, no, like I would stop.

I assumed this would be enough to kind of go, okay, we're done here. Like, I could, you know, I feel like I could sleep better. And it was pretty soon after they were going back and forth that I think to me, she took the biggest leap of claiming she was self-injecting chemotherapy.

When I read that, I just remember like,

While it sounded ridiculous to Nancy that someone could self-inject chemo at home, it turns out that it is possible to self-inject chemo.

I was calling to all these hospitals and I thought, I'm getting the same conversation with everybody. I would call in and I would talk to you like a CEO or somebody in the upper management. And I thought, I'm going to change my formula here. I'm going to ask for a legal department. So City of Hope in Southern California put me through to their legal department.

In her blog, City of Hope was really crucial. She talked about it a lot.

She had been seen by them because she was going to get a stem cell transplant there. So she had blogged about how she was going to be in that hospital for three or four months, that she had all her pre-visits. And in other documentation, Corey and her wrote to the ex-wife, Alita, and said, we're moving to Southern California because she's getting stem cell treatment at City of Hope.

In cancer patients that have already done several rounds of chemotherapy and the cancer still persists, a stem cell transplant can be used as a way for doctors to give higher doses of radiation therapy or chemo. City of Hope is one of the world's largest and most successful stem cell transplant centres.

Detective Martinez was hoping to get some information in a phone call to City of Hope. I said, okay, here we go. I got maybe three minutes to sell this thing to somebody who's going to bite. By that time, I had told the story so many times that I had refined it down to this three-minute presentation. So finally somebody gets on the line from the legal department.

I said, before you hang up, because I've had a number of conversations with so many organizations, just listen to me for just a minute, hear me out, and then you can make a decision. But hear me first, let us sink in for just a second. And so I gave him this little quick spiel. There's this young lady, she's been saying she has cancer, she's been blogging, she's been collecting money from sites and magazines.

going around across the states and still selling this whole thing. I said, "Now, she may very well be sick, but she cited your hospital as one of her stops." Stem cell and platelet harvesting has been scheduled. Finally! One in February and one in March. With City of Hope's research and technology, they can gather the stem cells with a low sedative and a machine.

rather than having to penetrate my hip bones for the marrow, which is incredible. Insurance has signed the dotted line. Finally. One of the places she stayed here, this is the doctor she said, this is the medication she said she was given. I said, so this is not HIPAA because if she's not a patient here, then there's no confidentiality. You're just saying yes or no, right? What's the liability? And if you're just saying yes or no,

So I said, if you want, take a look at a blog where I could send you a quick snippet of an email. And it's not something that I put out. It's something she put out. Right. So I'm just asking you to say yes or no. She was a patient or she wasn't. How hard is that? Right. And if you say if you give me the truth.

then I can pursue the truth, right? And I can get to the bottom of this. And if she's really faking, then I can pursue the truth from another end and maybe take this girl off the set so that she's not redirecting monies and services and resources that should go to somebody who truly has this illness. According to Amanda's mom, Peggy, the City of Hope procedure was a success.

She sent an email around to friends and family to let them know and thank them for their help covering the costs. Friends and family, Amanda is doing well. City of Hope successfully harvested some of her stem cells. She is tough and the family is committed to doing whatever it takes. Response to supportamanda.com the past six months has been a huge help in covering the costs of her co-pays, prescriptions and deductibles.

Thank you all. And please revisit as you can. Detective Martinez was waiting for a call back from City of Hope to confirm Amanda was a patient there. I sent them the blog that Nancy had sent me. They took a while to get back to me, like a week. So they gave me an email basically saying, no, she's not a patient. She's never been a patient. And that was from their legal department. And I got chills because I was like, finally.

After all these calls or all these emails, this phone conversation, I have her. I know she's a fraudster now.

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This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Do you have a point of sale system you can trust, or is it a real POS? You need Shopify for retail. From accepting payments to managing inventory, Shopify POS has everything you need to sell in person. Go to shopify.com slash system, all lowercase, to take your retail business to the next level today. That's shopify.com slash system.

This was the piece of information that Detective Martinez felt he needed. But now he had to figure out what to do with it. While Amanda may not have been a patient at City of Hope, it didn't mean she didn't have cancer. Martinez needed something more than just an email from a hospital's legal department.

You have to sell it to a district attorney for them to bite into it and go, "Okay, well, you know, they're the ones who have to present this thing in court." They want to feel confident. I'm not giving them something that, you know, it's going to get in court and it's going to fall apart like an eggshell. I'm a California officer. As long as that business does business in California and San Jose, the connection, the nexus to where I'm at, then I could reach for it.

But she was doing stuff on the East Coast and then that put me out of reach and I wasn't sure what she was doing over there and everywhere in between. If my only goal is to just get a charge on her, I could get a local charge, but if she's doing something federal, whole different ballgame. In the months that I was communicating with Detective Martinez,

I handed over the information I had. He was knee-deep in his investigation. He was able to talk with Amanda. He was able to verify a lot of the information I gave him. Reached out to medical facilities. So he was working the case his way and could only take it so far. It just was frustrating to me to be in this holding cycle of, okay, what's going to happen? What's next? When's the arrest? You know, all these things. And I think...

In the end, it just got really frustrating for the both of us. So I thought about old cases and I thought, Al Capone didn't get taken down for all the murder and bootleg or prohibition stuff. He got taken down from the IRS. And I thought, well, she is getting monies from all this, from who knows, from wherever, right? Because you're on the Internet. The Internet is worldwide.

I had spoken with my father-in-law in regards to Amanda's case because he was a retired IRS agent. And, you know, just talking through it with him, he said, well, you know, you should contact the IRS because that's wire fraud. He explained why. He explained what her actions meant in the world of federal felony charges. And he said, you know, that's wire fraud. You should call the IRS. That's exactly what I did.

I had met Arlette Lee, the IRS investigator at an investigative school. So she invited me to come down to the office in San Jose. She heard the whole thing out and then we had this conversation. And then like, here we are. What do you think? And I was surprised. I was like, yeah, I like it. I want to go with it. Sounds good. Because they had no cases like it before. An IRS cancer scam.

My name is Arlette Lee. I'm an IRS special agent. One of our things we do is it's financial crimes, primarily tax, but any sort of a financial crime where there's fraud involved. The appeal to me was there was money being obtained fraudulently. So that's just, that's right up our alley with all kinds of financial crimes, whether it's investment fraud or any other type of financial crime. And this was no different except for

The draw was really wanting to know, okay, she's pretending to have cancer, telling people she has cancer, she's getting donations. And for myself, I'm like, well, I want to find out if she does or not. It's just human nature. Then you have that financial aspect where she is getting money under false pretenses. And so I was able to join the case, assisting with Detective Martinez from the San Jose Police Department. And so that's kind of how it started.

Despite the now federal investigation into Amanda, she kept posting.

Every time I have to go to New York, especially so close together, it's panic time. And posting. A family from church reached out on Thanksgiving and decided they wanted to pay for my trial drug. All $1,350 of it. And posting. Thin, beautiful Cofiro family graciously used their points to get me to and from No Questions Asked. On top of being our most consistent, generous donors.

So this trip cost our family nothing. Thanking people for their generous donations. We had another family offer to pay my next chemo medication in two weeks. I can't even tell you what it feels like to not feel any monetary stress for this trip or the next. We feel very blessed. And she was posting pictures alongside. Selfies in hospital, her bruised arms from all the needles,

and the medication that she was now self-injecting. We are officially two immunotherapy Keytruda injections down. I thought giving myself injections would be a lot scarier than it was. It was actually really easy and relatively pain-free using my PICC line. She was posing with a needle and medications and talking about these are the medications and I'm going to be able to do this at home.

I mean, a clinical trial is so specific and you have to be at a hospital. That's the whole idea. But she's special and she's allowed to do it at home now. It's absurd. When I started to fact check what was in Amanda's blog in regards to her treatments in New York and the drugs, you know, the clinical trial she was involved with.

I knew I couldn't call up and say, "Oh, tell me all about Amanda Riley and her treatment." Like, you can't do that, right? So I had to come up with a way to ask the questions that were very broad. I had reached out to that oncology department, right? I introduced myself. I told them who I was and what I was investigating, and I sent them the blog.

So they saw the blog. They saw what Amanda was claiming to be treated there. And they didn't like what they saw. And they were really concerned. And then about a week later, you know, they got back to me and said, we can't talk to you about any of our patients or any one in particular, but we would like to answer whatever questions you may have.

I started going through the blog methodically with each trip to New York and I said, "On this date," and I would give the date, "Did you have the start of a new clinical trial for the drug, Keytruda?" And they would say, "No, we did not have a trial start that week." And I would call back each time, very specific. I quoted everything from her blog. "On this date, did you have a patient receive Keytruda and have a lung collapse?"

on this date from this medication? No, we did not. On this date, did you have a patient break out in hives and needed mega doses of Benadryl because of such a severe reaction to the drug, Keytruda? No. Not only was it a no, but I would say 90% of the time it was, we don't have a current trial of Keytruda.

going right now. Clinical trials are regulated. It's very specific. There's start dates and there's end dates. Amanda's treatment did not fit into any of that protocol. So I knew, I knew she wasn't being treated there. And I knew the facts made no sense. Amanda was claiming to be allowed to self-inject Kudruda at home.

What she was claiming was it was holiday time. It was going to be, she was supposed to go back for another round of Keytruda. It was Thanksgiving. And she put in her blog, oh, isn't this great? My oncologist wants me to be able to enjoy the holidays at home. So he is allowing me to self-inject basically in the comforts of my own home. So I called and I said, do you allow any of the drugs to be shipped, to be used in the comfort of somebody's home if they're in a clinical trial?

They didn't even know what to say there. At first, they were like, no, absolutely not. And I said, well, explain. I asked them to explain the process of giving someone the drug, Keytruda. And I was told, Keytruda is stored at, you know, below freezing temperatures. It has to be reconstituted in a ventilated pharmacy. It then has to be given...

in an IV form added to another solution. So it's a multi-step process in very, very restricted areas where there's proper ventilation and then it's made into an IV. You know, and Amanda was claiming to just be, you know, shooting it up herself at home in the bathroom. She was showing pictures of herself with the needle up in the air. Amanda Riley was not in a clinical trial.

Amanda Riley was surely not injecting chemotherapy at home. It was just that simple. The drug, "Ketruda," is given through an IV line over a 30-minute period, and treatments usually take place at a doctor's office or an infusion clinic. Nancy's investigation may have began quietly, but she was starting to show her hand, and Amanda was not having any of it.

Nancy came home one day to a stack of papers stuffed in her mailbox. Amanda was serving her with a civil harassment restraining order. My initial reaction when I got the papers was, "Okay, I got to talk to an attorney." This was on a Friday. The paperwork said I was due in court on Tuesday morning, and Monday was a court holiday, so there was no one I could contact at the courts in between.

I called the attorney. They said, "Were you physically served?" I said, "No, no one handed me papers. They were stuffed in my mailbox." And they said, "Well, you weren't legally served. You don't have to appear if you weren't legally served." Whoever was supposed to serve me was paid to come to Southern California and hand me papers.

You have to be physically served the papers because the person serving you is acknowledging that they served the proper person and that the person receiving the papers is Nancy Muscatello. So putting them in a random mailbox doesn't mean Nancy Muscatello was served. It means a mailbox was served. So what should have happened is when I came home from work,

A person would have approached me and said, are you Nancy Muscatello? And I probably would have turned a yes. Why? And they would have handed me and say, you've been served and handed me the paperwork. That is how you serve someone. I would have had to have been in San Jose, California, Tuesday morning by 8 a.m. And I live in Los Angeles, which is a five hour drive. So I knew like I needed answers and I needed to know what to do. Did I need to get up to San Jose or not? It's a five hour drive.

It was a holiday weekend and I was told, you know, you don't need to be there. What were you being accused of? I was being accused of harassment, civil harassment. So she wanted, Amanda Riley wanted a restraining order to stop me from contacting family, contacting work, not only for her, but for her husband, Corey, and to have basically no contact with anyone involved in their lives.

One of the things she wanted me to be restrained from doing was contacting family members. She said I had reached out many times and contacted family members, which just was not true. She said that I got her fired from one of her jobs. That just was not true. She said I got her husband fired from one of his jobs. Again, that just wasn't true.

that I took on different personas and were posting things online about her. Again, that just wasn't true.

Nancy, I've got the definition of civil harassment here. It says civil harassment is abuse, threats of abuse, stalking, sexual assault, or serious harassment by someone you have not dated and do not have a close relationship with. Then there's the civil harassment laws, which is specific to California. It says harassment is unlawful violence like assault or battery or stalking or a credible real threat of violence. And the violence or threat seriously scare, annoy, or harass someone. And there is no valid reason for it.

Do you think in any way she had a case because she felt it was harassing to her and it was annoying to her? I mean, I don't think Amanda Riley had a leg to stand on. I mean, I didn't contact her. I didn't threaten her. I didn't reach out in any way that wasn't extremely professional and what any journalist would do. You know, I would say Amanda Riley felt threatened

seriously harassed or annoyed about being caught or about being called out or about being questioned because none of my actions were threatening, violent, anything that I would say, you know, was out of line. How did you feel that she was taking you to court? I was concerned for my reputation and the work that I do and having repercussions from this because it's important that I

I follow a code of ethics that I feel are really important. And so when someone calls it into question, it's really important to defend myself and to hold true to how I do things. I knew what Amanda Riley was capable of, and I knew she would not hesitate to use manipulation and lies to stop me. I see the little shred of truth that Amanda used to then say,

exaggerate, change, and depict me as some out-of-control person. But yeah, you know, when you have a protective order, it's serious. I mean, that's something that's on your record. So that wasn't a good feeling at all. And as a journalist, as someone that works in news, like, a restraining order for what? Like, that's really detrimental. She essentially was able to get a judge to restrain the press.

Despite the threat to Nancy's reputation, a pending restraining order, and being questioned not only by her friends, but her husband and daughter, she was in so deep that she couldn't let it go. It was impossible to resist contacting IRS Special Agent Arlette Lee. I reached out. I said, I don't want to come across nuts, like writing all this out, but I said anything I could show the back and forth of what Amanda was saying and doing.

And I said, just look at the stuff I've done. I had meticulous logs of all my phone calls to the different doctors and the different places that I was trying to, you know, keep in order. I said, have a look at that. Have a look at the blog. Here's my source agreed to speak to federal agents also, if need be. I sent over everything digitally and just said, just look at it. And then let's go from there. And then you ask me whatever you want. I can...

kind of give, because this is a lot to take in. And so months went by, I didn't hear anything. I would periodically, when I would come across someone new or found new information, I would send it. It took a few months until I actually heard back from Arlette. One of the first things she said, and I know the feeling, she said, you know, my sister has cancer and it's not good. And so when I finally sat down and looked at everything you sent,

I could not believe somebody could do this. And I want to take this case on and see what I can do. And I knew she couldn't tell me much. She had to explain that they have to go in front of her grand jury. She explained to me, once that happened, you can send people my way. You could, if you would want, if they want to talk to me, give them my number. But I can't let you know what's going on. And I said, that's fine. I said, you just have to trust that I'm working. We're working on it.

When Nancy started telling me about, we were on the phone, and she was telling me about what they thought Amanda Riley was doing, I just felt my heart, like my throat got really tight, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I also felt a sense of sort of guilty. I thought, how could somebody who's doing this, how could I be looking at somebody like this? Because a lot of times people think

will come and say, "Oh, this person is doing this, that, or the other thing," and it may not necessarily be 100% true. I felt nervous looking at this case. Was I making the right decision to look at it? But my job is to look at the facts, so I got information. I need to figure out whether or not, you know, crime's been committed. After talking to Detective Martinez,

I knew, okay, there's really, there's something there. And so then it was at that point, okay, I need to talk to the U.S. Attorney's Office to see if we can look at this further. Because I think Detective Martinez was limited in what he could get at that point in the investigation. There was enough information, enough public record, because you have these posts, to show that something doesn't add up.

And so that's when I decided, OK, let me look at this closer. As much as we might like to think it could be, lying isn't illegal. Investigators have to sift through the web of lies and find evidence of what actual crime is being committed. In this case, there was a paper trail of donations coming in online. Wire fraud is when there's some fraudulent statement, there's something that leads people to give you, send you money through the wires,

And in this particular case, she's saying that she has cancer. People are sending her money, and then the money goes through her bank accounts. And so wire fraud is pretty much using the wires to get money under false pretenses. The way our cases work is we work up the investigation, we get all of our evidence, and then we present it to the U.S. Attorney's Office for prosecution. And so sometimes it just takes longer.

A lot of the witnesses, and including Nancy, would call and say, "What's going on?" And I'm like, "I haven't given up. I'm still working on this." But the wheels of justice sometimes just move slowly. When there's indications of fraud with medical records, we are able to subpoena those records. Criminal investigators can get access to those records via subpoena. Can you tell us about those medical records? There were a lot of records.

because it covered a long period of time. But as far as what was in the records, I wouldn't be able to discuss that. But there were a lot of medical records. Does a lot mean like a small pile or does a lot mean like you can fill a room with folders? It's all electronic. So, I mean, I would look at it in piecemeal as I would get it. But thousands and thousands of pages.

So there were a lot of records to go through. How much did her blog actually help you? It was very helpful because it did. If she said she was going to be at City of Hope or she was going to be at Columbia, then that's where we went. Agent Lee and I didn't really talk that much after that. If there was some information or a person I came across that I thought she needed to know about, I would email her or direct that person to reach out to her.

I wasn't privy to what was going on in the investigation. And then I got a tip that they were going to be serving a search warrant on Amanda and Corey Riley's home. And it was at that point that I knew it was an active and open case. — Nancy actually went to the raid with her reporter friend, Ana Garcia. — I'm Ana Garcia, and I'm a crime reporter.

Nancy got a tip that the authorities were going to be serving a search warrant on Amanda's house. And usually these things happen before the sun even rises because you want to make sure that you catch everyone when they're not expecting you for a lot of reasons, because it

It makes sure that the people who you're serving the search warrant on don't have time to destroy evidence. So when you catch them when they're kind of sleepy, it's the ultimate to preserve evidence. So we got there several hours before daylight, and there were three of us in the car, and we are parked out of the way but yet still able to see

Amanda's house. And you know, in those early morning hours when you're sitting in a car, you are just talking about everything and just waiting. And it never ceases to surprise me how when the raid goes down, it happens so quickly, even though you're sitting there and waiting and prepared.

That all of a sudden it happened so fast that you're like scrambling and you're jumping and everything's dropping out of your lap as you're running out of the car and running toward the house where this is happening. You're always catching up even when you're there waiting. And that's exactly what happened that morning. By the time we ran up there, the agents were already there.

through the front yard, at the front door with a battering ram and banging on the door and waking everyone up. This is real audio of the house raid. The voice you can hear is Nancy's friend Anna describing what is going on. Right now, it looks like the IRS is going in with agents to search the house. They're knocking on the door. They've got a warrant. You can hear them. They're knocking on the door and they're saying, we've got a warrant. We did a stakeout.

When the feds came, they came like before 6 a.m. in the morning. It's like everything you see on TV. They came four or five big SUVs, the battering ram, SWAT team. It was easily 10 IRS agents armed. They all jump out.

And they split and go up the side of the property, over fences, around the back from what, you know, the other group did it the other way. And then they knock on the door and they yell, federal investigators, open up. Let us in. All right.

The cops are going over the fence. You've got cops at the door banging, screaming. Police, we've got a search warrant. They are now jumping over that fence. You can hear them. You can see them. Flashlights everywhere. Open the door! Open the door! Police! Okay, so there's somebody home and they're telling them to open the door. If you guys don't open up, we're going to hit, we're going to ram the door. Open up!

I mean, I couldn't believe it. I was like, oh my God, like, this is crazy looking. Because, you know, I'm thinking she's a mom of two. She's a sweet little, this is what neighbors know her as, right? And then this pulls up and I had to keep reminding myself, like, no, this is what happens when you do these things. I saw them show paperwork to Corey, like, this is why we're here. Here's the documentation for us to come into your home.

I can't talk too much about that, but I'm not going to deny there was a search warrant because the media showed up, which is not uncommon. And I know that in this particular case, Nancy was keeping an eye on everything that she could. But I can't talk about what happened at the search warrant, but I'm not going to deny that there was a search warrant.

If I could have your name, please, and what agency you represent. Arlette Lee. I'm a special agent with IRS Criminal Investigation. Can you tell us what you're doing here? Really, the only thing I can tell you at this point is that we are here on official business. I don't have anything that's a matter of public record, so at this time, I'm not able to provide any details. Detective Martinez was also at the raid. I'm a detective with the San Jose Police Department Financial Crimes Investigations.

This morning at this residence, the IRS served a search warrant for the residents here. Do you know what they were looking for? It's pertaining to a financial crime investigation, which is an open investigation with the IRS at this time. I'd been on a lot of search warrants, and I knew that the IRS was going to have a full team of their own people because now they're looking for very specific items that we're trying to collect to prove these charges. I was in there with them

But my bigger interest was to talk with her one-on-one in her own living room and just see what Amanda's demeanor was. I searched her room with the IRS folks, and I was looking for what I knew I would find, which was like antidepressants, Xanax. And the reason those are important in the game is that even burglary crews, larger burglars,

sophisticated, organized crime crews, when they go in to do a job, a lot of them would take Xanax or antidepressants, so they were super calm and super collected. Even though there was chaos going on and the excitement of the moment, they would get lost in it. And so when I saw that she had Xanax and antidepressant type stuff, I thought she's going to be just super chill.

She's already popped a couple today, probably. She was a really cool cat. She was just sitting on the couch, just chatting. I'm like, yeah, go ahead. I thought, you are high as hell right now, girl. And I sat just directly across from her, and she says, oh, so you're Martinez. I am. Nice to meet you. What did you say to her? She didn't talk about the case, and I didn't want to go down the road of the case. She already knew what the game was. She knew I knew.

At that point, she had to have known. You have a federal agency doing a search warrant accompanied by a local investigator. You know what you're doing. You know that you've been defrauding these folks, this church and all these people, these organizations for all this time. But like I said, she was just cool as a cucumber. I didn't want to pull her into any kind of statements just because

It was the IRS's case now. And I probably wouldn't have done it there even if it was, you know, I was running it. I wouldn't have done it there. I would have rather had her in an interview room. So what did you talk about then? Small talk. Just, how are the kids? You know, what's your day like? Basic stuff. She's more like, oh yeah, the kids are in school. How long are you guys going to be here? I don't know. Could be a few hours and whatnot. Yeah.

And I got her water. She was just kind of like, she was just calm. She didn't look worried. She looked contemplative. Like she was angling for the next thing. Like, what was she going to do with this?

That's what I felt from her. But like I said, she was just super chilled out. Just like we are, we're just talking, just having a conversation. And you have like 10 people just tearing up your house, going through closets and drawers and your underwear drawer. You're like, hey, you don't need to go in there. She wasn't concerned at all. What does that tell you about who Amanda is? The fact that she was like that?

Well, because she probably had the assistance of Xanax or something in her system, she may have had legitimate anxiety knowing every day is a scheme. Every day is a show. It's an act. She has to keep this up. It's like that movie, The Truman Show, where she knows she's being videoed. That's the difference. So everywhere she goes, everyone she meets, she's got to keep with this storyline.

She has to study the storyline. And I think the blog helped her kind of keep track of where she was at with it because she had to be accurate with what she's putting out publicly, right? Because somebody's going to ask her, hey, so how was hospital, you know, this or that? How was this medication? She's got to have that answer and ready to go. So literally, she's an actress and a damn good one. Her game was so good. She knew that she had to keep this face clean.

Because if she was going to show worry, then she's falling into that, you know, the acceptance of it. Like, you're going down now, right? And you're telling people just with your body language, just like you tell people your body language that you're sick. So she has that down. She had it down. And she's been doing it for a long time. I just felt like she believes right now this is going to blow over. She's going to get out of this. Can you talk to us about what's going on inside your house? Okay.

What about your wife and allegations that she's been raising money but doesn't have cancer? Can you talk to us about that? What were your thoughts of Cory? I felt he knew what was going on and his part of the act was to play as if he didn't know. Like, oh, oh my God. Oh, she's not sick? I thought in his head he had been doing it for a while too. And that was the other thing is the stepdaughter wasn't convinced she was sick.

And kids have an instinct about parents. I think she sensed that. Whether or not she knew what a real cancer victim looked like, I think she felt the dishonesty, the inauthenticity of the whole scene. The day-to-day, like it was probably just being played out on the stage. This is her stage, and now you're one of the characters on her stage. But here's Amanda, she's in full act mode.

You know when somebody's fake crying or fake emotional or fake nice? Kids have that sense about it. And this girl was pretty consistent about her not being truthful. I could see where she got that from because when I was talking to Amanda, she was, her response was not consistent with what was happening. It was fake concern like, oh my God, are the kids going to make it to school?

"Okay, Aaron." You're like, "Oh, really?" I mean, you know when somebody's faking. But I knew she had to stay with that role. Whilst all this was going on, Amanda was still putting the cancer thing out there. Shortly after the raid, she took to the stage again, this time at her school. Students gathered to listen to her as she showcased her cancer struggle and how it deepened her relationship with God. God is always with you in his timing, not yours.

And it doesn't matter if your glass is half full or empty. What matters is what your glass is filled with. Is it filled with godly things or worldly worries? God didn't give me cancer. God prepared me for cancer. And she was still taking Nancy to court. Amanda Riley filed a civil harassment restraining order against me and using a bunch of extremely exaggerated claims.

in the request for civil harassment restraining orders. These are some of the things that they listed. The harassment is ongoing and is targeting Ms. Riley's spouse as well. Ms. Moscatello has made calls to Mr. Riley's employers and others in order to threaten and harass him. Ms. Moscatello accessed secure court records regarding Mr. Riley's pay stubs in his family court case. This harassment and invasion of privacy has caused serious emotional distress and is interfering with the ongoing family court case.

Ms. Moscatello's actions have caused Amanda Riley her employment previously. Ms. Riley has a new employer and is fearful of further actions risking her employment. The new employer has been unwilling to announce Ms. Riley's position due to this matter.

Ms. Moscatello's harassment has been an ongoing pattern of behavior for over a year. She was contacted by Mr. Riley's ex-wife in an attempt to cause problems with an ongoing family law matter regarding their children. Amanda Riley was diagnosed with and beat cancer. However, Ms. Moscatello has been claiming and investigating that Ms. Riley never had cancer and was a fraud. This has caused Ms. Riley to lose her job and put her in fear of losing her new position as well.

I would never say it's harassing. She's putting herself out there. She's putting herself out there via her work, her court. Everything revolves around the cancer. So to fact check it, you have to ask questions. You have to contact people. You have to... But she's accusing you of you making her having to resign from her job. Yeah.

I was like, "Whoa, like, boy, you have just upped this big time." Because, you know, in my mind, I'm not doing anything wrong. I've been doing this for a very long time. I'm thorough and I'm careful and I'm respectful. When I started reading through it, I was like, "Oh, this is all made up. Like, this is all bullshit, right? This will be easy because I didn't do any of these things."

I knew she was desperate. I knew that this was a desperate attempt to silent me and to get rid of me because I think she thought that it would be easy. Did it deter you in any way? Oh, no, no. If anything, it made it extremely personal. I was like, bring it on. Scamander is hosted and produced by me, Charlie Webster, and produced by Jackson McLennan.

Amanda's blog posts are read by actor Kendall Horne. Peggy, Amanda's mom, is read by actor Jill Marie Hoffman. Edit and theme music by Nico Pallella. Assistant producer Casey Hertz. Assistant editor Seema Grewal. Additional production support from Stephen Sletten, Will Hagel and Nicole Urban. Executive produced by me, Charlie Webster and Nancy Moscatello.

Scamander is a Lionsgate Sound Production engineered by Pilgrim Media Group.