Turns out Brittany Ozarowski was not suffering from cancer at all. The drug addict shocked the Long Island community back in April when it was revealed that she had been scamming sympathetic folks out of their money to buy heroin.
Ozarowski pleaded guilty Monday to the charges filed against her, including third-degree grand larceny, first-degree fraud scheme and first-degree offering false instrument. The 22-year-old had been going round telling people she was battling cancer. Her emaciated face left little doubt for some residents that she had cancer, but sadly, she lied.
It seemed that Ozarowski played the role of cancer victim quite well. She hobbled gingerly with a cane and weighed a meager 80 pounds. Of course, her victims attributed her frail body to the effects of radiation treatment and chemotherapy.
Neighbors and friends rallied to help her. They gladly offered to put donation tins on store counters, organized fundraisers and pulled cash out of their own pockets. These combined efforts helped to raise tens of thousands of dollars. Moreover, Ozarowski ran a website in which she was pictured in a wheelchair next to the request, “Help Save My Life.”
But then, such things as why she didn’t lose her hair after chemotherapy, why she hung up on a man who offered $10,000 in treatments, and why she didn’t show up for a free exam at a neurologist began to raise doubts. Another thing that might have raised a red flag is the fact that her stories of cancer became too amorphous—sometimes it was bone cancer, at times it was brain cancer. She had also mentioned stomach and ovarian cancers.
Since she pleaded guilty to the 24-count charge against her, her attorney was allowed to negotiate with the judge to counter the prosecutor’s call for 7 years imprisonment. Well, many people would say she got off easy. Judge John Iliou agreed to sentence her to 2 years in a drug treatment program and 1 year of probation.
(image via YouTube)