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Tag: Brittany Ozarowski

  • Cancer Scammer Brittany Ozarowski Pleads Guilty

    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)

  • Cancer Scam: Woman Uses Donations To Buy Heroin

    The holiday season tends to have a way of making people feel more open and generous. Whether donations are going to the little red buckets beside bell-ringing Santas, church fundraisers for Christmas dinners, or to Toys for Tots programs, people seem to be all the more willing to give a little extra to their fellow humans when Christmas time rolls around. This is a wonderful thing, but sometimes, people like to take advantage of other’s generosity. Brittany Ozarowski is one such person.

    Brittany Ozarowski lived in Miller’s Place, New York, which is only sixty miles away from the Big Apple. Around March of 2012, Ozarowski began to frequent local businesses, telling the owners that she had cancer, and leaving donation jars in their places of business. Many of these business owners took special interest in Ozwarski, offering help in the form of hosting fundraisers and charity benefits. Ozarowski also plead with family members, friends, and other community figures, who all united in a front to save the 21-year-old woman.

    Business started to get fishy, however, when a few donors began to notice the lack of effect that cancer and chemotherapy had on Ozarowski. One person offered to set her up with a neurologist at Stony Brook Medical Center for cancer treatments, but she never showed up for the appointments. When questioned as to why her hair was not falling out, she claimed that she was taking “special vitamins.” These odd happenings eventually lead to suspicious donors going to the police, who in turn arrested Ozarowski.

    Ozarowski plead guilty to a 24-count indictment on Monday, which accused her of grand larceny, forgery and other crimes. The young woman admitted to lying about her status as a cancer victim, and was using the money she gathered from the generosity of her community to buy drugs, specifically heroin. She was found guilty on Wednesday, and the judge sentenced her to up to two years in a drug treatment program, with up to one additional year of probation. She will also be required to pay more than $10,000 in restitution to the kind folks that she conned.

    Unfortunately, stories such as those that come from cases like Ozarowski’s tend to discourage people from giving, and to a point, this is justified. This writer urges people to donate whatever they are able to, however, despite the deception that can go on.

    [Image courtesy of this YouTube video.]