Brittany Ozarowski, a Long Island 21-year-old with a heroin habit pretended to be cancer-ridden in order to solicit money from a bevy of merchants and sympathizers, news reports said.
"This was a despicable crime. There was no cancer, no chemotherapy or radiation. All there was was heroin and more heroin," District Attorney Thomas Spota said.
A 24-count indictment accused Ozarowski of the two-year scheme. She was arraigned Thursday in First District Court. Ozarowski allegedly told people she needed money to pay for medicine and treatment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, news reports said.
"She told business owners that she was suffering from bone and brain cancer, that the disease was spreading to her thyroid and her stomach," Spota said at a news conference. "She told some people that she just found out the brain cancer was inoperable. They believed that she desperately need the money for her chemotherapy and her radiation to fight the cancer," DA Spota said.
"The truth is she is a 21-year-old drug addict with four open narcotics cases and we have strong evidence she forged doctors' notes to avoid court appearances," DA Spota said.
Even her grandmother was fooled, selling her Selden house, giving Brittany more than $100,000. Her father, Thomas McDermott of Selden, told investigators he went with his daughter to the fundraisers and depleted his retirement account in order to help, the DA said. Notices of her "illness" spread on social media pages, like Facebook, notifying (rather duping) the public about her supposed condition.
The 21-year-old was reportedly living out of a motel for the past few months.
She even set up a bogus website https://www.brittanyozarowski.com/ for her financial donors to contribute funds.
Walter and Karren Warren, for instance, gave $100 to Ozarowski from their non-profit group, The Friends of Kenny Warren Foundation, named after their son, who had died of cancer. The DA was finally notified about the fraud after she reportedly called the Warrens twice within a month to demand cash, who asked in turn for her to provide the doctor's name in order to pay with the non-profit's credit card. Ozarowski refused and hung up the phone. The couple then went to the authorities.
Ozarowski was arrested on April 1 outside a Sayville supermaket. Since then, she has been in jail pending a $5,000 cash bail, or $10,000 bond.
Grand larceny charges are pending, and she pleaded not guilty on Friday.
A "mugshot" website reportedly shows that she was also arrested in 2009 in Monroe County, Florida.
Photos of Ozarowski have posted throughout the Internet.
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