Woman Faked Cancer & Raised $50K In Donations, Gets 2 Years In Prison

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Woman Gets 2 Years For Faking Cancer To Raise Money

A woman in Westchester, New York tricked an entire community into believing she had terminal cancer, and now she’s praying the price. She was sentenced Friday for using her fake affliction to scam people out of more than $50,000, and has to serve 2 years in prison for her lies.

Vedoutie Hoobraj, who was known by locals as Shivonie Deokaran, duped everyone…including her boyfriend and two sons into helping her raise money off of her supposed terminal leukemia between 2014 and 2016. The cash flowed in through GoFundMe pages, and even a fundraiser organized by her son’s teammates on the High School football team. Prosecutors said more than 400 people chipped in for this woman’s non-existent disease.

“In a cynical exploitation of people’s generosity, Vedoutie Hoobraj created an elaborate fiction about having cancer to reap charitable contributions from well-meaning donors. Hoobraj even falsified medical records to conceal the fraud. Today, she has learned the price of such brazen conduct,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said.

The 38-year-old was sentenced by Judge Vincent Briccetti in White Plains District Court. He not only ordered her to forfeit the $51,938 raise, but also to pay $47,741 in restitution to victims of her scheme.

Authorities said that Hoobraj went to great lengths to maintain her lies, shaving her head and manipulating her medical records from Jacobi Medical Center. She changed a report noting “no abnormalities” to read “all abnormalities.” When people began questioning her about the doctor who had initially diagnosed her with 18 months to live, she said that he died in an earthquake in Nepal in April 2015, according to prosecutors.

Hoobraj continued to cast blame on her boyfriend after pleading guilty, prosecutors alleged. She claimed the scam was his idea and that he’d cut her hair while she was sleeping. But that story didn’t hold up in court.

“The defendant offers no explanation why she would have told her boyfriend the truth, while choosing not to spare her own sons, who apparently sincerely believed their mother was going to die,” prosecutors wrote.

Hoobraj’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.