He was so good at his crime
A celebrity cancer patient. What could go wrong?
Hello Scam Fam!
Here's a fun party game to try this week: Ask your friends which of their acquaintances is most likely to fake cancer or equivalent serious illness for personal gain. It makes for gr8 conversation.
Is it the widely beloved but mysteriously employed new media darling who once ghosted on a high-profile contract job and then acted like it never happened? The startup cofounder who staged a hostile takeover of their own company only to run said company into the ground and then update their LinkedIn status to "Fighting for my life"? The former boss who once claimed they had to attend a funeral in order to spend a day building a treehouse? As long as the answer isn't YOU, just keep doing what you're doing, they'll never see it coming when you finally take them for all they have.
I don't think I have to tell you cancer sucks and getting it or seeing someone you care about get it is the worst and even the relatively minor forms of it are not something I'd wish on anyone and it's not a laughing matter unless laughter is actually your medicine in which case, respect, I'm wishing you the best in your healing process, I hope you combine that treatment with other medically recognized forms, but I can't tell you how to live your life, I'm not a doctor or your mother. I digress. The point is cancer is very bad and legitimately terrifying.
Those qualities are part of what makes it an ideal affliction to claim when you need to distract from other messes you've created. Just ask Dan Mallory and Maria-Pia Shuman. Or John Looker who was featured in this Abby Ellin (no stranger to elaborate cons) NYT piece, He Was the Face of a Bike-a-thon to Fight Cancer. He Was Also a Fake.*
As Ellin writes, Looker became a "celebrity cancer patient" [ed. note: Ugh] in 2011 at the opening ceremonies for Pelotonia, an Ohio bike ride slash fundraising event, where he introduced himself to the crowd with a video proclaiming, "I have Stage 4 terminal brain cancer. I will ride tomorrow. And I won’t be making any excuses.” Two of those statements were true, and no one questioned the third until 2014, when Looker, who had built a whole #brand involving groupies called Looker's Hookers [ed. note: Ugh] and cookies called Lookies [ed. note: Ugh, I'm sorry, I know I keep saying it and my face is eventually going to get stuck with this permanent expression of disgust, but it's just so bad], reached out via Facebook to the mother of a local cancer patient — a real one — to express solidarity and invite himself over for a visit [ed. note: Ugh].
According to Ellin, "something didn't seem right" to the mother, Erika Decker, so she asked for the name of his oncologist. He sent a series of bizarre excuses, and then when she followed up to be like, "Yes, but what oncologist," he defriended her. Decker grew more suspicious the more she saw posts describing tumors behaving in unscientific ways that would generally reappear right before a Pelotonia event. In 2015, she voiced her doubts to one of his colleagues, who confirmed it was weird that "Looker did not seem to spend any time in a hospital; instead, he held a full-time job, rode his bike and baked a dozen cookies a day."
Together, they went to Pelotonia which was ALSO like, "Yup, this whole thing is definitely fishy, but what are we gonna do, accuse a guy who has nothing obvious to gain from it of faking cancer?" The organization cut Looker out of their promotional materials, but otherwise he was able to continue about his business (publicly faking cancer), at least until it became obvious what he did have to gain: Money.
He pocketed roughly $1300 from various Pelotonia fundraisers. When confronted by the close friends whose donations he had appropriated for himself, "he admitted that he had made the whole thing up and that he had used some of the money he had collected over the years for 'living expenses.'"
Imma pause here so we can discuss a few notes I have. $1300. $1300 over half a decade of telling an elaborate and incendiary lie. Scam Fam, please promise me you will always aim higher than this. Also, please promise me you will not claim your pretend cancer is terminal. I know it's tempting and garners extra good will, but there is no graceful exit from that one!!!!
After Looker's friends sold him out and reported him to Ohio's attorney general, he had to pay $1800 in restitution and $2000 in fines, which is I guess the one upside of stealing peanuts. "This isn't the crime of the century," the AG said, in an inadvertently devastating burn.
Fun (?) fact about Looker: Throughout all this he had a romantic partner who later claimed that he had no knowledge Looker was faking his illness. As Ellin writes, "His ex, Mr. Addison, has insisted he was always in the dark, traveling for work and never accompanying Mr. Looker to medical appointments."
Like I said at the top, I'm not your mother or your doctor or your couple's therapist and how you function in a relationship is none of my business. And yet… I find this hands off approach to a partner's illness a little questionable.
There was a follow up story about the whole Harvard professor paternity scam this week in which other men describe their encounters with cancer-claimer extraordinaire, Maria-Pia Shuman. My brilliant friend Dana called my attention to one of them in particular who, after Shuman told him she was pregnant, gave her:
"a fake email address, associated with a fake name and birth date, and a prepaid-cell-phone number to continue their correspondence, because he didn’t want her to know his actual identity… When he told her that he had no intention of staying connected to her or the baby and suggested that she not name him as the father on the birth certificate, she changed her approach, proposing that he stay in monthly contact with the child. He refused, then canceled his prepaid phone, telling her he was moving abroad and suggesting she contact him via email."
I mean, on the one hand, yes, Shuman was apparently picking up horny dudes all over town in order to try to take their money. On the other, that's a decidedly uncool way for one of those dudes to behave towards someone with whom he had consensual, broken condom sex. I don't want to blame Looker's ex for his behavior, but maybe support your cancer-stricken loved one enough that a stranger on the internet isn't the first person to figure out he's not actually cancer-stricken? Otherwise, people might feel kind of satisfied to see you get scammed.
Operate with a little more integrity than these guys,
Ruthie
*Thank you to Scambassador Jason for sending this story my way; please follow his example and reply to this email with your favorite tales of schemes gone right. Or wrong. Or whatever.
My Week in Consumption
I have a new gym show! It's Black Earth Rising. After The Honourable Woman I went on a whole Hugo Blick kick and bought The Shadow Line from iTunes to watch at the gym; at this point I can't recall the details of the plot, but I do remember the show being excellent. Anyway, Hugo Blick is like an understated Aaron Sorkin if Aaron Sorkin was interested in more ambitious questions than "Do you know how sophisticated a thinker I am?" and you replaced all the walk-and-talks with piercing statements and pregnant silences. So not actually like Aaron Sorkin at all. The wardrobe on all Blick's shows is glorious and three episodes in I feel ready to enthusiastically recommend Black Earth Rising.
While we're on the TV tip, Derry Girls season 2 is on Netflix. It is an absolute joy.
I have an immensely complicated relationship to deodorant that I have considered devoting an entire newsletter to (should I do it??!?!?), and I've recently been using this Milk & Honey stuff. As far as I can tell it does absolutely nothing to stop me from sweating, but it smells wonderful.
One of the reasons you're getting this newsletter late is that I had TOO MUCH FUN at a Cyclones game last night. Here's the schedule for the rest of the month. If you want to be like me, get food at Nathan's before (my order is a classic hot dog with sauerkraut and mustard, fries, and a Coney Island lager) and then ride the Wonder Wheel (swinging car only) and the Cyclone after. Truly the best night I can architect for you.