Canadian woman who faked cancer to raise money pleads guilty

Canadian woman who faked cancer to raise money pleads guilty

2010-11-03 05:39:31 GMT+7 (ICT)

TORONTO (BNO NEWS) -- A Canadian woman who pretended to have terminal cancer, for which she shaved her head and eyebrows, and raised thousands of dollars from anonymous donors, on Tuesday pleaded guilty to fraud in a court of the Canadian province of Ontario.

Kirilow Ashley, 23, caused astonishment in Canada in August when police began to investigate allegations that a young woman with cancer received more than $ 7,000 in donations for research to combat the disease through a fake non-governmental organization.

Kirilow created a Facebook group called "Change for a Cure" in October 2009, which once had 4,000 members and through which allegedly raising money to donate to the University of Alberta and find a cure for cancer, and members even organized a benefit concert which raised more than $7,000.

She posted photographs on Facebook and MySpace, where she appeared in a frail looking and in one of her messages even she said that would be the last because she was dying.

But later his father told the police that his daughter was not suffering from cancer, after some donors began to suspect of her condition. The girl previously told her family that she would needed a transplant to combat the disease and after her parents offered to become donors, the family discovered that Kirilow faked her illness.

On 6 August, Kirilow finally surrendered to police and promised to return the money but admitted that she had spent all the funds.

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