Okaloosa County (WTFF) – An investigation revealed that a Florida couple convinced a healthy 13-year-old boy that he was going to die of brain cancer in order to scam people out of donation money.
Tho Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office investigators said the Fort Walton Beach couple was “faking a child’s terminal illness to raise money,” through a media release.
For eight months, the 13-year-old victim believed he was going to die from brain cancer, according to the investigators.
OCSO found his real medical records claiming that “no brain tumors exist.”
34-year old Ginny Irovando Long and her husband, 47-year old Robert Edward Long, have been charged with one count of child abuse and nine counts of fraud. They used the GoFundMe platform according to the kid, and made the account for him after telling him back in May 2017 that he was going to die of cancer. The November investigation began after the School Resource Officer told police about the possible fraud. On February 1, 2018, the couple was arrested at their home on Scottwood Drive.
During their fraud, they set up a T-shirt fundraiser at the boy’s school and shared bogus info via Facebook. Not everything you see online is real, but they exploited the fact that despite that fact, people still believe anything they choose to believe. In one of the posts, Ginny exclaimed that it was a miracle the boy had lived three days past Christmas, and that only God knows when his time is up.
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