JACKSON, Mich. – A woman pretended to have liver cancer and took in about $20,000 from fundraisers to pay for her fictitious treatments, authorities say.
Jackson County prosecutors charged the 36-year-old woman on Tuesday after state police said they found no evidence she was being treated for the disease.
"She duped a lot of people," state police Sgt. Lisa Gee-Cram told the Jackson Citizen Patriot.
Click here to read the Citizen Patriot story.
Jean Anne Allen of Jackson County's Norvell Township faces up to five years in prison if convicted of fraud. She was arraigned Thursday before District Judge James Justin, who freed her on a $10,000 personal bond and scheduled a preliminary examination for May 8.
A message seeking comment was left Friday for defense lawyer Kenneth Hotchkiss.
She said that half her liver had been removed years earlier but the disease recurred.
"This time it's just even worse," Allen told the newspaper in 2006. "It's just something I do not want to go through again. I just don't want to deal with it. And the doctor says the more occurrences I have, the more chances of recurrence."
Friends and co-workers at Medical Weight Loss Clinic in Jackson held a spaghetti-supper fundraiser last year at Napoleon High School. Allen said she needed the money to help with the cost of chemotherapy.
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