A woman from Victoria was sentenced to three years of imprisonment after it was found that she had faked that she suffered from cancer in order to fund her addiction for gambling. The woman whose name has now been identified as Tina Sammons had earlier last year in the month of November pleaded guilty to charges of fraud. She had duped her friends and relations by asking them for financial support for the treatment of her feigned cancer. In the process she is said to have cheated people off money amounting to $350,000 in totality. The list of people who sympathised with her fake medical condition and provided monetary help to the 37 year old Sammons includes her parents in law, her brother in law, her sister in law and the best friend of her husband.
It has been reported that she had claimed to these people that because of her being a citizen of America, the Australian government did not give her health care benefits of financial support for her medical bills. The West Virginian had faked undergoing serious medical procedures such as three heart surgeries, one kidney transplant and a number of other such treatments. She had allegedly been lying about these treatments since March 2009 until the truth came out.
She was caught out after her brother in law, on suspecting something wrong with the situation, hired a private detective to keep an eye on the activities of Sammons in November last year. It subsequently led to the truth of her gambling addiction and fake illness coming out to her family who later sued her for fraud. Despite all this her husband still remains by her side and has pleaded to the court to reduce her sentence.
