Scamanda - BONUS: We go behind the scenes with Charlie and Nancy.

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

The world now knows about Amanda Riley and what she did. Charlie sits down with Nancy, the person whose dogged pursuit of Amanda is the reason she’s in prison, to take a peek behind the curtain and delve even further. Scamanda is a Lionsgate Sound podcast: http://lionsgatesound.com Hosted by Charlie Webster. Listen to another Lionsgate Sound podcast hosted by Charlie Webster, Died & Survived: https://link.chtbl.com/diedandsurvived?sid=sc Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, it's Commander Listeners, it's Charlie here. We are so glad you love the show and we know there's still so much discussion and things to talk about, so many questions you want answered. We really, really appreciate all your support and for listening and some of the comments you've made, we've loved reading them. So for a little treat, we wanted to give you kind of like a peak behind the curtain and dig a little deeper into who Amanda is and what she did. So we've got a few bonus episodes for you. I've brought in Nancy Moskertello into the studio. She was the woman who, as opposed in a way,

brought Amanda down. You're the reason why she's in prison. Yes, I think so. A little bit, as I like to say, how many years was it in the end that you went after Amanda? I started in 2015, so she went to jail in 2022. How does it feel that we're still talking about this? It's really surprising that we still are. I thought for sure way back when that this would be a quick story that this would be, oh, they're going to get a quick. This should be great. You know, let's just wait. And then I'm going to be able to tell this story.

Didn't happen that way for sure. Nancy, there's been so many questions around this story, around Scamander and around the show we've done. Amanda herself, we both had contact with her. You on a very different level to me. And when we talk about Scam, because I was quite reluctant in the first place when I was writing the description for the show

and we were thinking about the ties or with the whole Scam thing because I feel like it's so much more than a scam. It's so much more than a con. And it's so much more than a scam. It's so much more than a con. And it's so much more than money. Was it the fact that she needed attention, do you think, or do you think she believes her own lies? What do you think it is about Amanda

that she did this for so long? I do think that on some level, adolescent years, or something, it was for the attention. I think that that's what it's embedded in. But I think as she grew up and honed whatever these skills are, that manipulation skills, I guess, or whatever you would call them, I think she saw the payoffs, whether it was in, oh, let me help you with that.

Oh, that's okay. Stay home. I'll take care of that. Or don't worry about that class. She got rewarded for the behavior on many, many levels, and then with that came the money. Because people are naturally, you know, wanna be helpful.

So I think it grew into money, and then once the money was there, it was game on. It was too much to resist, I think. Because we've actually found out. So, during our series, we did so much digging. Nancy, you'd been kind of been digging for years before and you kind of went after and it became very personal for you.

And Richard explained to us in the series, and then you contacted me, we had a chat, and then we started to look into it a lot further and we were like, right, how can we tell this story? What else, you know, what else can we find? And this was before she'd pled guilty and before she was convicted. But we've actually found out, since we released the podcast, that this was going on a lot longer than we realised, and that's coming up in some of our future bonus episodes so stay tuned but how does it feel that it was you that she kind of blamed and targeted for what's happened

and it's down to you really I don't feel like she's really taken responsibility for what she's done and Amanda still to this day blames you and Alita, who is Corey, Amanda's husband's ex-wife, that you both went after her and it was out of being vindictive. Yeah, I mean, I can't help her with that. I mean, she shouldn't fake cancer, right? I don't know what to say to that,

because there were so many times and so many outs for her that she could have just quietly gone away or rethought what she was doing. It just misplaced anger in a way. She got caught and she's sorry she got caught. I don't know. Yeah, because actually, not since I've upped you, but there was many points that when you first started to call people and say, look, you know, I'm trying to find out some more information, but I don't think this woman's got cancer. She could have just gone quiet then, because she knew that you were just around. Then when Detective Martinez contacted her, initially, was looking into the investigation. She could have just gone,

oh, yes, sorry, and walked away. And she wouldn't have actually ended up in prison or being caught. So there was so many times, what I thought was interesting was we all went to the to Amanda's sentence in. And I remember speaking to you Nancy before, and we were looking through before and we were looking through some of the documents and the only thing that Amanda contested to was having you speak at the sentence in. Because you wrote a victim's impact statement. I did actually list it as a victim by the police and by the IRS. Yes. For because of having to go to court and the expense involved in that. So when she did her like a sentencing brief, which is kind of what was me's speech,

as I like to say, like to the judge of these are the things, this is how it happened, whatever she wants to say, at the end of that was on all of this, you know, please, you know, I want home confide, whatever she was asking for. And the other thing I want is for Nancy Muscatel or not to be allowed to speak and read her impact statement in court. And it's like, really, like, I'm, how am I still the issue? Like, don't you have bigger problems than me? I just found that crazy. And then the assistant US attorney

had to file a brief back saying, she can speak. Like, she's a victim and if she needs to speak or wants to speak, you know, that's okay. Like, the fact that they had to be this exchange is whatever. I mean, at this point. So you didn't end up speaking though, did you? No, I thought.

Why didn't you end up speaking? I think at that point, I had submitted it to the judge and I know the judge read lots of impact statements and I thought it was important for the victims that she emotionally destroyed people like Alida and Jessa and Lisa Lindsay. You know, there were people that it was so personal and so vindictive towards that. I thought it was more important to keep the focus on them. How did it make you feel though that you and I are allowed to read your victim statement.

We included a small piece of your victim statement in episode eight. And I've seen the your victim statement. We included a small piece of your victim statement in episode eight, and I've seen the whole victim statement. You know, I remember when you first read it, for us, are you ready to me, you were upset. My sister was loved by so many. When at 41, she lost her life to lung cancer. The anguish my sister suffered, knowing her time with her young children

would be cut so short, was ingrained in my mind. It is infuriating to see a perfectly healthy person take on the plight of true warriors of cancer for financial gain and attention. For me, it's a very emotional, you know, I'm kind of connecting all the dots back into my life and why this case became so important to me or why I wouldn't let it go. And that focus was around my sister, my father,

my mother, the people that have died from cancer that it's still a hole in your heart. And so that was all contained in there. And just my, on a professional level, like what it meant or what it did to me. But again, I really wanted to try just to give some context. Um, so people remember she tried to discredit you and did actually take you to court to try and see you for you were using her of faking cancer. Yeah, for harassment.

Yeah, in various, you know, it will go into more detail on them a later in a separate episode. I think for me, I really wanted a leader and Jessah to have their day in court and for the focus to be on them and to show the judge, let the judge hear how they were destroyed. Because to me, that told that Jessah missed out on a year and a half of loving women.

Like that's just extremely bad. The thing in Anne's is it goes back to when I was speaking a few minutes ago about the whole word scam, because I think that's why I've struggled with it, because I was trying to sum up this whole story because it seems so much more than that. And you just put it into words because it is, It's emotional trauma that this impact hard as well. It's not kind of just somebody I went after a cons to get some money. Oh yeah, yeah.

The emotional tool on everyone that donated or is trying to wrap their head around what really was going on, the betrayal, I think is really the big thing. de la gente, que realmente fue en la gente. El portrayal, creo, es realmente la gran cosa. A veces, hemos visto de un poco de los diferentes personas que han ganado.

Sí, claro, que han ganado de tener la dinero y eso es lo que es lo que es lo que es realmente, como, ha sido de la ciencia, ha sido de la ciencia, la ciencia, la ciencia, la ciencia, la ciencia, la ciencia, como, ¿cómo es eso?

Es muy cariño. ¡Oh, y si este fin de vamos a las piestas de mi pueblo! ¿Qué dice es? Pero si tu pueblo está en Look at life, and I ain't like, there's some people, que ja... Blah, bl were some similarities there, you know, the idea that she would have like special prayer sessions around her, asking the kids to come and pray together for her after school, or holding a lecture type thing at one point where kids came to specifically hear her testimony. That's college. Just like she did in church, she did that to kids in middle school. You know, to be inspirational and to be all of that. So, you know, Amanda, she pulled the kids into everything.

I had quite a few people reach out to me and via different ways and through social media. And one of them was called Hannah and thanks Hannah. I've reached out to her and she's let me share this story. She contacted me and said that in 2015, she was diagnosed with Hodgkins and Phoma herself and her brother's close friend from his church reached out to help me through the process.

And guess who that was? Who do you think was? Amanda. It was Amanda Riley. Hannah said that she began to text, call, Facebook message me and even sent care packages and a hand-made blanket to me. I felt smothered by her and uncomfortable by how happy she was to have another member of the cancer club. She was just too happy to be sick and too happy that I was now sick with her. She wanted me to join clubs and support groups to go to events where cancer patients can get things for free, et cetera.

Honestly, I tried to ignore her, but she kept reaching out. My husband and brother told me I was being rude and to just accept her help. I remember her actually advising me not to go to Stanford Cancer Center because she claimed I've had a horrible experience with their doctors and said that the treatment and doctors at USSF were so much better.

To Facebook, and she kind of carries on and says, about, before starting chemo-radiation, I'm understanding this care package and then sent me a picture of the care package, which I have in front of me, in a note. I mean, in the care package, there's like books and like supportive messages, and like quite a few beanie hats, like a little blanket. There's even some like small box, you know, like the boxing gloves you can kind of hang in your car. Oh yeah. There's some some small box, you know, like the boxing gloves you can kind of hang in your car.

There's some slippers as well. And yeah, she sent a picture of that. And she said, I've been blown away by the lens she went to in order to make her story real, even reaching out to me. A stranger to her to mentor me through the process. She was so good, very convincing and so likable. To this day, my brother has had a hard time accepting that she was faking the whole thing. And then she says, thank you again for exposing the truth. There was closure, comfort, and validation for me listening to it.

It's really interesting because I've got quite a few more, but that was Hannah, and thank you, Hannah, for sharing with us. And thank God she didn't listen, right? Thank God. And I remember Amanda on Facebook or one of the Twitter's mentioning, hand away back. And I kind of like looked into it. And I remember right, I think there was a long drive for them to go to Stanford. And like there was like the husband and her were would post about sleeping in the car or

having to drive in the middle of the night to make sure they were there in time like Thank God they listened and got the best care Yeah, she says I'm so glad I didn't listen to her and I followed my guts to stay with Stunford. I mean that's something's life. Yeah, why? The idea I actually to think that okay, let me let me give my two cents on this when Amanda knew then. She knows she doesn't have cancer. Another person that's contacted me, she says that she met Amanda in preschool. She was my first best friend.

I pizza dinner at her house. Did you know that she was a child? What did you call it when you were in a pageant as a child? Or like a toddler's in Tierra? Yes. She had trophies upon trophies. I grew up with her until she moved to a different elementary school, but we connected as adults.

And she says that this podcast is actually helping her put her timeline together. When did I arrange to drop off dinner while she was in New York receiving treatment? When did I ask for her to wear a dresser because she stopped appearing in family photos? And what it made me think about was even the people that we spoke to in the podcast, they didn't actually know what other people's story is. They only knew their own and they only could see their own lens, so it's kind of putting together the complexity

of this whole thing and how deep it went when we collected all these different stories and even people reaching out now are listening, who knew her to kind of put their own story together. People didn't really realize how complex this went, did they? No, they didn't realize the levels. I mean, as, you know, we heard from Stephen Lisa, right?

By the time I found them, like, I was expecting a regular phone call of, yeah, it's a terrible she was sick or whatever. When they dropped that bomb of 2010, that's a whole nother level. I remember going, what? I remember quite distinctively that evening. We were having just a fantastic time celebrating Lisa and we broke out cigars and I was having a cigar with Corey and a couple of other guys.

So it was a summer night, perfect weather and a perfect evening. And then Corey got this sort of look on his face and he said Amanda has stage four. and then Corey got this sort of look on his face and he said, Amanda has stage four. She's progressed to stage four cancer. That was another level that I didn't see coming. So, yeah.

Also, when we've reached out to people, there was quite a few people I spoke to off the record, actually, that didn't want to go on record, but they did want to share their story, but they just didn't want it to go out public. And the reason why was because they were, they're actually scared of Amanda. But, you know, she's behind bars.

What do you think it means that they're actually scared of telling their story even though she's convicted and she's you know she's in prison right now. I think the sophistication of her manipulation I think the fear that can that be done with her with idle time on her hands in prison? Can she access the internet there? Can she, like, that's what I'm hearing from people. Like, they just don't trust that she won't be vindictive at any point, whether it may be when she gets out or when, you know, they're deep scars.

There's like, she's done, she's behind, I don't even think about it anymore. I understand it, and I don't blame people to not want to. I like when they share, because I think we learn something each time. I mean, look, when I went through, when I speak to the different sources, I developed over the years,

I was very honest with them, and I said, well, they'd say, well, do you think she's capable? And I've always been honest and said, well, I do. I mean, she sued me, right? So I've gone through love of going after people. Go and after people. And should multiple different personalities online,

like different names and people she was online that she would use to attack from different sides. So she created accounts to sandbag someone else, right? And add someone else. And so can you explain a little bit, like give us an example maybe, and explain what you mean. So at one point there was an account from a man does sister-in-law. an account from Amanda's sister-in-law. This is a quarry, like a half-sister to quarry. And he was knocking down like Alita and different people and making comments on their different accounts.

And it was pretty vicious. And at one point I reached out to her. I reached out to quarry's half-sister and said, hey, here's who I am. Anyway, she was like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Right? So I sent her the links and I sent her the stuff and she was like, yeah, not me, not me, but this is making a lot of sense now.

She said they didn't have a very close relationship and she said, I love across the country. I'm not really in touch with that much. So, but that's not, you know, I'm not doing that, that's not me. So, you know, it's little things like that. So, I think people were just afraid of being on her radar. Because there's almost like this people in two camps,

we've got the people that are saying, oh, kind of knew something wasn't right and are fearful of her and her manipulation. But then there's another camp of people that still can't believe that the Amanda they knew could do this because it doesn't match up with the Amanda that they knew. And even when we went to her, sentencing and spoke to a few people, I mean, Lindsay was one of them, you know, she was still in contact with Lindsay and shout out to Lindsay for

sharing her story with us. But even she believed her right down to the last minute because it was so confusing, not just why someone who would do this, but the Amanda that they knew would never do this. Yeah, you've put so much stock in faith in someone and they're, I mean, she wasn't outwardly mean or rude or anything like that. I mean, if anything, she was so giving him, and look, she reached out to Hannah, right? Like, here she is with all the weight of the world on her,

but she took the time to reach out to Hannah. Well, she, here she is with all the weight of the world on her, but she took the time to reach out to Hannah. Well, she did that in many circumstances, like if somebody knew some woman cancer, oh, let me talk to that person. Oh, I'll talk, you know, she put others first, you know, and I think that's a very endearing quality that helped with the manipulation as well. Yeah, and I mean, I've been interviewed for a few different podcasts and we've done a bit of press together, haven't we, Nancy? And one of the things I've found myself saying quite a few times is, well, she was inspirational.

Yes. I'm not going to do anything. No, I'm just saying that like, you know, she was inspirational and, and in telling her story, which wasn't too, you know? Yeah, like she was inspirational to people, which is like you said part of the manipulation. There's the different lens, like I keep saying, like when I would see her post something, you know, being so enduring to someone else or, oh, you know,

help get together and raise money for this, like, my blood would boil because I knew I'm looking at it from the perspective of she's so full of it. And this is so hard. So she was bringing communities. But she was bringing communities. So it's like, wow, it's not right on at any level. But I mean, like she, her team Amanda Amanda raised money for lymphoma society. She did the walks. She did genuinely raise money so that the A for her. But in the same breath, she's also

fleecing them for even more for her. So I think that's part of it, right? You give a little of yourself to others. And then they're just like, my God, she's. And then they want people like, my god, she's, look what she's in for the two. And this case is, it's the first and only federal case of its kind. And we know that Amanda's got the longest sentence

for Ford where it's about cancer, faking cancer. And we've been contacted, I don't want us to give any details away because we can't, because we don't want to cause any problems, because we know that there's some live cases going on right now. But the podcast is being used, and people are listening to the podcast, to learn how to make sure these people are stopped, and stop people and get people convicted

because it was hard to get Amanda convicted. Yeah, I think the work that Special Agent Lee and Detective Martinez did is a roadmap now that not that it's an easy road, but it's a roadmap to help other agencies kind of know like this can be done, or this is how I went about it, not me, like how a special agent Lee went about it. It's interesting how prolific this type of manipulation and stuff is, and now they're hopefully from this there's a roadmap of fantastic work

that the agent agently did and that it can be replicated. That's the goal. Now there's something out there and on the books that I think may really help. If you got anything you want to say to listeners, just a big thank you. Thank you. Yeah, no, fantastic.

I mean, I really, I enjoy reading, you know, going through the comments and seeing the passion and the just the way that they're liking it's the way it's unraveling and how I'd unraveled now that you're hearing us, you're finished. But yeah, thanks for coming in Nancy and we do have a few more episodes. The surprise bonus ones for you, so definitely keep on listening. We're so grateful for you and thanks again, just like Nancy was saying. We are loving reading the comments.

And if your friends haven't heard about it, make sure they do. Go and share. And we'll be back soon. Thanks so much. Scamanda is hosted and produced by me, Charlie Webster. And produced by Jackson MacLeanen. Edit and theme music by Nico Pallella. Assistant producer Casey Hertz. Assistant editor, SEMA Greywall.

Additional production support from Steven Sletton, Will Hagle and Nicole Urban. Executive produced by me, Charlie Webster, and Nancy Moskotello. Scamander is a Lionsgate Sound Production engineered by Pilgrim Media Group.