Pennsylvania State Police began investigating Weaver-Gates — the reigning Miss Pennsylvania U.S. International — after receiving an anonymous letter accusing her of “faking” cancer, according to a news release from the state agency. “The accused was allegedly diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia in March 2013,” state police said. “Since that time many fundraisers have been held to benefit the accused.”
She was stripped of her Miss Pennsylvania U.S. International title after news broke of her arrest, pageant organizer Butler’s Beauties announced in a statement Tuesday. “We were also led to believe that she was dealing with this horrible disease and stood by her as she struggled being a beauty queen and a cancer patient,” the statement read.
Weaver-Gates was charged with theft by deception and receiving stolen property.
State Trooper Thomas Stock told WJAC that “there were some inconsistencies, such as Ms. Weaver-Gates’s hair was always there and never falling out, she did not know the name of her doctors, and other things like that.”
Stock told the news station that Weaver-Gates would take her sister to the hospital and tell her to sit in the waiting room for hours.
Weaver-Gates told “numerous people” she was being treated at facilities such as Johns Hopkins Hospital, police said, but the investigation revealed she never received treatments at those facilities. She showed investigators a hospital bill that turned out to be fake, police said.
There are have been similar cases around the country. The Oklahoma attorney general filed charges last month against a 40-year-old woman after she allegedly faked terminal stomach cancer, a diagnosis she shared on Facebook before receiving money via fundraisers. A Florida woman was charged with fraud earlier this year after allegedly faking stage IV breast cancer; that woman received money from local clubs for treatments.
In April 2014, Weaver-Gates told the Centre Daily Times that she was declared cancer-free in October 2013, but was later told that 5 percent of her cancer cells returned. She spoke to the newspaper at a cancer walk-a-thon.
“When I was first diagnosed, I kept it to myself for a while; I didn’t know how to tell my family and even though they were there through it all, it still feels like you battling it alone, because they don’t understand,” Weaver-Gates told the newspaper.
A bingo fundraiser was held for Weaver-Gates in April to help pay for a series of chemotherapy treatments at Johns Hopkins, according to an event page. Tickets cost $20 in advance and $25 at the door. Police told WJAC that the event yielded thousands of dollars.
Weaver-Gates remains in the Centre County Correctional Facility after failing to post $150,000 bail. She is due in court Aug. 19 for a preliminary hearing.
Whenever she’s released, Butler’s Beauties wants its crown and sash back.
“We at Butler’s Beauties believe that with a crown and sash you can accomplish many great things as a role model, spokesmodel and community leader as a beauty pageant queen,” the pageant organizer said in a statement. “When you deceive the public and take people’s money that is under the pretense of fraud, we will not tolerate those actions.”