‘Scamanda’ Producer Reveals if She Thinks Amanda Riley Will Continue Scamming After Prison Sentence

Nancy Moscatiello spent nearly seven years investigating Amanda Riley before the mom of two was charged with wire fraud in 2020 for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations while faking cancer. With Riley’s prison sentence set to end at the end of this year, Moscatiello — an investigative producer involved with both the 2023 Scamanda podcast and 2025 docu-series of the same name — isn’t fully convinced that her scamming days are over.

“Unless she’s learned something from this experience and is possibly getting additional treatment or things where she can be held accountable for what she did, I’m not sure what she’ll do,” Moscatiello admitted on Monday’s (February 10) episode of NewsNation’s Banfield. “I would hope something like this is enough to deter her, but it wasn’t enough when Lisa [Berry] called her out the first time and discussed that with her and said, ‘I don’t think you have cancer.’ It took about a year and a half or two years for her to start all over again. We won’t know until she’s out.”

Riley first told Berry that she was battling cancer in 2010. After confronting Riley with her skepticism about the claim, Berry distanced herself from her former friend. A few years later, she discovered Riley’s Lymphoma Can Suck It blog, where she alleged that she’d been diagnosed with blood cancer and was receiving an outpouring of love from people online.

Berry eventually went to Moscatiello with her suspicions that Riley was lying about her illness. After a thorough investigation, Moscatiello brought her concerns to the San Jose, California, Police Department in 2015. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) got involved the following year and even raided Riley’s home, but no further action was taken.

Related

Where Is 'Scamanda's Amanda Riley Now? Her Life After Faking Cancer

It wasn’t until 2020 that Riley was officially charged with wire fraud based on the online donations she received. However, Moscatiello pointed out that there were likely thousands of more dollars collected through cash and other donations that were not made online.

“There was a lot more money that I was able to track via her blog. The medical blog she kept was really detailed,” Moscatiello shared. “She would thank people all the time for different amounts, ranging from a couple hundred dollars up to $12,000 from a smaller group within the church. Those donations were not part of the larger wire fraud, but family members were giving weekly checks to her, all these different fundraisers that were not through the wire fraud portion of it. They were checks given directly to her. I tracked upwards of $80,000 and some more side hustle, so to speak.”

Riley pled guilty in October 2021 after initially entering a not guilty plea. She was sentenced to five years in prison, which she is currently serving.

Scamanda, Thursdays, 9/8c, ABC