Russo told the court she made her story up because she hoped her fake cancer battle would force her troubled family to focus on her. Her scam was exposed when anonymous witnesses with “medical experience” pointed out “medical discrepancies” in Russo’s social media presence to the investigating officer. A subpoena for medical records found that Russo had “never been diagnosed with any kind of cancer or tumor from any medical facilities within the Quad Cities or surrounding cities,” according to police.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
In the end, Rhonda Miles, who runs a pancreatic cancer foundation in Nashville, Tennessee, that donated to Russo and testified at the hearing, expressed disappointment at the decision. Despite the lack of prison time, the judge warned Russo that serious crimes must have serious consequences, and people who deal with her in the future should know that she once engaged in a criminal scheme.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A 20-year-old Iowa woman who falsely claimed to have pancreatic cancer, leukemia, and a football-sized tumor wrapped around her spine, with documented “battles” on social media, has avoided jail time. Madison Russo never had any of the illnesses she claimed to have on her TikTok, GoFundMe, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts, and about 400 people still<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":7862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[1339],"class_list":{"0":"post-7857","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime"},"yoast_head":"\n
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