Beauty pageant queens typically stand for things like beauty,
poise and intelligence.
Press them just
a bit and they'll talk about world peace and the need to feed starving
children.
Authorities
accuse Brandi Lee Weaver-Gates, Miss Pennsylvania U.S. International, of
casting aside those attributes and faking cancer in an elaborate scheme that
raised thousands of dollars.
Weaver-Gates led
everyone to believe she had been diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia in
March 2013.
In the years
since, she took part in fundraisers to pay for her treatment. Police told CNN affiliate
WJAC the most recent
event was held in April and raised $14,000.
A police
investigation found no evidence that Weaver-Gates had ever been under a
doctor's care for cancer.
State Police Trooper Thomas Stock called her efforts to make
people believe she had cancer "an elaborate scheme," telling WJAC
that Weaver-Gates would have relatives drive her to Johns Hopkins Medicine in
Baltimore.
They would wait
in the lobby for hours for her return, while she went to another part of the
hospital.
An anonymous
letter to police tipped them off to the scheme.
"When
confronted with what the investigation revealed, the accused advised that she
did not want to incriminate herself and invoked her right to an attorney,"
police said in a release.
Weaver-Gates is
being held in the Centre County Correctional Facility after she was charged
with felony counts of theft by deception and receiving stolen property.
She is due in
court next week.
The pageant is taking the news seriously, too, pulling her Miss
Pennsylvania U.S. International title.
"When you
deceive the public and take people's money that is under the pretense of fraud,
we will not tolerate those actions," said a statement from Butler's Beauties, pageant
organizers.
"Ms.
Weaver-Gates ... will be required to return her crown and sash upon her release
from being detained."
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