Page 7 - IAV Digital Magazine #505

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Florida Man Fakes Cancer, Steals More Than $85,000 In Donations
NBC 2 News: According to the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office, family and friends of Depretis creat- ed two GoFundMe accounts and one Facebook Fundraiser account to collect donations for his cancer treatment.
Problem is, DUDE DIDN’T HAVE CANCER! He was busted after a local busi- ness owner that gave Depretis cash for his can- cer treatments noticed the man looked pretty healthy for a dude with cancer.
According to NBC 2 News, “a local business and employer for one of his family
member’s noticed a need when a cash advance was requested and offered to help the family. The family mem- ber was trying to assist with the cost of treatment and had already
given a large amount of money.
The business owner received 229 pages of documents con- sisting of letters, bills, and invoices from several dif- ferent medical
providers between October 2019 and January 2020. Charlotte County deputies said at the time, the owner gave the cash to cover the provided medical expens- es.
The business became suspi- cious when they realized Depretis seemed healthy. A business repre- sentative tried to go with Depretis to pay the bills on his behalf and directly to the provider, but he got agitated and wouldn’t allow it saying it was a violation of HIPAA.
The representa- tive went to pay the bills in per- son, which is when they found out he was not a patient of the medical providers they received documents for. Charlotte County deputies said the representative fol- lowed him to sev- eral other
providers and none of them had him as a patient.”
The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Department’s Economic Crimes detectives investi- gated and arrest- ed Depretis for scheming to defraud 50K or more.
In all, 229 docu- ments were coun- terfeit and were created fraudu- lently by Depretis.
Detectives con- firmed he received over $85,000 in dona- tions.
Depretis was arrested by North Port and is being extradited to the Charlotte County Jail.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine