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Episode 1 of the Scamanda docuseries ended with the ultimate bombshell — the reveal of the person who tipped off Nancy Moscatiello to Amanda Riley’s fake cancer scam. On the 2023 Scamanda podcast, the whistleblower chose to stay anonymous, but she’s now come forward with her identity.
Amanda’s former friend Lisa Berry confirmed at the end of the Thursday, January 30, episode that she was the one who contacted Moscatiello with her suspicions about Amanda, which ultimately led the investigative producer to look into the situation. Years later, in 2020, Amanda was charged with wire fraud based on the more than $100,000 in online donations she accepted from people who thought they were contributing to her medical care. In reality, she wasn’t sick at all.
“My name is Lisa Berry, and I am the anonymous source,” Lisa said. “It’s time. I’m proud of it. I’m proud I’m the anonymous source.”
As Amanda continues to complete her five-year prison sentence, scroll down to learn more about Berry and how she was connected to the scammer.
How did Lisa Berry know Amanda Riley?
Lisa and her husband Steve Berry’s daughter went to school with Amanda’s stepdaughter, Jessa. Amanda’s then-husband, Cory Riley (who filed for divorce in January 2024), is Jessa’s father. Since Jessa and the Berrys’ daughter became friends, Amanda and Cory spent time with Lisa and Steve.
Lisa had suspicions about Amanda from the moment she was told about her alleged cancer diagnosis. Amanda told her she was battling the disease just one day after Lisa mentioned a fundraiser for a community member who had been diagnosed with brain cancer.
“The very next morning, she called me to tell me that she had cancer, too, and it just blew me away,” Lisa said on the Scamanda podcast. “I was surprised. Why didn’t she tell me before? … [She said] she’d been fighting it for a while. She’s been on chemotherapy treatment and didn’t think she was going to have children. And, literally, within two days, I’m picking up Jessa for school because Amanda was ‘too sick’ from chemotherapy.”
What happened between Lisa Berry and Amanda Riley?
In the Scamanda docuseries, Lisa revealed that she and her husband ended their relationship with the Rileys by 2015 (Amanda started her cancer blog Lymphoma Can Suck It in 2012). Lisa said she was bothered by the content she was seeing Amanda post online. She was immediately suspicious about the validity of the cancer diagnosis because Amanda first told her about the illness in 2010, but the blog didn’t exist until two years later.
ABC/YouTube
Lisa also admitted to giving Amanda money for blood tests that she claimed she needed to save her life. The whistleblower previously spoke about this at Amanda’s trial, telling the court, “We gave her the needed money. Within a couple days, she posted glamorous photos of herself taken by a professional photographer. I became suspicious that the money I had given her was used to pay for this photo shoot.”
However, Lisa’s suspicions reached an all-time high after Amanda and Jessa came to her house to swim following one of Amanda’s hospital visits, where she claimed to have had fluid drained from her brain. Since Amanda was swimming underwater at her home, Lisa was skeptical that she actually had that kind of procedure done.
“I knew that wasn’t right and I start going through my mind and thinking about all the stories she told me,” Lisa revealed. Some of those tall tales that Lisa “brushed off” before realizing that Amanda was a “liar” included Amanda’s claims that she was working on a PhD in clinical psychology and that her wedding was going to appear in a bridal magazine.
Lisa said that she started ghosting Amanda at this point, but her former friend appeared to be stopping at nothing to get in touch with her. She even told Lisa’s niece that she wanted Lisa and Steve to be her second child’s godparents. When Lisa finally picked up one of Amanda’s calls during the pregnancy, Amanda told her, “The pregnancy is reversing the disease. The pregnancy is reversing the cancer.” Lisa, completely baffled by the claims, has not spoken to Amanda since.
Who is Lisa Berry?
Lisa graduated from San Jose State University and worked as a business administrator for several years. She is from Los Gatos, California, and now lives in San Jose, according to Facebook. Lisa is married to Steve and have one daughter, Eleanor, together.
In 2014, Lisa became involved with her church and has remained dedicated to the church and Catholicism over the years. She has been a member of Five Wounds Portuguese National Parish since 2017 and helps out with hosting events and organizing meetings there. She met the president of Portugal at a church event in 2022.
More must-reads:
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- The 25 worst personal creative decisions in Hollywood history
- 25 truly terrible albums from otherwise awesome musicians
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