Lindsey Abbuhl, Canton, Ohio pleads guilty to faking daughter’s terminal illness in which she procured donations, holidays, gifts and free housing.
A Canton, Ohio mother has agreed to a plea deal in which she admitted to faking her daughter’s terminal illness to get donations, according to Stark County Prosecutor Kyle Stone.
The incident stemmed from a false GoFundMe campaign called ‘Rylee’s Warriors’ which raised an excess of $4,500 in 2021 before the fundraiser was shut down.
The organizer of the page, 35-year-old Lindsey Abbuhl, used the false campaign to receive donations from the community after saying her 11-year-old daughter was suffering from a terminal illness, according to a news release.
Officials confirmed Abbuhl pleaded guilty on Nov. 17 to two charges: Child endangering, a second-degree felony and theft, a fourth-degree felony.
As part of her plea deal, Abbuhl was ordered to serve 4 to 6 years in prison and pay $8,529.90 in restitution to victims according to the release cited by cleveland 19.
Why hasn’t she died yet?
Lindsey first started telling friends and neighbors that her home-schooled daughter was sick in 2017 and facing very dire medical prognosis. Eventually, donors and friends began to notice that the daughter far from dying continued to appear in good spirits and health.
In December of 2020, Wishes Can Happen sent Lindsey and her daughter on a trip to Key West, Florida. Two months later, during a softball event for her daughter, Abbuhl told attending media that Rylee had two months to live the Canton Rep previously reported.
Lindsey Abbuhl repeatedly described her daughter’s affliction as a ‘central nerve system malfunction.’
‘Essentially, this plea was a way to bring closure to the several parties involved in this case,’ prosecutors said. ‘This was also the best way to avoid the possibility of further traumatizing a child that has already been through so much.’
Read a statement from Lindsey Abbuhl’s lawyer, Paul Kelly: ‘It’s very important to understand here that this child did have diagnosed medical maladies including a lesion on her brain. This is fact and the records exist to prove it.’
While adding, ‘However it was determined to not be as severe or fatal as perhaps mom had at times represented.’
Abbuhl had risked a potential 20 year prison sentence had she gone to trial. The mother is to report to Stark County Jail in January.
Child attended counselling to learn how to process her own ‘impending death’
Read a statement the defense lawyer previously released amid accusations that Abbuhl had misrepresented her daughter’s illness to gain financially: ‘This case is absurd and my client will be found not guilty if charges get brought — this is nothing more than sensationalized media garbage from individuals who do not have access to the medical records as I do.’
A subsequent complaint filed May 14, 2021, revealed investigators with the Stark County Department of Job and Family Services conducting forensic interview with the child and determining that there was ‘no medical evidence’ to support the mother’s claim that her daughter was physically ill.
The complaint also alleges that Abbuhl had placed her daughter in counseling for the past three years ‘to learn how to ‘process her own death,’ telling the child’s counselor, who was going on maternity leave, that the child ‘may not be alive’ when the counselor returned.
The mother could only end up serving six months jail for good behavior according to her defense attorney.
Riley is now living with her father (who has sole custody) and is understood to be doing well.
