{"id":48518,"date":"2015-05-08T12:56:07","date_gmt":"2015-05-08T04:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=48518"},"modified":"2015-05-08T12:56:07","modified_gmt":"2015-05-08T04:56:07","slug":"ontario-woman-accused-of-faking-rare-neurological-disease-to-raise-100000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/05\/08\/ontario-woman-accused-of-faking-rare-neurological-disease-to-raise-100000\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario woman accused of faking rare neurological disease to raise $100,000"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_48519\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-48519\" style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/shutterstock_188940020.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-48519\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/shutterstock_188940020.jpg\" alt=\"shutterstock\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/shutterstock_188940020.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/shutterstock_188940020-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/shutterstock_188940020-900x600.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-48519\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">shutterstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>BURLINGTON, Ontario &#8212; An Ontario woman has been charged with fraud after police say she allegedly faked a rare neurological disease to raise over $100,000 in donations.<\/p>\n<p>Police say Cynthia Lynn Smith claimed to be suffering from Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy and acted out many of its symptoms.<\/p>\n<p>They say her family and friends helped the Burlington, Ont., resident start a charity to raise money for experimental medicines in the U.S. to deal with the illness.<\/p>\n<p>An online &#8220;GoFundMe&#8221; page was started in Smith&#8217;s name in November 2014 and, in combination with other local donations, it raised over $100,000.<\/p>\n<p>Halton Regional Police began investigating Smith in late March after a local reporter raised concerns about the validity of her charity.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators then determined that Smith had never been diagnosed or treated for the illness she claimed to be suffering from.<\/p>\n<p>Smith has been arrested and charged with defrauding the public over $5,000.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Smith acted on her own creating this deception, using the unsuspecting assistance of her family and friends and the generosity of the public,&#8221; said Det.-Sgt. Troy Izlakar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BURLINGTON, Ontario &#8212; An Ontario woman has been charged with fraud after police say she allegedly faked a rare neurological &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":48519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","mauthors-the-canadian-press1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}