Brandi Lee Weaver-Gates, 23, of Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, led her local community to believe that she had been diagnosed with a form of leukemia in 2013.
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Brandi Lee Weaver-Gates, the 2015 Miss Pennsylvania US global victor, is accused of falsely telling people she had chronic lymphocytic leukaemia so they would give her money to pay her medical bills.
In a statement on its Facebook page, Butler’s Beauties, the pageant organizer, said in part, “Effectively immediately, Ms. Weaver-Gates is no longer a representative of the Miss Pennsylvania U.S. worldwide organization and will be required to return her crown and sash upon her release from being detained”.
Weaver-Gates allegedly carried out her “elaborate scheme” over the course of two years – going as far as shaving her head and having family members drive her to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore to get treatment.
Ms Weaver-Gates was taken to the Centre County Prison yesterday afternoon.
“She didn’t know the name of her doctors and other things like that”, said Thomas Stock with Pennsylvania State Police.
Fundraisers were set up to help the pageant star with her “medical treatments”.
Police said since then, several benefits have been held in her honor, the latest in April.
Gibson promoted herself as a lifestyle guru and sold thousands of cancer sufferers and their families on the myth she recovered from the deadly disease by eating a diet of whole foods.
The authorities investigated her after receiving an anonymous letter.
“They wanted to come and support someone who is going through a hard time in their life”, she said.
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“And in speaking with all of the locations, it was discovered that she never treated any type of treatment at any of those locations”, he said.
