Madison Russo, 20, deceived her family, friends, and strangers on the internet by faking a cancer diagnosis. She claimed to have pancreatic cancer, leukemia, and a football-sized tumor around her spine. She documented her false claims on TikTok, GoFundMe, and other social media platforms and raised around $39,000 through donations.
Madison’s lies eventually caught up with her. She pleaded guilty to first-degree theft. On Friday, October 20, 2023, Judge John Telleen sentenced her to probation, imposed a 10-year suspended sentence, and ordered her to pay $39,000 in restitution and a $1,370 fine.
If Madison stays out of trouble for three years, she will not see any prison time. Judge Telleen denied Madison’s defense attorney's request to completely wipe her record clean post probation. He believes Madison committed a significant offense and "serious crimes must have serious consequences."
"Through this scheme, you deceived your friends, your family, your community, other cancer victims, charities and strangers who were motivated by your supposedly tragic story to donate to help support you," the judge explained. He took into account her clean record and good standing in the community but did not shy away from bluntly stating her crimes against society.
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Madison, who is from Bettendorf, Iowa, tried to explain her motivation for lying about her health. "A lot of people have made speculation as to why I did this and how somebody who looked like they had everything together could have such a mess," she stated. "I didn't do this for money or greed. I didn't do this for attention. I did this as an attempt to get my family back together."
Madison has already paid the $39,000 restitution to the court. GoFundMe has issued refunds to her victims.
"GoFundMe has a zero-tolerance policy for misuse of our platform and cooperates with law enforcement investigations of those accused of wrongdoing," the platform wrote in a statement.
Not everyone was happy Madison got off so easy. Rhonda Miles, one of Madison’s victims who runs a pancreatic cancer foundation, believes Scott County prosecutor Kelly Cunningham did not do his job.
"It was devastating to sit there and watch the Scott County prosecuting attorney act like a defending attorney, so that was tough," she stated. "And I think she'll have a lot of questions to answer from the locals on that at some point. Why were you defending this girl when you were supposed to be prosecuting?"
Madison apologized to the court for her actions in an emotional statement. "I fully acknowledge what I did was wrong. And I'm incredibly sorry," she stated. "If there was anything I could do to take it back I would. The reality is I can't."
Madison’s lies first came to the Eldridge Police Department’s attention when anonymous witnesses reported medical inconsistencies in her social media stories. These witnesses had medical experience and knew what they were talking about.
When investigators subpoenaed her records they discovered she had "never been diagnosed with any kind of cancer or tumor from any medical facilities within the Quad Cities or surrounding cities.”
