Powerlifter allegedly swindled donations

When online critics began suggesting this summer that Jessica Ann Smith was faking her cancer diagnosis to raise money, the Pennsylvania powerlifter spent an hour on a local podcast fiercely defending herself.

“If anyone straight up came up to me and said, ‘I think you’re faking this,’ I literally would say, ‘OK, you’re coming to chemo with me on Monday,’ ” Smith, 31, told the website The Ever Evolving Truth in August.

In fact, unbeknown to Smith, police detectives were already working to talk to her medical providers. And she was indeed faking it, they now say.

Smith was arrested Monday in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and charged with raising more than $10,000 on GoFundMe and Facebook by pleading for

Smith help on medical didn’t exist.

Before her arrest, Smith made waves in Philadelphia-area media with her dramatic tales of overcoming devastating illnesses to become a competitive powerlifter. In a March interview with the Philly Voice, she ticked off a litany of physical setbacks, from a double hip replacement to a rare heart condition to a cancer-related hysterectomy.

“Two weeks ago, I had a baseballsized mass removed from my abdomen,” she casually noted. “I’ve been through more in 32 years than anyone will probably experience, and I still push through and still get the job done.”

In June, she added another ailment to that list: a rare form of hereditary colon cancer. As she explained in the online fundraisers she set up, the disease saddled her with “tremendous medical bills,” according to a police report.

Those close to Smith had serious doubts about her bills that claims from the start, though — including her own husband.

Robert Smith came to police in Uwchlan Township, about 35 miles west of Philadelphia, to file a report on July 31. He told authorities that “to the best of his knowledge, his wife does not have cancer of any form,” according to a police report.

While investigators waited for local hospitals to respond to search warrants on her medical files, Smith actually came to police herself to report “online harassment and bullying” by people calling her a fraud on her fundraising sites. She voluntarily sat for an interview on Sept. 12, describing her supposed illness, handing over several documents to police that she said confirmed the diagnosis.

The doctor she said was providing her chemotherapy told police he’d only ever treated her for anemia, according to authorities.

Smith was arraigned on charges of receiving stolen property and theft by deception. She faces a preliminary hearing Tuesday.