Former friends say cancer faker ‘exploited kindness, goodness’

Convicted fraudster Kristopher Cook’s former friends say they are disappointed they were duped by someone they trusted when they fell victim to his bogus fundraiser in support of cancer he never had.

They were among dozens of people who shelled out a total of $7,500, of which Cook immediately spent $1,000 to purchase a computer.

“I don’t feel very good. I say this because he exploited kindness and goodness of everybody, myself included,” Hayley Muir, Cook’s then-girlfriend, said outside court after his sentencing hearing Friday.

Muir said Cook went to the doctor and claimed he had a tumour. Soon he told her the doctor had told him it was cancerous.

There was little sympathy Friday from another former friend. “He so duped us,” said Zoe Pearce. “How can you do this to people who really care about you so much?

Crown prosecutor Mike Ewenson, who argued for a sixto nine-month jail sentence, said friends helped arrange the fundraiser earlier this year at a downtown bar, drawing 200 people and silent auction items to help defray costs of his purported treatment.

It was when he bought the computer that the lie “started to unravel,” said Ewenson who, jointly with defence lawyer Joel Chevrefils, also sought 18 to 24 months probation.

Cook fled to Victoria, B.C. and was arrested Sept. 11.

“It is the vulnerable people who truly have cancer that are hurt the most,” Ewenson told provincial court Judge Terry Semenuk. “The public will not continue to donate if they are suspicious of where the money is going.”

Chevrefils told the judge he believed the 95 days his client has spent in custody at Calgary Remand Centre, where he suffered a vicious beating by fellow inmates, along with probation to deal with substance abuse is sufficient penalty.

“The thing he feared most — everybody leaving him and not liking him — has happened.”

Semenuk reserved his decision to Jan. 10.