Gown & out!
‘Dying bride’ hit with fraud, larceny raps
THE HONEYMOON from prosecution is over for a bride accused of faking terminal cancer to sucker sympathetic folks into giving her wedding-day freebies.
Jessica Vega was indicted on multiple counts of fraud and grand larceny and was cooling her heels Tuesday in a Hudson Valley jail after being unable to raise the $10,000 bail.
Bridal shop owner Keri Ciastko, who had dressed Vega in a stunning $1,500 ivory-colored Maggie Sottero gown that was specially altered to fit her, said that’s where Vega belongs.
“I never got the gown back,” said Ciastko, whose store is in Newburgh, N.Y. “What she did was awful. I’ve lost people in my own family to cancer. It’s taking the worst possible thing and manipulating it.”
Vega, 25, could get a maximum sentence of four years in prison if she is convicted of conning her community out of thousands of dollars in gifts and services, said Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
“By pretending to have a terminal illness, Vega inexcusably took advantage of the community’s heart and minds, and profited off their generosity,” he said.
Schneiderman’s office declined to put a dollar figure on how much Vega allegedly scammed, but based on estimates and interviews with some of the victims, the total is likely to be more than $20,000.
“That doesn’t include the cash we believe Vega was given,” a law enforcement source said.
Vega and construction worker Michael O’connell, 25, of Walkill, N.Y., were married in May 2010.
A few months later, O’connell blew the whistle on his bride’s alleged scam. She responded by calling him a bitter and abusive drunk.
While the two filed for divorce, they apparently reconciled and moved to Virginia. They now have two children.
“She’s a good mom, and that’s what counts at the end of the day,” O’connell told the Times Herald-record. “I want my kids to have their mother back.”
In an interview with the Daily News after the scam was exposed, Vega insisted the cancer was real and swore that a doctor at a Bronx clinic told her she had terminal leukemia.
Vega said she was fighting the disease with “water, the right foods and exercise” rather than chemotherapy, but couldn’t produce any proof from said doctor. “Maybe tomorrow,” she said. Vega also claimed the scam story was concocted by her husband. “We’re going through a nasty divorce,” she said.
O’connell told The News he felt like a complete “jackass” for falling for Vega’s sob story. He admitted getting rough with her, but insisted he too was a victim of her lies.
“I’m not the one who usually gets the wool pulled over his eyes,” he said. “But when someone tells you they have cancer, you believe them.”
So did hundreds of big-hearted strangers, after the story about the supposedly dying Vega and her wedding wish hit the local paper.
In addition to the gown, which required $500-worth of alterations, they gave the newlyweds an Aruba timeshare for their honeymoon, matching white-gold wedding bands, wedding day makeovers for Vega and her seven bridesmaids — even the wedding cake.