Man Posing as Cancer Victim to Collect Money Is Given 60 Days

A man who collected nearly $6,000 from the American Cancer Society and solicited public contributions with claims that he suffered from a rare form of liver cancer was sentenced Monday to spend 60 days in a halfway house after federal authorities learned he never had cancer.

Brian O’Dell Jones pleaded guilty to two counts of mail fraud in connection with letters that he mailed out on American Cancer Society stationery, claiming he needed $100,000 in donations to pay his doctor bills.

The letter, purportedly signed by a cancer society official, suggested that donors make tax-deductible contributions to the Brian Jones Fund “to secure medical treatments needed so that this individual’s life can go on.”

“Please remember that an amount of money can never replace the value of a human life,” the letter entreated.

A suspicious recipient who had apparently donated money to Jones in the past alerted federal authorities, who learned that the American Cancer Society does not solicit individual treatment contributions and knew nothing of the letters.

The subsequent investigation showed that Jones had received $5,795 from the cancer society over a three-year period, purportedly for transportation to and from cancer treatments at UCLA and the Scripps Institute.

During that time, American Cancer Society officials had repeatedly sought written substantiation of Jones’ medical condition, and eventually received a letter in May, 1986, purportedly signed by Michael M. Tsai, MD, indicating that Jones had been diagnosed in May, 1981, with Kaposi’s sarcoma, a form of cancer.

Jayne Alnes Lastusky, executive director of the American Cancer Society’s Long Beach Harbor/Southeast unit, told investigators that her office was contacted by a woman claiming to be Jones’ mother in September of last year with word that he had died.

Federal investigators contacted Tsai, a psychiatrist at Metropolitan State Hospital, who said he had never seen Jones as a patient but had a man by that name working for him as a typist.

U.S. District Judge Harry L. Hupp said there is evidence that Jones does suffer from some form of illness which may require medical or psychiatric help, or both. But a recent medical evaluation concluded that he does not have cancer, Hupp said.

“Somebody’s going to have to get in there and figure out what is the problem with this man,” Hupp said. “Is it hepatitis? Is it cancer? Is it none of those things?”

In addition to committing Jones to a community treatment center, Hupp ordered Jones to submit to periodic medical, psychiatric and drug testing at the discretion of probation officials.