Vietnamese mother arrested for using child in cancer scam

By Lindsay Watts, NBC News

AURORA – Friends of a woman accused of pretending her son had cancer to get thousands of dollars in donations are describing how far she went to convince them her 6-year-old was terminally ill.

Sandy Nguyen. Photo from KUSA.

The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office said Sandy Nguyen, 28, tricked her son, family, and community into thinking the child had been diagnosed with cancer in September 2012.

“He’s an amazing little kid, and I can’t imagine anybody doing this to a child,” said Jordan Miller, who’s known Nguyen for years.

She said the boy talked about how he didn’t feel well, how his mom said he was sick, and that he was embarrassed he didn’t have hair.

Miller and her husband Dave said they gave the family several hundred dollars, and Dave even shaved his head when Nguyen requested people do so to show support for her son.

“If it made that little boy feel better about himself for just a minute, that’s all that mattered to me,” Dave said.

Investigators said the community began collecting money for the boy in September 2013, and that more than $25,000 had been given and placed into an account for use by the Nguyen family.

Read the full story by Lindsay Watts from NBC News.