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Woman pleads no contest to receiving care, services for fake cancer

PORT HURON, Mich., Jan. 14 (UPI) -- A 38-year-old Michigan woman has pleaded no contest to charges she got expensive care and services after falsely claiming she had cancer.

Prosecutors said Sara Ylen received hospice care from 2009 to 2011 after claiming she had multiple myeloma cancer, the Times Herald in Port Huron reported Monday.

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During that period, a church fundraiser collected $10,000 to help her pay her bills and she accepted help with yard work and groceries.

Ylen entered her plea Monday to two of the most serious of the six counts with which she had been charged: healthcare fraud and obtaining more than $20,000 in services under false pretenses.

Police arrested Ylen in May 2012. Investigators said a search of her computer found search terms, images and website URLs that indicated she had researched the disease she claimed to have, the newspaper said.

Doctors whom Ylen said had diagnosed her told police they had not done so.

Prosecutor Brenda Sanford said Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan was seeking repayment of more than $121,000 in claims.

Ylen is due to be sentenced Friday in St. Clair County and Feb. 19 in Sanilac County.

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Ylen had already been in the news after a man she said raped her in 2001, James Grissom, was released after 10 years in prison after St. Clair County police began to have doubts about her other reports of sexual assault.

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