CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., July 27 (UPI) -- A Tennessee city worker who faked having cancer and bilked Chattanooga out of $79,000 was sentenced to 42 months in prison, court records showed.
Keele Maynor, 39, pleaded guilty to nine felony counts of theft and forgery between 2003 and 2008, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported Tuesday.
Maynor also was sentenced to 10 years of probation following her prison term and was ordered to pay $54,000 in restitution, a measure the Times Free Press said the prosecution never encouraged because they argued the stronger punishment for the mother of three would be imprisonment.
"She's guilty. But this is a theft case, pure and simple. If the victim were Bi-Lo or Walmart, we wouldn't be talking this much about it," Maynor's lawyer, Stuart Brown, said.
Maynor cheated the city out of nearly $79,000 in donated leave time and even more money and gifts from private groups that wanted to help her through her crisis, the Times Free Press said.
Maynor's children had no idea her mother's illness was phony, the newspaper said.
Maynor said the idea came to her that if she could fake having breast cancer, she might get the same sympathy and good will that a co-worker who really had the disease was experiencing.
