Background: Emily Joyce Hinojosa with her children (GoFundMe). Inset: Emily Joyce Hinojosa (Bell County Sheriff’s Department).
A Texas woman who faked a stage 4 cancer diagnosis to solicit money donations on GoFundMe was sentenced to probation.
In 2020, Emily Joyce Hinojosa, aged 38, admitted to committing two counts of felony theft of property following her arrest for orchestrating a GoFundMe deception. The now inactive GoFundMe page was initiated by Hinojosa’s friend Natalie Nelson, who sought assistance for Hinojosa’s purported battle with Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. Allegedly, Hinojosa had been contending with the illness for nine years, with the fabricated claim that it had metastasized throughout her body. The plea also highlighted the significant medical expenses faced by the mother of three, even with existing insurance coverage. Despite raising ,085, it was later revealed that Hinojosa’s health issues were exaggerated.
According to the arrest affidavit from July 2023 obtained by Waco CBS affiliate KWTX, an organizer of the GoFundMe started to suspect that Hinojosa’s condition “did not match the extent of her claimed sickness.” An investigation into four physicians whom Hinojosa claimed were treating her for cancer revealed that three of them never had her as a patient. The fourth doctor presented records that Hinojosa was diagnosed with cancer in 2014 and was in 75% remission in May 2021.
More from Law & Crime: ‘Landon was subjected to torture’: Doctor testifies against couple who allegedly ‘obliterated’ their 5-year-old son’s brain and then raised thousands of dollars on GoFundMe
Hinojosa collected money from the GoFundMe account in the fall of 2020. The affidavit stated that “[n]othing in the records from the fourth facility showed a diagnosis of Stage 4 cancer from July 2020 through November 2020.”
After she was arrested, Hinojosa confessed to police that she lied about her health and said she “has a problem with making up stories about her medical health to gain sympathy from her friends so they would like her more.”
Hinojosa was sentenced to five years of felony probation and ordered to make restitution to all 64 donors who contributed to the GoFundMe campaign.
