Man Charged With Faking Son's Illness.. (This guy's something else)

[rpannier]

For years, Michael Bradway had convinced everyone that his son had cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening disease, authorities say. The Connecticut man even persuaded his wife and her parents, who donated more than $38,000 to pay for their grandson's medical care.

But authorities now say the boy never had the disease and, on Wednesday, the 38-year-old Cornwall man was arrested on child abuse and larceny charges.


snip


He also kept the child on a severely restricted diet, leaving him thin, and told school officials his son could not be immunized for religious reasons. His wife said her former husband did not attend church, but used the religious exemption to avoid having a doctor detect the child did not have cystic fibrosis.

Bradway also allegedly managed to convince a volunteer group of his son's illness. The group, Landmark Volunteers, asked him to join the board and offered a donation, according to the affidavit.


the full article can be found at:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060921/D8K8V73G0.html

[Sparkly]

1. Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome?

Or just plain greed?

Horrible...

[pitohui]

2. he has a former conviction for fraud -- he's a professional con artist

i just read the whole story and it's god-awful

it sounds like they believe the child was also fooled and didn't know he was part of a con, instead lived for all these years believing he was going to die w.out a lung transplant when he was older

i don't know which would be worse -- to teach a child starting at age 5 to help run "a long con" or to straight-faced tell a child that young that he was going to die and had to be denied food -- among other cruelties, the father starved the child to keep him appearing underweight!

i despise con artists who prey on children and elderly, pick on somebody your own size, dammit!

[Sparkly]

3. Parents were separated and he got custody?

Did I read that right?

Awful, awful, awful. Terribly sad. I can't imagine what it must do to the child to become aware of his own father doing such a horrible thing to him.

[kestrel91316]

4. He needs to be forced to endure years of starvation himself.

And THEN get the big blue needle.

Torturing a child for profit should be a capital offense.