A woman from Tennessee suspected of lying about having breast cancer to collect donations of sick leave and money from her co-workers was arrested Thursday on charges of theft and fraud.

 

Former Chattanooga city employee Keele Maynor, 38, was indicted on eight counts of theft and one count of forgery, according to Hamilton County District Attorney Bill Cox.

 

She admitted she had been lying about having cancer in a resignation e-mail sent to her supervisor in which she said she doesn’t know why she told c0-workers for five years that she was battling cancer. She said she had cancer in 2000, but has been cancer free since 2001.

 

“I started fabricating this story about cancer in 2003 and it has snowballed and finally came to a head. I am relieved for two reasons. I don’t have to keep up this charade anymore and I am finally getting some help to figure out why I did this in the first place,” Maynor said in her e-mail.

 

During the five years she was pretending to have breast cancer, Maynor was paid more than $10,000 for more than 1,550 hours that she did not work.

 

Memorial Hospital notified several charitable organizations that had helped Maynor battling breast cancer, including the Helene DiStefano Fund, which aids mothers with breast cancer. “We are shocked and saddened by what has happened,” Rachel Houghton, director of the Fund, said, adding that her office was investigating how Ms. Maynor could have gotten benefits without actually being a cancer patient.