Category: Prayers for Arianna Rae

“Team Arianna” is a real Facebook page written by the family of a cute little leukemia patient. This page is NOT associated with Staci Sanders and is NOT a hoax.

Also, Staci was a moderator for several Facebook communities. The creators of these pages were just as fooled as several thousand other readers. The groups mentioned in our blog entry are NOT scams or fakes.

Staci’s father reached out to me and asked me to post this note this morning.  I have talked to Will about this situation and he is very much on the ball about having Staci take responsibility for her actions and getting her help.  We don’t see this from the parents we talk to about hoaxers very often.  I am so glad Staci has him in her corner and I know he’ll make sure Staci gets the help that she needs.

Please also remember that I told Will that his daughter might face criminal charges for accepting gifts and donations.  Even knowing that, he made sure his daughter took responsibility for her actions and called me to confess that she was the person behind “AJ.”  I think that says a lot about Staci’s father’s character and his determination to have his daughter admit her mistakes and to support her as she gets help.

I know a lot of you are very upset and hurt, but I’d ask you to try to have compassion for the Sanders family and for Staci as they get her help for a very real mental illness.

Since I am not very comfortable or knowledgeable on a computer I was hoping that you could relay a message to all the good people that my daughter has hurt.

My message would be that I am very upset and sorry for my daughter’s actions and I would like to apologize to everyone involved.

I really do not know why or have a reason as to why my daughter would fabricate such a scheme. My only possible explanation would be that my daughter has mental illness issues and that she has been receiving treatment for years and she is still receiving treatment for, and this may explain why she would fabricate such an elaborate story. I really believe she fabricated these stories for attention not to scam individuals. “Of course this is only my opinion”

I am by no means trying to justify why my daughter would do such a foolish thing, I am just trying to give a possible explanation to the people who must be wondering why she would do such a thing as this!

I will continue to make sure my daughter receives the medical help that she needs and once again I want to say I am very sorry to all the individuals that she has hurt and let down.

I would like to say in advance, thank you to everyone for their understanding and may God bless you all.

Will Sanders

 

First of all, I want to mention that the person who tipped our group off about “Prayers for Arianna Rae” being fishy was none other than Jadzia.  Earlier this year, Jadzia was exposed as a hoaxer on this blog but since then she’s seen the error of her ways.  I am proud to call her my friend and I’m thrilled she helped us expose this.  Jadzia has a blog that everyone should check out.

As you can see from reading the comments on our blog post from yesterday, “AJ” made many friends online, some who actually considered her to be part of their families.  They loved her and they are devastated to find out it was all a big lie.  These people cared for her, prayed for her and her daughter and were a constant source of love and support.

And they also sent her money and gifts.

From the very beginning of her public Facebook prayer page, AJ included the address of a PO Box where people could send little Arianna cards or gifts.  How did she explain having a mailing address in th US when she lived in the UK?  Well, her cousin, of course, would gather up anything sent to Arianna and forward it to her.  The cousins in these imaginary families are just amazing people, I have to say.

Now who owns this PO Box?  A young lady named Staci in Michigan.

Interestingly enough, Staci doesn’t have an online presence with her real name at all.  (If you’re looking for that name on Facebook, there is a Michigan Staci on there.  This isn’t our hoaxer. Please don’t contact her).

What do we know about Staci?  I talked to a few family members and she is in her early 20′s and lives at home with her parents.  As far as the family members were concerned, she seems like a normal person and she doesn’t have a history of lying and scamming people on the internet.

Except this isn’t the first time Staci was caught pretending to be someone named AJ online.      In 2008, a faker named AJ Rocca was exposed on the message board mygurl.com.

This time around, Staci posed as AJ, a pregnant teen from Maryland.  People became extremely close to her on the board.  Some even planned to visit AJ and her new baby once the child was born.    AJ was called out as a fake after she posted proof of her pregnancy.

Incidentally, in the Photobucket account AJ used on MyGurl.com, there are also pictures of one of Staci’s cousins and her young child.  It’s not clear if she was using them as characters in her elaborate web of lies, but they tie MyGurl AJ to Staci.

Yesterday, I heard from many people who sent “AJ and Arianna” gifts.  One generous woman mailed them a check for $500.  It was sent to the PO Box and “AJ” asked that it be made out to her brother, Jeff.  The woman who sent the check is requesting a copy of it from her bank this morning.  It will be interesting to see if Jeff is a real person or if Staci signed the check over to herself.

One woman messaged “AJ” asking if she could send little Arianna something.  This must have been before Staci set up her PO Box because she gave this woman her home address.  It matches up to an address of a house owned by Staci’s father.  The IP address from emails sent from both “AJ” and her “cousin Staci” tracks to this area too.

If you donated money, gifts or anything else to “AJ and Arianna,” please contact me at warriorelihoax@gmail.com.  This is a criminal matter now and you have options when it comes to pressing charges.