Judge sentences cancer scam defendant to one year in jail

A Nassau judge revoked a probation deal Monday for a Brooklyn woman who used a child cancer victim’s story to scam thousands of dollars from donors, giving her a year in jail after she skipped court dates.

Brittney Schmidt, 31, pleaded guilty in September to a felony charge of scheme to defraud in exchange for a 5-year probation sentence and community service if she got in no more trouble.

Authorities said Schmidt and Vincent Fina, 30, used now 6-year-old brain cancer patient Gianni Incandela’s story and photo to swindle money at Nassau businesses and at police precincts, fire stations and businesses in Queens and Brooklyn — before spending some of it on drugs.

“Although you are a person who clearly suffers from addiction, this does not provide you with a license to exploit a sick child,” Acting State Supreme Court Justice Robert Bogle told Schmidt in a Mineola court.

Bogle also said his original sentence commitment took her addiction into consideration, but then she failed to show up to at least three probation appointments and two court dates.

“I can only hope that you will reflect on what you did, the hurt that you caused and that you will change your life,” he added, while speaking of his decision to incarcerate her.

Schmidt told the judge she regretted missing court, but had been scared. She also apologized to Gianni’s family — words the Staten Island boy’s mother and grandmother later said lacked sincerity. They previously asked the judge to put the defendants in jail or at least sentence them to community service in a children’s cancer ward.

“I do feel like there was some justice,” said Gianni’s mother, Kelly Incandela, who added that her son continues to battle a rare brain tumor.

Fina, who previously took the same plea under identical terms, is in city custody after allegedly robbing a 66-year-old on Dec. 12 in Brooklyn.

His attorney, Ronald Bekoff, said Monday his client has pleaded not guilty in that case, and didn’t know if Bogle also would revoke Fina’s probation deal at his upcoming sentencing.

Prosecutor Betty Rodriguez on Monday asked Bogle to give Schmidt jail time, but defense attorney Martha Leventhal argued a year in jail for Schmidt wasn’t “commensurate to her behavior.”

Nassau District Attorney Madeline Singas said in a statement Monday that Schmidt “tried to profit on the suffering of a sick child,” and she hoped the woman would “take this sentence as an opportunity to turn her life around.”

Bogle issued arrest warrants for the Brooklyn couple Dec. 13 after they failed to come to court, and authorities said NYPD took the two into custody Dec. 19.