Woman got £94,000 in benefits faking 17 pregnancies by stuffing pillows in top
An Italian woman who faked seventeen pregnancies by reportedly stuffing pillows up her top has been jailed after claiming almost £100,000 in benefits.
Barbara Ioele, 50, was accused of fraudulently earning a small fortune in state benefits - and taking a considerable amount of time off work over a 24-year period as a result of her fake pregancies, local press reports. Of the 17 purported pregnancies, she claimed only five were carried to term, while the other twelve were miscarriages.
Ioele said she delivered her latest child last December but police, who said they were keeping a close eye on her under surveillance throughout the preceding nine months, said the whole pregnancy was a sham. Prosecutors reportedly said Ioele’s alleged fraud was made possible as a number of birth certificates were stolen from a clinic in Rome, along with other forged documents, the Italian paper Il Mattino reports.
The 55-year-old was also accused of stuffing pillows up her top to emulate a baby bump, as well as changing her walk to appear as though she was carrying the additional weight of an unborn child. Ioele’s 55-year-old partner, Davide Pizzinato, reportedly said to police during an interrogation that he knew ‘full well’ Ioele was allegedly never pregnant.
Pizzinato is thought to have testified against her in exchange for a lighter sentence, after he was also charged as her accomplice in the fraud. Ioele herself was said to have remained defiant, sticking with her original claim.
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Ioele reportedly stuffed pillows up her top (Getty Images)She reportedly told police that her five children do indeed exist and that all of her pregnancies were genuine. She received a jail sentence of one year and six months.
Oddity Central added that Ioele has reportedly been doing this since 2000, managing to pocket a huge £94,000 sum in benefits.
Pizzinato reportedly told investigators: "She made the [false] certificates and brought them [to the ASL]. This is what is known to me since 2012. That is, since our relationship began."
Ioele did not show up in court for interrogation, Il Mattino reported. Her lawyer reportedly displayed two certificates, not proving her pregnancies, but attesting to her state of precarious health.
In a similar case last year, Robin Folsom, from the US, allegedly faked being pregnant in order to get paid maternity leave from her $100,000 (£81,600) a year job, but was caught in her lie by her employer when her prosthetic baby bump fell off.
The Director of External Affairs at Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency told her bosses she was expecting a baby and had even got them to agree to arrange 265 hours of paid time off for her before one of her co-workers noticed something suspicious.
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