'Boobies Rock' cancer scammer jailed after launching new phony campaign

Thursday, February 20, 2014 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: breast cancer scams, Boobies Rock, phony fundraisers

(NaturalNews) A two-time con artist has been sentenced to a couple of weeks in jail after using the horrific disease of breast cancer to scam people out of some $2 million.

Adam Cole Shyrock of Colorado sold breast-cancer-awareness merchandise under the rubric of a campaign known as "Boobies Rock!," but none of the funds that he collected went to breast cancer charities or to help fund research into breast cancer, The Denver Post reported.

The aggregator website Boing Boing initially filed a report about Shyrock in 2012, when he came under investigation from the Illinois Attorney General for his cancer-scamming activities.

The Post reported in early February that Shyrock had been jailed for running a new scam in violation of a court order. The report said he wrote a $36,000 check on a Wells Fargo bank account that had been frozen to a T-shirt manufacturer to make shirts for "I Heart This Bar," a new scam that purported to raise money for college scholarships.

His breast cancer scam ran from June 2011 to June 2013, reports said.

The Post reported:

Shryock, the founder of Boobies Rock!, The Se7ven Group and Say No 2 Cancer, allegedly held promotions all over the country, mostly in bars, and hired promotional models to "take donations" on behalf of Boobies Rock, saying the company was raising money for breast-cancer nonprofit groups.

The models sold T-shirts, beer koozies, bracelets and other items with pro-breast or anti-cancer images and slogans.

According to court documents, the models told bar owners and customers that 40 to 90 percent of donations would go to cancer-related charities.

'Particularly pernicuous'

As to his scholarship fund scam, it "was nothing more than a cash bonus for the promotional managers and the entire scheme ran afoul of the court's orders," Attorney General John Suthers said in a statement.

Colorado Deputy Attorney General Jan Zavislan said the type of scam that Shyrock was running was especially callous.

"For us charity fraud is particularly pernicious. Whether it is cancer - which I think is really bad - or almost any charity, there are two victims in every charitable scam," Zavislan said. "There is the donor who thinks they are giving money to a legitimate charity and are going to help somebody. But it also dilutes money that otherwise would be available for legitimate charities. And in some ways, that is almost worse."

Sources:

http://boingboing.net

http://www.denverpost.com

http://www.thedenverchannel.com