DEATH TO SMOOCHY Jessica Vega kisses Michael O’Connell at their 2010 wedding, for which Vega allegedly feigned having terminal cancer. (Mandon Productions)
DEATH TO SMOOCHY: Jessica Vega kisses Michael O’Connell at their 2010 wedding, for which Vega allegedly feigned having terminal cancer. (
)
An upstate bridezilla who faked terminal cancer to collect lavish donations for her wedding has finally been charged with the sickening ruse — two years after she was exposed by her own husband.
Jessica Vega is facing more than 20 years behind bars for collecting more than $10,000 in goods and services for her 2010 nuptials by allegedly convincing her fiancé, Michael O’Connell and hundreds of others that she was suffering from acute myeloid leukemia.
O’Connell, 25, dumped Vega about four months after the May wedding when he learned she lied — but they got back together and had a second child.
“What’s done is done. At the end of the day, there are two innocent children involved,” he told The Post yesterday outside of the Orange County Jail where Vega is being held on $10,000 bail.“She wants change in her life, and she wants redemption and help.”
Vega began to weave her web of deception three years ago, hoping that a terminal diagnosis would convince O’Connell to marry her, sources said.
After Middletown’s Times-Herald Record profiled Vega’s tale of woe in April 2010, readers sent her cash and several wedding vendors donated their services for free.
Gifts included the wedding itself and a weeklong honeymoon at a time share in Aruba.
“It’s the cruelty of it all, it’s just cruel to tell someone you love you’re dying when you’re not,” said Lisa Stoker of the River House, who provided at least $2,200 in flowers for the May 2010 wedding.
“I wound up giving them the flowers. Because you think someone’s dying, it’s not like you can just give them a bill.”
One of the roughly 100 wedding guests told The Post the heartbreaking ceremony was held outdoors, and the couple’s young daughter was Vega’s flower girl and was pulled down the aisle in a red wagon.
“People were very happy, lots of smiling,” the guest said. “If someone was really dying, it was that moment in time that’ you’d want to remember — all their friends and family were there.”
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said, “By pretending to have a terminal illness, Vega inexcusably took advantage of the community’s hearts and minds, and profited off of their generosity.”