Candice Lambert seemed the ideal teacher. Devoted to the children in her special-education classes at Harmony Hills Elementary School in suburban Albany, N.Y. Praised by parents who felt she had made a difference in their children’s lives. Respected by colleagues, even nominated for a national teaching award.
But admiration and a fulfilling job weren’t enough. Lambert pretended she was dying of cancer — even shaving her head to mimic chemotherapy’s effects — and stole more than $100,000 in health and disability benefits.
The disease had attacked her kidney, lungs, bone and stomach, Lambert told her colleagues during the 2001-02 school year. The community rallied, staging a benefit to help her meet expenses. Who wouldn’t be touched by a woman only in her mid-30s, her hair seemingly fallen out from the ravages of chemotherapy?
Moves out of state
Lambert retired near the end of the school year and began collecting her disability money. Her co-workers even gave her $7,000 from their own sick leave.
But instead of waiting to die, Lambert moved to New Hampshire and took a parttime special-education job at Capt. Samuel Douglass Academy in Brookline. She taught during the 2004-05 school year, then at a nearby elementary school the next summer.
When she missed parent meetings at Douglas Academy, Lambert explained she was receiving chemotherapy for kidney cancer. She began wearing a headscarf to class and told sympathetic colleagues she was on a national donor list for a kidney transplant.
Lambert won accolades for her teaching. One parent even nominated her for a “Schoolhouse Hero” feature in The Telegraph of Nashua. Lambert posed for photographs with a baseball cap covering her baldness, and told an inspirational story about battling “an inoperable tumor” on her kidney.
Exposed by news article
But Lambert’s ruse began collapsing when her former colleagues in New York learned of the Telegraph article. Lambert was supposed to be at death’s door, not teaching. The local police were called in.
"She admitted she did not have cancer, nor did she ever have cancer,” said Lt. Tom Ross of the Cohoes police. “And she further admitted that she shaved her head to enhance this ruse." She soon resigned from the Brookline school system.
Told that Lambert didn’t have cancer, her colleagues were “devastated,” recalled Michael Fournier, her principal at Middle Brook. “I think all of us approach [her scheme] with a little bit of disbelief, followed up by anger. We felt emotionally violated.”
Lambert received one to three years in prison for trying to steal more than $110,000 in health and disability benefits. “The public humiliation and shame I have brought upon myself will stay with me forever,” she said.
“To call that despicable is just the beginning of describing it,” said Albany County Judge Thomas Breslin. “I wonder if you realize the magnitude of what you’ve done.”
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