Newlywed man to divorce wife he claims faked leukemia to score free dress and honeymoon
She told him cancer was killing her and then said "I do" to a wedding bankrolled by sympathetic strangers.
An upstate construction worker now says his estranged Westchester bride's sob story was all a lie and that she conned her way into his heart - and thousands of dollars of gifts.
"I'm disgusted, I'm enraged. It was all lies," Michael O'Connell told the Daily News on Tuesday night.
The tab included a spectacular gown for Jessica Vega, a honeymoon in Aruba, a big discount on the wedding hall - and even the $4,000 bar tab.
O'Connell, 23, says Vega, of Yonkers, concocted a scandalous tale that snowed loved ones and strangers.
Vega, also 23, says her estranged husband smacked her around and that she had a letter that told her she had leukemia that she now reportedly admits may have been mistaken.
"I thought she was dying and my goal was to give her everything she wanted before she did," O'Connell said Tuesday night. "Now, I want to see the truth come out. If that means her going to jail, then let her pay for what she did."
O'Connell and Vega met two years earlier while both were students at the Institute of Culinary Education in Manhattan.
Big-hearted locals stepped up to give the supposedly tragic pair an Aruba honeymoon, matching wedding bands and wedding-day makeovers for Vega and seven bridesmaids when her story appeared in a local paper.
"I don't know what to believe," hairdresser Rachel Taylor told The News. "If she's not sick and dying, then I'm happy for her. But at the same time, maybe she needs some help instead of free wedding gowns and honeymoons."
O'Connell has now filed for divorce, saying the leukemia story was a crock.
The groom admits he "slapped the fire" out of Vega during a fight when they split - and that he chomped on her elbow during an earlier blowup in Yonkers.
He says he fell for a phony letter from a Westchester County cancer specialist that supposedly confirmed Vega's terminal diagnosis. The Westchester Institute for Treatment of Cancer & Blood Disorders did not return calls.
The reporter who wrote the story for the Times Herald-Record of uptstate Middletown wrote yesterday that he listened in when O'Connell said he called the clinic and was told Vega was "never a patient" there. "Jessie would never do something so manipulative," her mother, Diana, told the Daily Mail of London.
The Newburgh jeweler who gave the couple matching 14-karat white gold wedding bands said she was baffled at the dark twist in the couple's tale.
"It's sad, it's just sad," said Kim Kavanagh, who owns Kavanagh's Jewelers with her husband, Tom. "We don't feel duped, or betrayed, we just feel sad."
Jessica Vega insisted to the Times Herald-Record that she had received the letter confirming she had cancer - after earlier saying the letter had been typed in front of her. She then stood the reporter up on a planned visit to get a blood test at her new doctor's office in the Bronx. The couple has a 1-year-old daughter, Ava.
The groom's dad told The News his son may now seek custody. "There's a possibility he'll get custody at this point. He would prefer custody," Chris O'Connell said.
A friend from Yonkers who asked not to be identified said she's outraged by Vega's ruse.
"We all felt betrayed," she said. "We thought she was dying. It was awful. For her to lie to us like this for so long is unbelievable."
She said she even called Vega, who works as a chef in Stamford, Conn., to confront her about the allegations. "She still refuses to tell the truth," the friend said.
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