Posted by DJ Carey faked letters from US doctors in which they praised his ‘staggering’ bravery in the face of cancer, it has emerged.
Carey forged the letters to encourage others to pay for his treatment – money the Kilkenny hurling star then used to fund his lavish lifestyle.
In one letter purportedly from a US cancer specialist, Carey wrote: ‘Your courage and dignity along with amazing patience is staggering and it is the talk of all my colleagues and staff.’
Two other doctors allegedly asked for his permission ‘to use your files as a case study’ because they were so impressed with his progress. This formed the basis for a further claim by Carey – that he was taking part in clinical trials for a new cancer treatment.
In October 2022, he texted a friend: ‘I was in the cold [sic] face of those trials.’ A week later, he wrote to the same friend with the boast: ‘I’m sure lots of people will benefit from trials that I have done.’ It emerged that Carey lied to others that he was in Seattle, USA, for treatment.
In a text to a friend, he said tests showed his tumours were now ‘all benign’.
The following month, he texted the same friend. ‘I have some good news… I have gotten the full all-clear on everything and a full clean bill of health…I’m [in] a bit of shock still… But I’m finally free.’ Carey also visited a healing ministry in Kilkenny just days before pretending he had to travel to Seattle for medical care.
Carey would have needed a miracle cure, as doctors have since confirmed the rare form of cancer he claimed to have had is treatable but incurable.
The 54-year-old claimed to have been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, backing this up with faked letters from doctors in the US and Ireland praising his ‘courage and dignity’.
Carey was jailed on Monday for five-and-a-half years for conning friends, family and acquaintances out of €400,000, having said he needed financial help to pay for medical treatment for a cancer he never had, together with travel and other expenses, and bank debts.
In a report last night, RTÉ Prime Time spoke to Séamus Byrne, who runs St Gemma’s Healing Ministry in Kilkenny, and who was approached by Carey for help, in October 2019.
Mr Byrne helps people through the healing power of prayer.
‘If they don’t come with an honest heart, they’re just deceiving themselves,’ he said.
He did not want to breach client confidentiality, but acknowledged: ‘Somebody rang me to know would I pray with him, that he had this cancer problem. I said, “OK”, as I would’ve done with many others. They wanted me to talk to him privately in a private room… I could understand that because of his public image at the time. I brought him to a private room, dealt with him, prayed with him.’
Carey later told people that praying with Séamus Byrne had cured him. He also described having ‘23 transplants and 347 tumours removed’.
Mr Byrne noted: ‘It now turns out he didn’t even have cancer… It’s sad anybody would abuse or use anybody’s ministry like that.’
My Byrne said he didn’t realise somebody could ‘stoop to that level’, adding it was ‘very disappointing because I really always thought very highly of the man’.
In gratitude for the alleged healing, Carey told Mr Byrne he would buy him a car, and a €1,000 deposit was paid to a local garage. But Carey never came through with the balance to finalise the purchase of the car.
Soon after his fictitious cure, Carey told friends his cancer had returned, meaning he needed more treatment – and more money. He claimed in a text sent in October 2021: ‘I’m going to have another blood transfusion and hormone injection.’
Six months later, he told the friend: ‘I also need to transfer funds to America for my own treatment.’ In September 2022, he texted the same friend: ‘Had tumours removed Thursday…’
Professor Kamal Fadalla, consultant haematologist at St Vincent’s Private Hospital in Dublin, told Prime Time: ‘The prognosis and treatment for multiple myeloma has improved through the years. We think the average survival for a patient with multiple myeloma is between eight to 12 years, but unfortunately there is no cure for myeloma.’
The Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that Carey faced two charges of using forged medical letters to back up his scam, initially sought by an accountant for Denis O’Brien, who gave Carey €125,182, plus US$13,000 to cover expenses, as well as accommodation in Dublin and a car.
Prime Time said it had seen more letters created by and addressed to Carey on headed notepaper from two highly regarded medical facilities: The Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
One read: ‘We will obtain cells from your lower body and harvest these cells for the duration of your treatment.’
Another described a week of procedures in November, 2013 with ‘4-hour duration of administering Lenalidomide through a catheter in the jugular vein’ and ending on Saturday with ‘Isolation’. Letters referenced measurements for proteins like haptoglobin and gamma globulin, but did not convince doctors.
Dr Patrick Hayden, a consultant haematologist and clinical lead for the Myeloma Service at St James’s Hospital in Dublin, said: ‘I don’t think they read like medical letters at all. The language is overly casual or conversational. There’s a reference to ‘rogue tumours,’ which is not a word that we would use. There’s talk about self-healing… unusual phrasing for a medical letter.’
Prime Time obtained three A4 pages of handwritten notes – apparently in Carey’s handwriting – listing medical terms relating to the disease he claimed he had.
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