Spain’s Madrid Provincial Court has suspended the two-year prison term handed to Paco Sanz, widely known as the man with the two thousand tumors, provided he commits no new offenses over a four-year period.
In an order seen by EFE, the court explained that the defendant has no prior criminal record, the sentence does not exceed two years, and he has posted a 40,000 euro bail to secure the repayment of the 36,918 euros allegedly obtained through fraud.
Sanz was convicted in 2021 of pretending to suffer from a deadly illness and the belief that his survival hinged on traveling to the United States for treatment, a claim that would have led to his death without medical intervention.
The sentence followed an agreement between Paco Sanz’s defense and the public prosecutor, which reduced a six-year request for imprisonment to two years.
“Cowen Syndrome”
Now, the court has granted the defendant’s request and determined that imprisonment is unnecessary as long as no new crimes are committed in the next four years.
According to the ruling, Sanz was diagnosed with “Cowen syndrome” in 2009, described as the appearance of benign tumors but without a fatal risk, a condition from which he allegedly profited by exploiting his illness for financial gain from 2010 to 2017.
During that period, Sanz convinced people through social networks and media that his illness was extremely serious, prompting him to create a website that exaggerated symptoms to move people to donate money for an alleged treatment in the United States.
In reality, the ruling states, the supposed treatment was a free, experimental trial with no cost to participants and had no proven medical basis.