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Candace Rivera had a model life. An ‘amazing’ mother of two, the nurse was also the CEO and founder of three multi-million dollar companies and ran an anti-human trafficking non-profit organisation.
At 37, with her glamorous house in the suburbs of Utah, complete with a classic car on the driveway and her social media handle of one_fierce_mama, Candace projected the image of success.
The problem was that it was all built on a lie.
The reality was, Candace – who also went by the surname Lierd – had funded her picture-perfect life by conning over $1.5million from dozens of unsuspecting people.
Today, she sits behind bars in a Utah County Jail as a convicted con woman.
It took authorities over three years to untangle her web of deceit, which saw Candace embezzle funds from her non-profit, Exitus, while convincing friends and contacts to invest in supposed goodwill ventures and wellbeing initiatives.
After her trial, one victim said that when the judge declared Candace would serve a prison sentence, ‘there was a collective sigh of relief’.
They added: ‘When the Sheriff walked to the defence table, pulled out his handcuffs, placed them on Candace’s wrists, and had her escorted out of the courtroom, you could have heard a pin drop. But once we stepped out of the courtroom, we clapped, hugged, high-fived, and cheered that the judge had seen through Candace’s crocodile tears and lies.
‘It was a good day.’
Gaining trust
What makes Candace’s story all the more complicated is that, among her deceit, there was also an undercurrent of good. Her Exitus group really did help victims of trafficking and worked with orphans overseas, which is possibly why it was so difficult for people to work out fact from fiction.
‘She did just enough good,’ said one woman who was duped by her.
One of Candace’s money-stealing schemes began through a Facebook group called ‘For the Love,’ which was set up to promote author Jen Hatmaker’s new book, but was quickly turned into a support group by its 500 members.
After joining in 2020, Candace shared her life’s ups and downs freely – sometimes truth, sometimes fiction, posting everything from jokes about ‘poop fright’ to intimate details about her marriage.
While some of the women found her openness disarming, most were charmed. Candace was ‘like the sun, everyone was drawn to her,’ one member recalled.
Her openness and humour cemented her role as the group’s lovable confidante, an image she would later exploit. At the first ‘For the Love’ group meet-up, she wore a Unicorn mask, sparking her infamous nickname.
Little did they know that their new friend was gaining their trust so she could take their money – through Exitus donations or investments in her money-making schemes – and strip away reputations, dignity, and livelihoods.
And it wasn’t just her ‘friends’ Candace was exploiting, she was stealing thousands of dollars from Exitus, the anti-human trafficking organisation she co-founded, as well as other accounts and business initiatives, funnelling the money into her own personal accounts to fund her lavish lifestyle.
Uncovering the unicorn
Candace’s web of deceit is the subject of Charlie Webster’s latest true crime podcast, Unicorn Girl, where the broadcaster and journalist takes her listeners on a wild journey as she unfolds the con woman’s twisted lies.
The nine-part Apple TV+ series explores her nefarious activities, while also detailing the confusion, doubt, anger and hurt inflicted on her circle of friends, by speaking to those who were burned by the go-getter.
Charlie, whose previous podcast, Scamanda, also delved into a world of lies created by a woman to scam friends, had discovered the story after a member of the book club got in touch to share their concerns about Candace.
Immediately, she was intrigued by this ‘fascinating’ character, whose life clearly wasn’t quite what it seemed, says Charlie. Her original plan had been to fly out to Utah and bring the story to listeners as she worked out who the real Candace was – but then events ramped up a gear. ‘I didn’t know half the stuff I ended up finding out,’ Charlie tells Metro.
The victims
Meeting the women she duped gave her ‘a very unique insight to go along the journey with them of what Candace had done,’ she explains.
What Charlie hadn’t expected was for the con woman to be caught while she was investigating the case. So, once Candace was behind bars, she sat down with the women to get their side of the story, as they came to terms with the betrayal.
‘One told me that because [Candace] got everyone to share vulnerably and candidly, putting them into a position to manipulate them and participate in something like this just felt even worse.
‘She knew what everyone’s vulnerabilities were with their bodies and their sex life or difficulties they were having with that area in their life.’
Charlie’s conversations revealed Candace’s twisted web of lies; each victim was affected in different ways. One was Ora, her personal assistant at Exitus, who was manipulated by her boss for three years and spoke to Charlie for seven hours straight about her ordeal.
‘It struck me that Candace used the same tactics I recognise in domestic abuse on Ora – belittling, but also love bombing, creating chaos and constantly taking her time, calling 24/7, loading on her, keeping her sleep deprived and blaming her for impossible tasks,’ Charlie explains.
She notes that ‘there was so much emotional harm’ among the victims, including a threat Candace made to Ora, where she said that if she didn’t help her with a task, ‘people will die.’
Another victim, Kimberly Morgan, completed work for Candace that she was never paid for. Morgan described her as someone who ‘was able to create a façade out of pieces of all of us.’
In a victim impact statement read at court, one woman detailed how Candace was ‘helping’ sell copies of her book on her Shopify account, an online shopping platform. However, despite handling the sales, the con-woman never passed along the profits.
‘I trusted she [Candace] would turn over the Shopify account after the first week’s sales. I never got access to the account. I never received payment for 42 books sold through her Shopify account.’
Scamming the business
Exitus co-founder Drew tells the podcast that on multiple occasions, Candace made promises that large sums of money were coming into the company, sometimes billions of dollars, but it never landed.
Eventually, he emailed Candace and the board, handed in his resignation, having lost faith in his partner, and outlined her misconduct.
However, it just paved the way for her to have sole control of the organisation and its money.
Detectives would later uncover that, in addition to duping people into making sizable donations to Exitus, she had taken money meant for two ambulances in Ukraine, forged bank credit statements, and used deceit to obtain $110,000 that was intended to be invested in a spa.
Getting personal
Charlie also learned that Candace had stolen money from her former husband, Patrick, who tells the podcast how she took $80,000 from an account intended for their retirement, children’s college payments, and emergencies. To top it all off, she also pawned her engagement ring.
She had helped Patrick set up online accounts as he was ‘not a tech-savvy guy’ – but then, when he found them completely drained, he discovered Candice had been taking regular $5,000 deposits to make it look like she was making the $75K a year that she had promised him she was making as a nurse. (A qualification she claimed to have, but failed to pass the licensing exam on four separate occasions.)
Candace had also taken out a credit card on behalf of Patrick’s business, which had racked up a ‘huge amount of debt’ and proved to be the final straw, leading to their divorce.
The fall of Candace Rivera
The scam began to unravel in May 2023, after one of her victims reported Candace to the authorities, triggering a criminal investigation.
The woman recounted in her victim statement: ‘I called Special Agent Pettis, told him my story, and agreed to be the first victim in the Utah Attorney General’s criminal investigation of Candace Lierd. I will never recoup the approximately $11,000 she scammed me out of, but I will do everything I can to keep others from being victimised by her.’
Soon, others came forward, and by the time Candace stood trial, she was accused of over 30 crimes, ranging from forgery to fraud to theft. Judge Christine Johnson estimated the amount of money lost by the numerous victims was around $2 million.
Many of Candace’s victims attended her sentencing on October 22, 2024, where she was given a minimum of three years in prison.
Having attended the trial herself, Charlie notes that some of the victims were not permitted to testify due to time constraints and says it was ‘hard to sit and watch and not intervene’. Instead, she asked the victims to read their statements outside the courthouse to give them an opportunity to have their stories heard.
Now that the case is closed, Charlie admits to finding the con woman’s complexity fascinating.
While acknowledging the pain she caused, Charlie tells Metro that she feels Candace ‘did some good too,’ and notes: ‘It’s so much harder to distinguish lies when they are based on a foundation of truth.’
She adds: ‘I think [Candace] believes her own lies, I know that even in prison she’s still lying and saying that the reason she’s there is down to a conspiracy theory.
‘However, Candace took people’s trauma for her own and used it. She based so much on truth, so even with any red flags, there was always a contradictory narrative.
‘She used each legitimate thing to make her seem legitimate.’
Unicorn Girl is available on Apple TV+ for subscribers, and an episode per week will be released for non-subscribers through October 6.
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