Rudy Farias' mom has been permanently banned from GoFundMe

Rudy Farias’ mom has been permanently banned from GoFundMe and may face legal action after raking in thousands of dollars from his fake disappearance story

• Janie Santana raised $2,000 on GoFundMe after claiming her son was missing
• After maintaining Rudy Farias was missing for eight years her story is unraveling 
• The fundraising platform has now said Santana is banned and could be sued

The mother of Rudy Farias, who claimed her son was missing for eight years, has been permanently banned from GoFundMe after using it to profit from her son’s fake disappearance.

Janie Santana raised more than $2,000 using the fundraising platform in 2015 when she claimed Farias went out to walk his dogs and never returned. Now, police say he actually came back the next day and has been living with his mother since.

After Farias was ‘found’ unresponsive outside a church on June 29, Santana’s story began to unravel.

Days later Farias met with civil rights activist Quanell X, who told the media that Santana had been sexually and physically abusing her son during the eight years he was ‘missing’.

GoFundMe has now issued a statement saying that Santana has been banned and that it may take legal action against ‘those who exploit the generosity of our community’.

The ‘Donate to Help Find Rudy Farias IV’ page was set up with a goal of $75,000 by a woman named Julissa Bravo, whose relationship to Santana remains unclear, but has now been removed from the website.

Janie Santana, the mother of Rudy Farias, has been permanently banned from GoFundMe after using it to raise money when she claimed her son had gone missing

The ‘Donate to Help Find Rudy Farias IV’ page was set up with a goal of $75,000 by a woman named Julissa Bravo. Santana was the beneficiary of more than 30 donations

Santana was the beneficiary of more than 30 donations, and received the funds in 2015, the platform confirmed. 

Timeline of Rudy Farias’ disappearance 

February 13, 2011: Farias’ older brother Charles dies in car accident.

August 19, 2014: Farias’ father dies of a self-inflected gunshot wound.

March 2015: Farias was first reported missing. He had last been seen along Valley Lake Drive, which is north of Tidwell in northeast Houston. 

He was reportedly walking his two dogs when he disappeared. The dogs were later found, but Farias was not.

September 2018: Family members call police to report that Rudy was living behind a relative’s home. Houston police searched the property, but did not find him.

June 29, 2023: A man, later identified as Farias, was found unresponsive outside Immaculate Heart Church near 76th Street and Avenue K in southeast Houston. 

July 5, 2023: Community activist Quanell X and Houston Police meet with Rudy Farias at a hotel in Humble, Texas. Quanell X later tells reporters outside the hotel that Farias told him that his mother had been drugging and sexually abusing him for years. 

July 6, 2023: Houston police reveal Rudy Farias was never missing over the past eight years and say Farias did not report being sexually abused by his mother. 

‘GoFundMe has zero tolerance for the misuse of our platform and cooperates with law enforcement investigations of those accused of wrongdoing,’ a company spokesperson said in a statement to Newsweek.

‘The fundraiser has been removed from the platform and the beneficiary has been banned from using GoFundMe for any future fundraisers.’ 

A spokesperson for the Houston police department told DailyMail.com on Friday that while there is not an investigation specifically into the donations Santana received, these claims would be part of the ongoing general investigation into the case.

It’s also been claimed that another GoFundMe page was created after Rudy was ‘found’ outside the church last month to solicit money to cover his medical costs and recovery.

Social media users shared grabs of the page and said it was taken down after Santana’s story began falling apart. The company has not confirmed this account.

Santana first filed a missing persons report on March 7, 2015, in which she claimed the day prior on March 6 her son Rudy, then 17, went missing while taking their dogs for a walk around their Houston neighborhood. 

According to that missing persons report, a few hours later one of the dogs returned home and the next morning the second dog came back. Both were reportedly missing their leashes.

But more recently it was revealed that Farias, who suffered from various mental disabilities, actually returned home the day after going on the walk with the dogs.

Then a couple of weeks later, on March 22, Farias’ mother started the GoFundMe page to raise money and coordinate renewed search efforts for her supposedly missing son.

‘It has been over a Month and Rudy is still Missing,’ it read. ‘Please help us find RUDY FARIAS IV!

‘Rudy went out to walk his 2 puppies on March 6th 2015 and has not been seen nor heard from since then ! Rudy’s 2 puppies WERE FOUND but not Rudy! He suffers from both physical and mental disabilities, so we need to get him home ASAP!

‘All ground searches have been pulled back and now we (The Entire Houston Texas Community ) have to get our own ground search together! People say that it takes a village to raise a child. … NOW… We NEED The Village to Help Find our Child ! 

‘We are asking for donations to be able to offer a reward for Information leading us TO Rudy as well as medical expenses for Rudy since he has been missing since March 6th,and each day that passes…means his health is deteriorating gravelly …’

Houston Police have now said Farias had never been missing – as had been widely suspected after he reappeared last week, eight years after Santana claimed he had vanished.

They have also said they would not be pressing charges against Rudy and that he was never technically regarded as ‘missing’. 

On March 22, 25, Santana started a GoFundMe page to raise money and coordinate renewed search efforts for her supposedly missing son

Then 17-year-old Rudy Farias , pictured on Wednesday, had gone missing after going out to walk his dogs in Houston, Texas, in March 2015

Farias was ‘found’ unresponsive outside the Immaculate Heart Church in Houston at around 10pm on June 29.

A few days later his mother publicly celebrated his discovery. 

‘My son Rudy Farias IV was found on Thursday, June 29th, after being missing for eight years,’ she wrote.

‘My son Rudy is receiving the care he needs to overcome his trauma, but at this time, he is nonverbal and not able to communicate with us. We are asking for privacy during this difficult time but will share more details as Rudy continues to heal.’

On July 5 he met with investigators and a famous civil rights activist Quanell X, who later told the press that Farias had told him Santana had committed sexual and physical abuse of him since his supposed disappearance. 

Police then said that Farias was never really missing for more than a day, and that he his mother had attempted to ‘deceived’ police ever since.

In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com on Thursday afternoon following the press conference, Quanell stood by his previous allegations and said he believed Rudy was in danger.

‘It was crazy to watch the press conference,’ he said. ‘The detective heard that young man say that she made him be her husband. The detective heard him say that she told him that his name is daddy now, that she called him daddy when she would kiss him in the mouth.’

Quanell insisted that Rudy is a victim and his mother should be charged with a crime.

‘I begged them to not let that boy in her custody,’ he said. ‘I’m gonna try to help Rudy as much as possible and I think the DA needs to press charges against her and that Rudy should be removed from her custody in some type of way, I don’t believe he’s safe in her custody at all.’

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