GoFundMe scammer who used story of homeless vet gets 5 years
Source: Associated Press
GoFundMe scammer who used story of homeless vet gets 5 years
By DAVID PORTER
August 5, 2022
A New Jersey man who made up a story about a homeless veteran helping out his then-girlfriend and used the tale to solicit more than $400,000 in online donations was sentenced to five years in state prison on Friday.
Mark D’Amico had pleaded guilty in December 2019 and admitted concocting the feel-good tale in late 2017 about Johnny Bobbitt Jr. giving his last $20 to help D’Amico’s girlfriend, Katelyn McClure, when her car ran out of gas on Interstate 95 in Philadelphia.
Prosecutors said at the time that the three had met previously and cooked up the scheme to make money. They conducted newspaper and television interviews and solicited donations, ostensibly to help Bobbitt, through a GoFundMe campaign they named “Paying It Forward.”
The campaign raised more than $400,000 from about 14,000 donors in about a month and at the time was the largest fraud perpetrated through the crowdfunding platform, according to the prosecutor’s office in Burlington County, New Jersey.
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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/new-jersey-philadelphia-veterans-9ac4d4cca7fc495cd4dc412478849f36