A New Jersey man who fabricated the story of a homeless veteran with his former girlfriend to raise more than $402,000 (£333,000) via a GoFundMe page has been sentenced to five years in state prison.
A superior court in Burlington County sent Mark D’Amico to New Jersey state prison for five years for participating in the “fraudulent scheme that misled donors” into pouring funds for a fabricated cause, the county’s prosecutor LaChia L Bradshaw said on Friday.
Prosecutor Bradshaw came down heavily on the convicted and said: “People genuinely wanted to believe it was true. But it was all a lie, and it was illegal. Our office is pleased to bring justice for the more than 14,000 kind-hearted people who thought they were helping someone who was living in a desperate situation.”
D’Amico and his then girlfriend Katelyn McClure created a GoFundMe page “paying it forward” in 2017 to allegedly help Johnny Bobbitt Jr, who posed as a homeless veteran.
The fundraiser was created just in time for holidays to rehabilitate the homeless man, who had spent his last $20 to help a stranger, McClure, after she ran out of gasoline and was stranded on a highway in Philadelphia.... (Read more)
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