Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina on Thursday said an "extremely successful" GoFundMe campaign that raised over $400,000 for a homeless veteran was a scam.It all might have succeeded if the homeless dude hadn't sued because he wasn't getting enough of a cut. Once he did that, the cops started looking into the whole affair.
New Jersey couple Katelyn McClure and Mark D'Amico created the GoFundMe campaign on Nov. 10, 2017, saying homeless veteran Jonny Bobbitt Jr. had given his last $20 to McClure for gas after her car broke down. The campaign's original target goal was $10,000 and said money would be used to help Bobbitt with rent, a vehicle and up to six months of living expenses. In the next two weeks, the campaign went viral and was shared widely in the media and online in the US and internationally.
"The entire campaign was predicated on a lie," said Coffina in a release posted Thursday on Facebook. "Less than an hour after the GoFundMe campaign went live, McClure, in a text exchange with a friend, stated that the story about Bobbitt assisting her was 'completely made up.'"
Pro tip: If you're engaged in defrauding people, don't sue your co-conspirators. It's like trying to press charges because your dope dealer sold you a bag of oregano.
Preying on people's good natures to scam them with fake charitable causes ought to be a heavy felony to begin with and then ramp up from there. There will be online fundraisers for good causes that people won't donate to because of these three criminals.
2 comments:
Tsk! Tsk! Whatever happened to "Honor Among Thieves" ?
You must know different thieves than I do...
-Doug in Oakland
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