A woman who cooked up a fake sob story with a homeless man to swindle hundreds of thousands of dollars on GoFundMe was sentenced to one year in prison on Thursday.
Katelyn McLure, 우리카지노 32, will also serve three years of supervised release and must pay restitution for the money she and her boyfriend, Mark D’Amico, stole using the phony fundraiser.
McLure and D’Amico hatched the plot in 2018, 메리트카지노 when they falsely claimed a homeless man, Johnny Bobbitt, gave her his last $20 when she ran out of gas in the middle of the night.
In reality, the trio had actually met a month earlier than was claimed at a casino in Philadelphia which McClure and D’Amico frequented and where Bobbitt was known to hang around outside.
Together they devised a plan that motivated 14,000 people to donate approximately $400,000 by asking them to ‘pay it forward’ on a GoFundMe for Bobbitt.
Kate McClure, 32, was sentenced to a year behind bars after she defrauded thousands of people out of almost $400,000 after making up a fake sob story involving homeless man Johnny Bobbitt
McLure is seen here in 2019 with her lawyer in Burlington County Courthouse after being charged with theft by deception. She was sentenced to one year behind bars and still faces state charges
D’Amico plead guilty in 2019 to one count of misappropriating entrusted funds after he splashed the ill-gotten gains with McLure on casino trips and cars
Liars: Bobbitt, D’Amico and 메리트카지노 McClure are pictured posing in front of the gas station they claimed was where Bobbitt spent his last $20 to buy McClure gas in 2017 for a newspaper article about their viral GoFundMe campaign. In reality, they had known each other for a month before, after meeting at a casino
The scheme collapsed when Bobbitt sued the couple, claiming the couple only shared around $75,000 with him and blew the cash on luxury items, a BMW and casino trips among other things.
Of the $400,000 they raised and $360,000 they netted after GoFundMe fees, there is not a single dollar left.
D’Amico accepted a plea deal in Burlington County in 2019 and now faces five years behind bars, while Bobbitt was ordered to enter a drug rehabilitation program.
All three also face state charges next month, which may mean more jailtime for the trio.
In November 2017, McClure created the GoFundMe campaign claiming to have just met Bobbitt and returned to repay him for 온라인카지노 saving her when she was stranded.An hour later, according to prosecutors, she texted a friend admitting it was a lie.
Mark D’Amico, left, and Johnny Bobbitt conspired with McLure to set up a fraudulent GoFundMe for Bobbitt, but the plan unraveled when Bobbitt said he did not receive his fair share
McClure and her boyfriend used this photograph to promote their campaign. They said they went back to find Bobbitt to return the money he had given her.An hour after posting it online, McClure texted a friend to say she had ‘made up the gas stuff’ to ‘make people feel bad’
‘OK so wait, the gas part is completely made up but the guy isn’t,’ McLure said to her friend at the time.