Couple scam homeless man out of $400,000 raised through GoFundMe

A former couple has used a homeless man to scam internet donors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars through GoFundMe.

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In 2017 Mark D'Amico from New Jersey and his then-girlfriend Katelyn McClure set up a GoFundMe page for a homeless man Jonny Bobbit.

Couple scam homeless man out of $400,000 raised through GoFundMe 01

Bobbit, D'Amico, McClure.

The GoFundMe page was titled "Paying it Forward" claimed that Bobbit helped a stranded McClure and filled up a gas can with his last $20 and that the couple wanted to raise money for Bobbit to pay the good deed forward. The campaign took off on social media and raised much more than the $10,000 goal, with the couple saying they were planning on helping Bobbit rent a home and purchase a reliable car, while also claiming that any leftover funds would be for charity. The campaign soared past the $10,000 mark and reached a whopping $402,706.

However, the nefariousness of the campaign began to reveal itself when reports surfaced that D'Amico and McClure only gave $75,000 and a car that later broke down to the homeless man. Bobbit then got his own lawyers and claimed that the couple ghosted him for the rest of the funds. Authorities have said that the raised funds were almost entirely spent within the first couple of months of receiving them, which coincides with the time Bobbit moved to legal action.

Couple scam homeless man out of $400,000 raised through GoFundMe 02

Things don't stop there. Police raided the now-former couple's home, and both of them admitted guilt. However, authorities stated that Bobbit wasn't necessarily the victim in this situation as he was a part of the scam in the first place. Police stated that the three made up the story together, which was proven by audio recordings that McClure says she recorded without Bobbit or D'Amico's knowledge.

Moving to the present, D'Amico has sentenced on Sunday under the plea deal that he signed back in 2019, for five years in station prison, along with 27 months in federal prison. McClure has pleaded guilty and will be sentenced on September 9, and Bobbit was sentenced in 2019 to five years of probation along with a substance abuse program.

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Jak joined the TweakTown team in 2017 and has since reviewed 100s of new tech products and kept us informed daily on the latest science, space, and artificial intelligence news. Jak's love for science, space, and technology, and, more specifically, PC gaming, began at 10 years old. It was the day his dad showed him how to play Age of Empires on an old Compaq PC. Ever since that day, Jak fell in love with games and the progression of the technology industry in all its forms. Instead of typical FPS, Jak holds a very special spot in his heart for RTS games.

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