NJ Woman Gets 3-Year Prison Sentence in GoFundMe Scandal
PAYBACK’S A B*TCH
A New Jersey woman has been sentenced to three years in state prison for misappropriating financial donations that weren’t hers. Katelyn McClure previously pleaded guilty to co-creating “Paying it Forward,” an online fundraising campaign for a homeless veteran with her then-boyfriend, Mark D’Amico. In 2017, McClure said she ran out of gas while driving her car in Philadelphia, and that veteran Johnny Bobbitt Jr. gave her his last bit of cash to help her. McClure, Bobbitt, and D’Amico did a series of news interviews about the story, which prompted McClure and D’Amico to collect donations on GoFundMe. But Bobbitt never saw the $400,000 McClure and D’Amico collected and filed a lawsuit against them. Turns out, McClure and D’Amico had spent the money on expensive vehicles and trips. At the time, prosecutors said it was the largest fraudulent crowdsourcing campaign on GoFundMe. McClure is already serving a year-sentence in federal court for the scheme, and D’Amico is serving a concurrent five-year sentence in state and federal prison. Both have been ordered to repay GoFundMe.