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From Phil Helsel
The popular GoFundMe website announced Monday that it had repaid funds to people who had donated to a charity fund for homeless man prosecutors said he was a
"All donors who contributed to this GoFundMe campaign were fully reimbursed," spokesman Bobby Whithorne said in an email.
People donated more than $ 400,000 to a campaign based on the testimony of a homeless man gave his last 20 dollars to help a motorist stranded on a highway ramp of Pennsylvania in November 2017.
Prosecutors say that this never happened and that "the whole campaign was based on a lie".
The homeless man, Johnny Bobbitt Jr., 35, the alleged motorist Kate McClure, 28, and her boyfriend, Mark D'Amico, 39, were charged with theft on the second degree by deception and conspiracy to commit a theft by deception last November.
"Less than an hour after the launch of the GoFundMe campaign, McClure, an exchange of text with a friend said that the story of Bobbitt's assassination was" completely invented, "said the Burlington County Attorney Scott Coffina, in a statement, in which he announced the charges against them. "She did not run out of gas at the exit of the I-95 freeway and he did not spend the last 20 bucks to help him.
" D & # 39; Amico, McClure and Bobbitt instead conspired to manufacture and promote a feeling- Coffina continued.
A McClure attorney claimed that it was "used by Messrs. Amico and Bobbitt, and she always thought that this money would go to a homeless veteran."
A lawyer D'Amico said he was surprised by McClure's defense.
"I do not know how Kate plays the victim now, I'll be curious to see how this defense plays."
Whitmore, from GoFundMe, said, "Even though this type of behavior is extremely rare, it is unacceptable and has consequences ", and that society cooperates with investigators.
The alleged ploy revealed after Bobbitt sued the couple, claiming that McClure, New Jersey receptionist D
Whitmore stated that fraud was very rare on the platform, but in case of fraud, the donors would be reimbursed their money and GoFundme respected the law enforcement to recover the funds
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