feel-good story about a New Jersey couple who raised over $400,000 to help a homeless good Samaritan – before they pilfered his GoFundMe account – was all a scam, a prosecutor said Thursday.
Kate McClure, 28, Mark D’Amico, 39, and drug-addicted homeless veteran Johnny Bobbitt, 35, were charged with theft by deception and conspiracy to commit theft by deception, after the three concocted a story that Bobbitt had given McClure his last $20 after her car ran out of fuel, leaving her stranded on the side of I-95 in a dangerous Philadelphia neighborhood.
Quote:In numerous media appearances, McClure claimed she was driving to meet a friend in September 2017 when she ran out of gas around midnight on the I-95 exit ramp near Philadelphia and Bobbitt, who was sleeping under a nearby overpass, came to her rescue. She claimed Bobbitt spent his last $20 to buy her gas.
“I pulled over to the side of the road as far as I could and I was going to get out and walk to the nearest gas station because it was not that far away, and that’s when I met Johnny,” McClure said last November in a “Good Morning America” interview. “He walked up and he said, ‘Get back in the car. Lock the doors. I’ll be back.’ I was just like, ‘OK.'” -ABC
abcnews.go.com/US/prosecutors-se…d=59215607
They said they wanted to “pay it forward,” and established a GoFundMe campaign with an initial goal of raising $10,000. After the story went viral, the three raised $403,000.
The net proceeds were $360,000 after fees, which went into an acount controlled by McClure. Bobbitt received approximately $75,000 of it according to Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina.
www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-1…ndme-grift
link abcnews.go.com/US/prosecutors-se…d=59215607
AC