Mark D’Amico has been sentenced to five years in prison for his part in a $402,706 GoFundMe scam involving an alleged homeless man and his girlfriend.
The homeless man is named Johnny Bobbitt, and he had supposedly helped Katelyn McClure in 2017 with his last $20 after she got stranded on an I-95 off-ramp in New Jersey. As the story goes, Mark D’Amico started a “Paying it Forward” campaign to raise $10,000 to get the kind-hearted Bobbitt a home and car.
However, their campaign took flight, and before long, they were sitting on a fortune of over $400,000.
Their entire scam started to unravel after Bobbitt hired lawyers to sue the couple for giving him only $75,000 of the money. Also, he had alleged that they gave him an SUV that quickly broke down and a second-hand camper for his home.
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When the authorities got involved, they uncovered that the couple and the ‘homeless’ man planned the initial scam together. A recording by Katelyn of their discussion further solidified the case against them.
D’Amico, who appeared to have created the account and concocted the scheme, got a five-year sentence on August 7, which joins the 27 months he has been serving since April 2022.
Meanwhile, his then-girlfriend Katelyn and Bobbitt were both charged in 2018. Katelyn already pleaded guilty and will be sentenced in September 2022, while Bobbit was sentenced to five years on 2019.
After the scam was uncovered, GoFundMe refunded all the donors. The company has a very strict policy, and even lying with good intentions about your relationship with a fund’s recipient can get the campaign taken down.
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