GoFundMe scam leads to charges against homeless man, couple
PHILADELPHIA — Johnny Bobbitt Jr. and the Burlington County, N.J., couple who launched a campaign that raised $400,000 to help the homeless man have all been arrested and charged with fabricating the feel-good story that prompted thousands to open their wallets for the former Marine at the start of last year’s holiday season.
The Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office announced the arrests and charges Thursday in what started as an investigation of the couple after Bobbitt accused them of squandering the money raised in a GoFundMe campaign purportedly set up to help him. But the “Paying It Forward” fundraising campaign was only paying into the trio’s pockets, prosecutors said, a “completely made up” scam devised by the three after they met near SugarHouse Casino in the fall of 2017.
The couple, Kate McClure and Mark D’Amico, were arrested in Burlington County on Wednesday and released, officials said. U.S. Marshals, acting on a fugitive retainer from Burlington County, arrested Bobbitt on Wednesday in Philadelphia, where he was being held in jail with bail set at 10 percent of $50,000.
All three are charged with second-degree theft by deception and second-degree conspiracy to commit theft by deception. The crimes carry sentences between five and 10 years, prosecutors said.
What had started as a heartwarming story last November of a homeless veteran using his last $20 to help a stranded motorist began to unravel over the summer, when Bobbitt began to raise questions about how the money was spent. The tale then took an improbable turn Thursday with the announcement of the conspiracy charges.
“The entire campaign was predicated on a lie,” said Burlington County Prosecutor Scott A. Coffina. “Less than an hour after the GoFundMe campaign went live, McClure, in a text exchange with a friend, stated that the story about Bobbitt assisting her was ‘completely made up.’ She did not run out of gas on an I-95 off-ramp, and he did not spend his last $20 to help her. Rather, D’Amico, McClure and Bobbitt conspired to fabricate and promote a feel-good story that would compel donors to contribute to their causes.”
Bobbitt, who has a history of struggling with drug use, accused McClure and D’Amico using the money as their own, forcing him to again panhandle on city streets. The couple said they did not steal the money and accused Bobbitt of lying.
An investigation and review of more than 60,000 text messages and thousands of pages of subpoenaed financial documents revealed that D’Amico and McClure spent the money on a BMW, a New Year’s trip to Las Vegas and highend handbags, officials said. A breakdown of the cash withdrawals showed the $85,363 was withdrawn at, or in the immediate vicinity of, casinos located in Atlantic City, Bensalem, Philadelphia and Las Vegas. Within a few months of the campaign’s creation, all the money had been spent, prosecutors said.
Meanwhile, GoFundMe has vowed a full refund to the more than 14,000 donors who contributed nearly $403,000 during the holiday season to help Bobbitt.
“While this type of behavior by an individual is extremely rare, it’s unacceptable and clearly it has consequences,” GoFundMe said in a statement, adding that misuse of the platform was rare.
Bobbitt had said he met McClure about a year ago as she was on her way to Philadelphia to pick up D’Amico at the SugarHouse Casino. After coming close to running out of gas on I95, she has said she pulled off the freeway near Kensington, where Bobbitt, who had been homeless in Philly for several years, had been panhandling.
Bobbitt said he used his last $20 to buy McClure gasoline. She and D’Amico, they said, returned to repay him, sparking a relationship that was reported in the local press.