The fraud was discovered after the homeless man sued the sentenced person for only giving him $75,000 of the funds and spending the rest on travel and luxury goods
A Superior Court of the State of New Jersey (USA). (USA) sentenced this Monday to five years in prison a man who raised more than 400,000 dollars in a fraudulent virtual campaign in funds. The sentenced man promised to deliver the money to a homeless man who had allegedly helped his girlfriend, the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office recently reported.
Mark D’Amico, 43, was pleaded guilty in December 2019 to the charge of misuse of entrusted property in the second degree. During the trial, admitted to have invented the story about Johnny Bobbitt Jr., a homeless veteran who made headlines in 2017 for allegedly spending his last $20 buying gas for Kate McClure’s stranded car, then girlfriend of the now sentenced.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, D’Amico had also previously pleaded guilty to other federal charges, so the five-year sentence will run simultaneously with the sentence of 27 months that he is currently serving in the federal prison of Lewisburg (Pennsylvania).
Thanks to the attention that the story received from the media, the campaign launched to through the GoFundMe platform to reward the ‘good samaritan’ raised more than 400,000 dollars of some 14,000 donors in approximately one month.
However, in August 2018 Bobbitt filed a lawsuit accusing the couple of giving him only a fifth of the funds – about $75,000 – and spending the rest in trips and a luxury BMW car.
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