Katelyn McClure (Left) and her photo with the on whose story she fraudulently received $400,000 donations. Source: Twitter
New Jersey: A court here handed over 3-year imprisonment to a woman who along with her ex-boyfriend falsely claimed to be assisting a homeless veteran in Philadelphia.
According to the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office, Katelyn McClure, 32, did not attend her sentencing in Burlington County because she has already started serving her one-year federal sentence in the case in a Connecticut jail.
The former New Jersey Department of Transportation employee will serve out her federal sentence concurrently, and she will never again be able to work for the state as a public employee.
After fabricating a touching but false account that a homeless veteran named Johnny Bobbitt Jr. had just used his last $20 to help McClure fill up her gas tank while she was stranded on I-95 in Philadelphia, McClure and her then-boyfriend, Mark D’Amico, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in 2017.
In order to get Bobbitt off the streets and into a home, the pair started a “Paying it Forward” GoFundMe campaign, which contributors thought was their only hope.
McClure and D’Amico conducted interviews with regional and national media outlets, which helped the story gain popularity quickly. They had stolen $400,000 from more than 14,000 donations in less than a month.
From GoFundMe, the money was moved to the couple’s individual accounts. Over the following three months, the two spent the majority of the money on personal costs.
Bobbitt was made aware of the money and the false story by the couple, which they had previously kept from him. According to authorities, D’Amico opened a bank account for Bobbitt in December 2017 and the two transferred $25,000 into the account.
D’Amico, 43, entered a guilty plea in December 2019 and was given a state jail sentence of five years that ran simultaneously with a prior federal sentence. He and McClure are both required to return GoFundMe in full.Federal and state probationary terms were imposed on Bobbitt.
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