Talk about the opposite of a good Samaritan, a woman who helped her boyfriend lie about a homeless veteran and raise $400,000 in donations for him has been sentenced to three years in prison after she pleaded guilty to state theft charges.
Katelyn McClure, 32, of New Jersey, was not present in the courtroom while she received her sentence, as Burlington County Prosecutors said she is serving a one-year federal term in the case.
The state term she received last week will now run concurrently with the term she is currently serving.
The story that McClure will do three years for started in November 2017, when she and her then-boyfriend Mark D’Amico claimed to be helping homeless veteran Johnny Bobbitt Jr., who they all said had shown her kindness.
The couple and Bobbitt claimed that the veteran had given his last $20 to McClure after her car ran out of gas, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Speaking out about the story, the three made headlines, asking for support through a GoFundMe to help Bobbitt financially. This resulted in around 14,000 people donating more than $400,000 in less than a month.
However, Bobbitt didn’t see any of the money raised on his behalf. After he sued the couple, claiming he hadn’t been given anything, authorities started investigating where the money was and the story that led to the fundraising.
The investigation found that all of the money had been sent to the couple’s personal accounts and spent on a recreational vehicle, a BMW, and several trips to casinos in Las Vegas by March 2018, the New York Post reported.
In December 2019, D’Amico pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in state prison, CBS News reported at the time. Bobbitt was sentenced to probationary federal and state terms for going along with the lie, NBC News reported.
McClure and D’Amico have also been ordered to fully reimburse the money they spent, initially raised through the GoFundMe.
Related
Related
