GoFundMe ringleader of homeless veteran story admits guilt!

New Jersey man pleads guilty in GoFundMe scam involving Marine veteran

By: The Associated Press
21 hours ago

“Do your research, and make sure you are donating to a worthwhile cause,” Coffina said.

Mark D'Amico, left, stands with his lawyer, Mark Davis, as he pleads guilty to one count of misappropriating entrusted funds in Burlington County Superior Court in Mount Holly, N.J., on Friday, Dec. 6, 2019. (Tim Tai/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)

MOUNT HOLLY, N.J. — A New Jersey man pleaded guilty Friday to a state charge stemming from a scheme that raked in more than $400,000 in online donations with a phony story about a homeless man helping a stranded woman.

Mark D’Amico pleaded guilty in state Superior Court in Burlington County to misapplication of entrusted property stemming from the late 2017 scheme.

D’Amico; his ex-girlfriend, Katelyn McClure; and homeless Marine veteran Johnny Bobbitt faced state and federal charges. McClure and Bobbitt have already pleaded guilty to federal and state charges. D’Amico still faces federal wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges.
read it here

Katelyn McClure, 29, pleaded guilty to theft by deception

New Jersey woman pleads guilty in 'feel good' GoFundMe scam with homeless vet

NBC News
By Tim Stelloh
April 16, 2019

Prosecutors have said that she and her then-boyfriend concocted a story about the man giving the couple his last $20 when they ran out of gas.

Kate McClure appears in court at Burlington County Superior Court in Mount Holly, N.J. on April 15, 2019.Joe Lamberti / Camden Courier-Post via AP, Pool

A New Jersey woman pleaded guilty Monday to helping swindle thousands of GoFundMe donors out of more than $400,000 with what authorities called a “fairy tale narrative.”

Katelyn McClure, 29, pleaded guilty to theft by deception and will serve a four-year term in state prison, the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.

McClure and D’Amico created a GoFundMe campaign that aimed to raise $10,000 to get Bobbitt off the streets.

The then-couple raked in $402,000 from 14,000 donors — a sum authorities say they quickly spent on gambling, a BMW and a trip to Las Vegas, among other things.
read more here

Homeless 'good Samaritan' gets probation in GoFundMe scam
By: DAVID PORTER, Associated Press
Posted: Apr 12, 2019

MOUNT HOLLY, N.J. (AP) - A homeless man was sentenced to five years' probation Friday after admitting last month that he conspired with a couple to scam the public out of $400,000 in donations by concocting a feel-good story about him helping a motorist in distress.

Johnny Bobbitt had pleaded guilty in state court to conspiracy to commit theft by deception. Conditions of his sentence include inpatient drug treatment and cooperation with prosecutors against his co-defendants. If he violates those conditions, he will be sentenced to five years in prison with no possibility of parole for at least 18 months.
read more here

GoFundMe Frauders plead guilty

Homeless man and the woman in viral good Samaritan story plead guilty to federal charges

CNN
By Janet DiGiacomo and Madison Park
March 6, 2019

(CNN)It was a feel-good story that got people to open their wallets and donate.

The premise of the story that went viral in 2017 was that New Jersey resident Kate McClure ran out of gas on Interstate 95 in Philadelphia and a homeless man, Johnny Bobbitt Jr., gave her his last $20 while she was stranded. In return, McClure and her boyfriend, Mark D'Amico, started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for Bobbitt, saying they wanted to pay it forward to the good Samaritan and get him off the streets. But the story wasn't true, authorities said, as McClure and Bobbitt pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal charges.

"In reality, McClure never ran out of gas and Bobbitt never spent his last $20 for her," according to a US Attorney's Office press release. "D'Amico and McClure allegedly conspired to create the false story to obtain money from donors."

McClure, 28, could face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She will be sentenced on June 19.

Bobbitt, 36, could face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. He will be sentenced at a later date.
read more here

Homeless vet Johnny Bobbitt appears in court

GoFundMe case: Homeless vet Johnny Bobbitt appears in court

ABC 6 News
December 7, 2018

MT. HOLLY, N.J. (WPVI) -- Johnny Bobbitt, the homeless veteran accused of trying to scam GoFundMe donors, appeared before a judge on Friday.

Wearing an orange jumpsuit, the 35-year-old appeared via closed-circuit video.

The prosecution asked he be held for trial without the option for bail.

Bobbitt has yet to formally hear the charges against him, although the Burlington County prosecutor publicly announced Bobbitt will be facing charges of fraud by deception and conspiracy.
read more here

This is what happens when reporters run with "stuff that was made up"

GoFundMe campaign to help homeless vet was 'predicated on a lie,' prosecutor says

ABC News
By AARON KATERSKY 
BILL HUTCHINSON
Nov 15, 2018

The "heartwarming tale" of a New Jersey couple helping drug-addicted homeless veteran Johnny Bobbitt was "predicated on a lie," designed to dupe thousands of people into contributing to a GoFundMe campaign, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Bobbitt, and the couple, Kate McClure and Mark D'Amico, allegedly conspired to concoct a story to tug at the hearts and wallets of kindhearted individuals, Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina said at a news conference Thursday. They initially sought to raise $10,000. But the wildly successful GoFundMe campaign brought in over $400,000.

But every shred of the trio's story, including the part that Bobbitt used his last $20 to help McClure out of a roadside jam when she ran out of gas, was all bogus, Coffina said.

"The entire campaign was predicated on a lie," Coffina said. "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 fake."

In one of the texts read by Coffina, McClure allegedly wrote to a friend, "Ok, so wait, the gas part is completely made up but the guy isn't. I had to make something up to make people feel bad. So, shush about the made up stuff."
read more here


And yet when this report from the VA came out in April, no one cared.

Analysis of a nationally representative survey of U.S. veterans in 2015 shows that veterans with a history of homelessness attempted suicide in the previous two years at a rate 5.0 times higher compared with veterans without a history of homelessness (6.9% versus 1.2%), and their rates of two-week suicidal ideation were 2.5 times higher (19.8% versus 7.4%).

Oh, sure, they go onto Facebook, find something they can use and bingo! Instant fame...and usually fortune follows.

In one of the earliest reports from NJ.com on this scam, there was this toward the end.

In the weeks since, she’s returned to the spot along I-95 where Johnny stays with cash, snacks and Wawa gift cards. Each time she’s stopped by with her boyfriend, Mark D’Amico, they’ve learned a bit more about Johnny’s story, and become humbled by his gratitude. Eventually, the Florence Township couple knew they had to do something more.“I would say, ‘I keep thinking about that guy,’” D’Amico said. And McClure was thinking about Johnny, too. 

So they launched a GoFundMe campaign, putting an ambitious $10,000 goal and hoping to rein in a few hundred dollars to book Johnny a motel for a few nights where he could clean up, and start to get back on his feet. In just over a week, the campaign has garnered more than $5,000 in donations, and continues to grow.

Associated Press picked the story up two days later on November 22, 2017.

After all, I do not believe what I see on Facebook unless I can track it back to...you guessed it, an actual news story.

Assuming that reporters actually did their jobs, asked questions and made sure what they were told was actually the truth, should have all of us questioning other things they "shared" that turned out to be far from the truth.

If you read Wounded Times, I am sure you know exactly where I am going with this. Straight to the crap about "raising awareness" on "22" veterans killing themselves and how the talkers seem to be getting a lot more attention for a rumor than the veterans they are supposed to know about.

After all, how can anyone "raise awareness" unless they have vast knowledge on the subject. You know. Taken a lot of time to understand what they are supposed to be sharing with the masses. You'd think a topic as important enough to cause them to spend so much time putting attention on, would actually do something to address the "problem" they claim matters so much. But then again, you'd have to assume they had any intention of changing the outcome.

So, social media pushed their stunts and pushups but it seems as if no one on social media bothered to ask them what their stunts would do to save a life.

No one asked them what qualified them to take on such a serious matter, or even why they deserved the money. No one asked if that number was the truth. Hey, maybe everyone just assumed that since they read about it in news reports, it had to be true.

The problem is, the people getting all the attention, and funds, for talking about the headline, did not even think it was important enough to read anything beyond the headline.

Gee, do you think they might have found the report itself important? Do you think they may have wanted to see what had been done over the previous 4 decades to discover what worked and know what failed before they took to social media and contacted the press?

Now there is an awakening going on but it is too late for far too many to apologize, unless you want to go to a cemetery, if they had enough money for a funeral. 

Next time something is worthy of your support, make sure it really is or we are going to continue to see the "awareness" folks get rich off the suffering they had no intentions of changing. 

Medal of Honor recipient saved lives, now has GoFundMe for his family

UPDATE Ronald Shurer, Medal of Honor recipient who saved lives in Afghanistan, dies at 41

Former Army Staff Sgt. Ronald Shurer II, who received the Medal of Honor in 2018 for braving heavy gunfire to save lives in Afghanistan, has died of cancer. He was 41.

Miranda Shurer said her husband died Thursday in Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C. She said he was diagnosed with cancer three years ago.
read it here on CBS News

Trump Awards Medal of Honor to His Own Secret Service Agent
Military.com
By Matthew Cox
1 Oct 2018

A decade later, Shurer is fighting another battle -- this time with stage 4 lung cancer. More than 500 people have joined his cause and are attempting to raise $100,000 for his family through a gofundme account.

President Donald Trump on Monday awarded the Medal of Honor to former Army Staff Sgt. Ronald Shurer II, a Secret Service agent who is now fighting a battle with cancer.

Associated Press

"Today is a truly proud and special day for those of us here in the White House because Ron works right here alongside of us on the Secret Service counter-assault team; these are incredible people," Trump told a crowded room filled with Shurer's family, fellow soldiers and Army senior leaders. The assault force encountered no enemy activity during the 1,000-foot climb to their objective, but as the lead element approached the target village, "roughly 200 well-trained and well-armed terrorists ambushed the American and Afghan forces," he said.

Shurer, the mission's only medic, immediately began treating wounded. He then sprinted and climbed through enemy fire to reach several of his teammates who were pinned down on a cliff above.
read more here