The New Jersey woman who assisted in fabricating a story about assisting a homeless veteran that inspired $400,000 in GoFundMe donations was given a one-year jail sentence Thursday in federal court.
In addition, Katelyn McClure was mandated to pay back damages and undergo three years of supervised release. The 32-year-old Bordentown, New Jersey resident is expected to receive a longer prison term when he is sentenced on state counts next month.
The sentence imposed on McClure brings to an end the crazy saga that started when she related a touching account about a veteran who was struggling and gave her his last $20 to fill up her tank when she ran out of petrol in the middle of the night. His name was Johnny Bobbitt.
She and her ex-boyfriend, Mark D’Amico, set up a GoFundMe page to collect money for the sympathetic stranger, and in the weeks that followed, about 14,000 individuals gave to the cause.
But the story was a farce. The pair first encountered Bobbitt while he was panhandling by an underpass, roughly a month before she claimed he turned up his last Jackson. McClure made up the narrative in order to persuade funders to “pay it forward.”
The group profited greatly from their deception up until Bobbitt filed a lawsuit against McClure and D’Amico on the grounds that they had wasted the money on luxury goods, a recreational vehicle, a BMW, and trips to casinos. According to Bobbitt, they only gave him roughly $75,000 total.
D’Amico consented to a five-year prison sentence as part of a plea agreement in Burlington County in 2019. Bobbit was mandated to join a drug rehabilitation center. Both are set for sentencing on various state crimes next month, just like McClure.
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Sources: Dailywire, Yahoo, Usatoday
