A couple in New Jersey accused of rinsing a GoFundMe campaign intended to help a homeless veteran will ‘likely be indicted’ for misusing the funds.
Ernest Badway, the lawyer representing defendants Kate McClure and Mark D’Amico, asked a Burlington County judge on Friday to postpone veteran Johnny Bobbitt’s case against them for as long as they’re being investigated for the potential misuse of the $400,000 Bobbitt received in donations last year.
Badway wrote:
Since it is expected that one or both of the Defendants will likely be indicted, my firm and I will no longer be able to continue our representation of them in this matter.
Last week, investigators went to the couple’s Bordentown home and bagged a 2015 BMW, numerous Louis Vuitton bags and ‘anything else of value,’ such as jewellery, financial documents and computer records, the New York Post reports.
GoFundMe has already promised to provide the full amount to Bobbitt, who had been sleeping under a bridge, regardless of how the civil case pans out. The company recently deposited $20,000 into a bank account set up by Bobbitt’s lawyers to keep him on his toes while the case is stretched out.
The three made headlines last year when Bobbitt gave his final $20 to McClure after her can ran out of petrol while out and about in Philadelphia.
Bobbitt’s lawyer Chris Fallon told CNN at the time:
From what I can see, the GoFundMe account raised $402,000 and GoFundMe charged a fee of approximately $30,000.
Mark D’Amico and Kate McClure gave Johnny about $75,000. There should be close to another $300,000 available to Johnny.
Kate and Mark claimed they’d given him more than half the money raised and would be withholding roughly $200,000. Johnny in the meantime returned to the streets, homeless and addicted to drugs again.
The couple claimed Bobbitt burned through $25,000 in less than two weeks. Johnny in turn questioned how McClure, a receptionist at the New Jersey Department of Transportation paid for the new BMW she’d been driving, as well as holidays in California, Florida and Las Vegas.
The GoFundMe campaign at first stated ‘The first thing on the list is a NEW Home which Johnny will own!!’
However, Bobbitt ended up living in a camper van on land Kate’s family own near where the couple lived. He allegedly never received his dream pickup truck and the SUV he was given instead broke down. The couple claimed they put the vehicles in Mark’s name so Johnny couldn’t sell them.
Let’s hope he gets his life back on track following all this mess.
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