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Katelyn McClure, 32, of Bordentown got a far lighter sentence under the terms of her plea deal with the government than did her former boyfriend, Mark D’Amico, who concocted the cruel scheme.
McClure was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Camden on Thursday to a plea-bargained year and a day in a federal penitentiary. D’Amico, the "mastermind," earlier this year got 27 months in a fed pen in exchange for his guilty plea.
Both must serve out their entire sentences because there's no parole in the federal prison system.
U.S. District Judge Noel L. Hillman ordered McClure, like D’Amico, to pay restitution. Three years of supervision will also follow her release.
D'Amico admitted last year that he hatched the bogus feel-good yarn about a down-on-his-luck "hero" coming to the rescue of McClure after she ran out of gas on Route 95 on her way home to New Jersey from Philadelphia.
Both McClure and the homeless man, Johnny Bobbitt Jr., were in on the scheme.
Together, D’Amico and McClure created a crowd-sourcing fundraising campaign on GoFundMe that they called "Paying It Forward.” The campaign set a $10,000 goal to help get Bobbitt off the streets and cover some of his initial living expenses.
The bogus tale of Bobbitt giving McClure his last 20 bucks was quickly picked up by local and national news outlets. There was even an appearance on NBC's "Megyn Kelly Today" show.
The schemers gathered $400,000 in donations in less than a month.
D’Amico and McClure shifted the money from GoFundMe into accounts that they controlled, then spent most of it over three months for vacations, a BMW, a vacation, clothing, handbags and "other personal items and expenses," federal authorities said
McClure helped open an account for Bobbitt, who collected $25,000 for his participation, they said.
The scheme fell apart when Bobbitt turned around and sued the couple, demanding to know where the rest of the money went.
D’Amico and McClure, in turn, claimed that Bobbitt spent tens of thousands of dollars on drugs, legal bills and donations to his family in less than two weeks. They said they also bought him a camper.
The Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office and Florence Township police began poking around, obtaining search warrants to seize various pieces of evidence. It led to guilty pleas in state court by all three defendants.
Federal authorities brought their own charges.
Bobbitt, like the other two, took a deal from federal prosecutors rather than risk trial. He’s awaiting sentencing.
U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger credited assistant prosecutors and detectives of the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office, officers of the Florence Township Police Department, special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation and special agents of the FBI with the investigation leading to the pleas and the two sentences so far, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Bender of his Criminal Division in Camden.
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