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Monday 3 September 2018

Homeless man sues couple who raised $400,000 on his behalf.



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The homeless veteran who helped a stranded motorist has filed a lawsuit against the woman and her boyfriend to stop them from spending what remains from a $400,000 GoFundMe campaign they created for him, according to a report.
Johnny Bobbitt, who spent his last $20 to help Kate McClure when she ran out of gas in a rough neighborhood in Philadelphia last Thanksgiving, claims she and Mark D’Amico used the money for themselves, Philly.com reported.
McClure, 28, and D’Amico, 39, both of Florence Township, NJ, have claimed they’ve spent half the funds on housing and other expenses for Bobbitt, who has been living under a bridge and panhandling, saying they were holding the rest until he’s off drugs.
An injunction application filed Tuesday in Superior Court in Mount Holly claims the couple mismanaged the funds and committed fraud and conspiracy.
The lawsuit alleges they deposited “substantial portions of the money raised” into personal accounts and did not allow Bobbitt to access them to get off the streets.
“The defendants have expended more than half of the monies raised, and they continue to deprive [Bobbitt] access to the funds that were raised for him,” according to the suit filed by his lawyers Cozen O’Connor in Philadelphia, according to NJ.com.
Christopher C. Fallon, one of Bobbitt’s attorneys, said the suit was filed after D’Amico ignored several requests for a full accounting of the GoFundMe funds raised.
“He’s really left us with no choice but to go forward,” Fallon said, Philly.com reported.
They “conspired to utilize [Bobbitt’s] money to enjoy a lifestyle that they could not afford. Defendants admitted to commingling the funds raised for [Bobbitt] in their own personal accounts and have denied [Bobbitt] access to the account,” according to the court documents.

The filing alleges that D’Amico and McClure have considered the “GoFundMe account as their personal piggy bank.”
The couple appeared on NBC News’ “Megyn Kelly Today” on Monday and denied allegations they pocketed a large portion of the funds meant to get Bobbitt back on his feet.
They said they were protecting the interests of Bobbitt and the more than 14,000 donors by depositing the money into their own accounts to prevent him from doing drugs after he admitted to doing so in an article on Philly.com.
Bobbitt once blew through $25,000 cash in under two weeks, the couple claimed to Philly.com.
“Giving him all that money, it’s never going to happen. I’ll burn it in front of him,” D’Amico recently told the paper.
The couple now claim they are receiving death threats.
“It’s so hard to deal with when we know we did a good thing,” McClure said, tearing up, on the show. “I would do it all over again. I would do it all over again for him.”
Messages left for McClure and D’Amico by Philly.com seeking comment on the lawsuit were not immediately returned.
A judge is scheduled to hear the case Thursday, court spokeswoman Donna Mazzanti told Philly.com.


NY Post

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