Police conducted a raid of a New Jersey couple’s home on Thursday after a judge ordered them to appear in court to account for the $400,000 they raised for a homeless veteran.
Investigators executed the search warrant at Kate McClure and Mark D’Amico’s Bordentown, New Jersey, home on Thursday, searching a black BMW parked in the driveway before loading it onto a flatbed truck and hauling it away, WPVI reported.
Police and other investigators swarmed the property while D’Amico was in the backyard swinging a golf club on the lawn. McClure entered a car and left the home without speaking to reporters:
The Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office confirmed Thursday that officials with the prosecutor’s office and the Florence Township Police Department conducted the search warrant “in connection with a criminal investigation into the Johnny Bobbitt matter.”
As of this time, there have been no charges filed,” Burlington County prosecutor Scott A. Coffina said in a statement.
On Wednesday, Superior Court Judge Paula Dow ordered McClure and D’Amico to appear in court next week for a deposition hearing because homeless veteran Johnny Bobbitt sued them to find out where the more than $400,000 in GoFundMe money raised for him went.
Bobbitt’s story made headlines on Thanksgiving in 2017 when he gave McClure his last $20 for gas after her car ran out of fuel in a rough Philadelphia neighborhood.
McClure’s boyfriend, D’Amico, started a GoFundMe campaign for $10,000 to help Bobbitt get through the winter as a thank you for his kind gesture. The campaign went viral and surpassed its $10,000 goal to raise more than $400,000.
But the story did not have such a happy ending after plans to disperse the money went downhill and Bobbitt claimed the couple had not given him all the money they raised for him.
McClure and D’Amico claimed they spent half the money on housing and miscellaneous expenses for Bobbitt, who wound up living on the streets again. The pair said they are withholding the rest of the money until he is off drugs.
But reports stated that McClure used some of the money to buy a new BMW and go on an expensive trip to California, and D’Amico used some of the money on gambling—although D’Amico said he paid the money back to the account.
The couple, in a statement through their attorney, said they gave Bobbitt $200,000. Bobbitt claimed he received $75,000 in goods, cash, and services. Bobbitt’s lawyer, however, said the remaining money is gone, and it is unclear where the rest of the money went. Both D’Amico and McClure have denied wrongdoing.
Dow ordered D’Amico and McClure to wire the remaining money into a trust for Bobbitt and give a detailed accounting report of the donations by Friday. The trust would remain under the control of Bobbitt’s lawyers but would not be used until the judge decides how it would be managed.