{"id":11894,"date":"2021-06-08T19:50:44","date_gmt":"2021-06-08T23:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=11894"},"modified":"2021-06-08T19:50:55","modified_gmt":"2021-06-08T23:50:55","slug":"fraudulent-gofundme-gets-woman-3-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2021\/06\/08\/fraudulent-gofundme-gets-woman-3-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Fraudulent GoFundMe gets woman 3 years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">Amanda Lynn Brown,&nbsp;33, heard about last&nbsp;July&#8217;s triple homicide in Frostproof and, within weeks,&nbsp;set up a fraudulent GoFundMe account, which stated the money raised would help the families of the three victims:&nbsp;Kevin Springfield, Brandon Rollins and Damion Tillman.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/BROWN-AMANDA.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11895\" width=\"266\" height=\"337\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/BROWN-AMANDA.png 334w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/BROWN-AMANDA-237x300.png 237w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 266px) 100vw, 266px\" \/><figcaption>Amanda Lynn Brown<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Instead, a sheriff\u2019s department investigation, showed Brown went on shopping sprees, sent herself money via PayPal and paid off her Frostproof utility bill of&nbsp;nearly&nbsp;$1,400.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Brown was sentenced&nbsp;late last month&nbsp;to three years in prison and ordered to pay back $11,500 to GoFundMe, which had already refunded money to those who had contributed.&nbsp;Court officials said she made no statement at her sentencing and did not offer an apology to the families.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI just hope she thinks about what she done and what she done to our family,\u201d said Dottie Payton, Rollins\u2019 mother.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd was also pleased with the sentence.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis is the worst kind of human conduct to try and profit from the horrible tragedy of a triple murder while taking advantage of wonderful people donating their hard-earned money to help those in distress,\u201d said Judd. \u201cI hope she is miserable and thinks&nbsp;of her terrible&nbsp;conduct every day she is in prison.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tony &#8220;T.J.&#8221; Wiggins, meanwhile,&nbsp;is charged in the&nbsp;triple-homicide&nbsp;and faces the death penalty if convicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wiggins, of Frostproof, was arrested three days&nbsp;after the July 17 murders&nbsp;when&nbsp;a store receipt in Tillman\u2019s truck led detectives to a surveillance video at a nearby Dollar General, reports stated. Tillman and Wiggins could be seen talking in the video, and a store clerk told detectives Tillman had mentioned he was meeting Springfield to go fishing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wiggins\u2019&nbsp;younger brother,&nbsp;William&nbsp;Robert&nbsp;Wiggins, and his brother\u2019s girlfriend, Mary Clare Whittemore, are both charged with three counts of accessory after the fact to a capital felony, each of which carries up to 30 years in prison if convicted.&nbsp;They both have a status hearing in court on Tuesday&nbsp;and remain in the Polk County Jail without bond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amanda Lynn Brown,&nbsp;33, heard about last&nbsp;July&#8217;s triple homicide in Frostproof and, within weeks,&nbsp;set up a fraudulent GoFundMe account, which stated the money raised would help the families of the three&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[490],"class_list":["post-11894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-amanda-lynn-brown"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}