It was a dark Monday earlier this month when the generous kids at a middle school in Mesquite, Texas, who had just collected over $11k via GoFundMe to help out a teacher’s aide they believed had cancer, discovered that Kevin MaBone faked cancer and fleeced them all. Rather than getting surgery that day as he originally stated, he was in federal court answering to an earlier charge for unauthorized use of government credit cards. It was then that the entire house of cards he’d built collapsed around him and, subsequently, around the sweet little kids who only wanted to help.
The principal of the school even presented him with the keys to a 2005 Mercury Grand Marquis so he’d no longer have to bum rides to and from work and doctor’s appointments.
He could have come clean then. He could have said thank you, but you need to know that I made it all up. But he didn’t.
“At that point he chose not to disclose the fact that it’s not all true. He chose to take that money and he chose to take that car,” said Lt. Brian Parrish, Mesquite PD.
With that in mind, MaBone — who is in federal custody without bond on his original cases in West Virginia and Florida — has now been hit with a charge for theft by deception of $2,500 to $30,000 in Dallas County. No doubt the GoFundMe campaign to benefit him was created in good faith, based on deception on his part to make it seem as though he was struggling with cancer.
That campaign now shows zero donations, so it can be assumed donors have either already been refunded or are in the process of getting their money back.
The following report from local Fox 4 will make you cry.
MaBone is due back in court to be sentenced on his federal charges on February 13.