CINCINNATI (AP) — The GoFundMe fundraising website says people who gave money to an Ohio woman accused of making up a story about her son having terminal cancer will get refunds if it turns out she scammed them.
A GoFundMe spokesman said Wednesday donors are protected in the rare case a fundraising campaign is misused.
Prosecutors say Monika Burgett shaved her son’s eyebrows and head and took photos of him to post on the GoFundMe site to raise $40,000. They told jurors at her trial she convinced doctors at a Cincinnati hospital she was a doctor while they cared for her 3-year-old son.
Burgett’s lawyer acknowledges she lied about being a doctor but says she was trying to help her son, who now lives with his father in Texas.