{"id":50838,"date":"2019-07-23T21:00:54","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T21:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/uncategorized\/2019\/07\/23\/marine-vet-sentenced-to-4-years-in-federal-prison-for-scamming-money-from-gold-star-mom-marine-families\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T20:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T20:49:09","slug":"marine-vet-sentenced-to-4-years-in-federal-prison-for-scamming-money-from-gold-star-mom-marine-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/news\/your-military\/2019\/07\/23\/marine-vet-sentenced-to-4-years-in-federal-prison-for-scamming-money-from-gold-star-mom-marine-families\/","title":{"rendered":"Marine vet sentenced to 4 years in federal prison for scamming money from Gold Star mom, Marine families"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Marine veteran John Shannon Simpson was sentenced to four years in federal prison after pleading guilty to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marinecorpstimes.com\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2019\/04\/03\/marine-veteran-running-scam-charity-targeting-marine-families-pleads-guilty-to-wire-fraud\/\" target=\"_blank\">wire fraud<\/a>, United States Attorney Sherri A. Lydon announced Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Simpson was ordered to pay restitution of $141,709.44 to the victims of his charity scam, dubbed Marines &amp; Mickey, where Simpson bilked people into donating money to help Marines and families attend Disney and Marine boot camp graduation, the release detailed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sentencing was handed down by United States District Judge David C. Norton of Charleston, South Carolina, who also sentenced Simpson to three years of supervised release following his prison term, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-sc\/pr\/former-south-carolina-resident-sentenced-federal-prison-charity-fraud-scheme-targeting\" target=_blank>press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Simpson will serve his prison term consecutively with a nine year state sentence for sexual assault he is already serving in Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2019\/01\/15\/this-marine-veteran-asked-people-to-donate-money-to-send-marine-families-to-disney-resorts-and-boot-camp-graduation-but-according-to-the-feds-he-pocketed-it\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/ASZX3FI4UFHCZDCGNEJY3CIMOQ.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">Marine vet who asked for donations to send Marine families to Disney resorts pocketed money, feds say<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">According to feds, Simpson raised about $481,000 but pocketed nearly $391,000.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Court documents revealed that the victims of Simpson\u2019s charity scam included active-duty Marines and the mother of a Marine killed in the 2015 attack on the military recruiting center in Chattanooga, Tennessee<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.charlotteobserver.com\/news\/state\/south-carolina\/article224284445.html\" target=_blank>Charlotte Observer<\/a> identified the mother as Cathy Wells, whose son, Lance Cpl. Skip Wells, was killed in the 2015 shooting incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wells dished out nearly $135,000 dollars to the charity, court documents detailed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Simpson pocketed $391,000 from the nearly $481,000 he raised from 2014\u20132016, feds said in court documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Feds also alleged in court documents that Simpson lied about his military service to get more donations, telling donors he was a Marine master sergeant and prior drill instructor and recon Marine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But court documents said Simpson served less than five years as a disbursing clerk and was reduced to private following a special court-martial for being absent without leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service aided in investigating the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marine veteran John Shannon Simpson was sentenced to four years and ordered to pay restitution of $141,709.44 to the victims of his charity scam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":33693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":88,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[29,116,117,15,25,88],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3472],"class_list":["post-50838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-left-column","category-middle-column","category-news","category-veterans","category-your-military"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"WNOU6RDZXVDJ3IF3IPMZZKVRMY","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2019\/07\/23\/marine-vet-sentenced-to-4-years-in-federal-prison-for-scamming-money-from-gold-star-mom-marine-families\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Marine vet sentenced to 4 years in federal prison for scamming money from Gold Star mom, Marine families - Military Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Marine veteran John Shannon Simpson was sentenced to four years and ordered to pay restitution of $141,709.44 to the victims of his charity scam.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2019\/07\/23\/marine-vet-sentenced-to-4-years-in-federal-prison-for-scamming-money-from-gold-star-mom-marine-families\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Marine 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