Man Facing Federal Charges For Defrauding Mother Of Marine Killed At Naval Reserve Center, As Well As Others

  • Thursday, October 18, 2018

Federal authorities have charged John Shannon Simpson with setting up a charity that defrauded a number of donors, including the mother of one of the five service personnel killed in Chattanooga in July 2015.

Simpson is facing wire fraud charges in South Carolina.

An affidavit says the mother of Skip Wells put $135,000 into the Marines for Mickey organization, including $75,000 of her own funds. Cathy Well was promised that the charity would open a barbershop in her son's name.

It says Simpson over two years diverted $395,000 of gifts to the charity to his own use.

The stated aim of the charity was to make it possible for military families to go to Disneyworld and to attend special military events involving their loved ones.

The affidavit says Simpson represented himself as a retired master sergeant, a drill instructor and a Recon Marine. It says Simpson was actually in the military for four years as a clerk and went AWOL the last year. He received a bad conduct discharge in 1997.

Simpson earlier received a nine-year prison sentence in Florida  for sexually assaulting his former girlfriend.

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