'Mother of 3' facing eviction, who got $230K after CNN report, is just the babysitter

[George II]

WASHINGTON (SBG) — A Las Vegas woman facing eviction, who was twice featured on CNN last week with three children she claimed as her own, is just the children's babysitter, according to a correction published by Cable News Network, Inc.

Dasha Kelly raised more than $230,000 through a GoFundMe account she set up herself after her segment was featured in a CNN report by reporter Nick Watt. Since the network issued a clarification, however, Kelly's donation total has dipped below $200,000 after dozens of people asked for refunds. One person even donated $15,000 to Kelly shortly after the report aired.

Kelly appeared on CNN for a second time last week alongside Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., who saw Kelly's original story with the three girls.

In the segment, Kelly, while fighting off tears, said to Bush, "It's an honor to even speak with you. I'm just so fortunate right now, this is beyond me. You don't understand, when I put that up, I never thought that anybody would have reached out, especially CNN, and to hear that a Congressperson — my story reached you, this is just amazing. I'm so thankful for that, [that] there's people like you out there."

Edit: I forgot the ABC News4 link:

https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/mother-of-3-facing-eviction-who-got-230k-after-cnn-report-is-just-the-babysitter

[ansible]

1. What a shitty world, the grifters profit while those in actual need get fucked

[Beakybird]

2. Omg!!

[raccoon]

3. Glad they found out she was a fake.

People like her make it hard for the honest ones who really need help.

[gldstwmn]

40. She wasn't a fake. CNN screwed up.

[LisaL]

41. You blame CNN for her go fund me, in which she claims to be a mother of 3 daughters?

NT

[gldstwmn]

50. Why don't you go ahead and arm yourself

with the facts Lisa and then we'll talk, k?

[gldstwmn]

53. Keep being offended Lisa.

[Dan]

4. She should move in with Trump.

Grifter.

[David__77]

5. Good article on this case at The Root.

https://www.theroot.com/the-woman-needed-money-to-keep-her-and-her-3-kids-from-1847481051

[Shermann]

6. This one is on CNN

You'd think if they gave her not one but two appearances and plugged her GoFundMe, they'd verify her story a bit more.

I try to watch CNN, but it has been mostly unwatchable for the last few months. Who gives a crap about the history of sitcoms right now?

[Liberal In Texas]

11. It's the state of journalism today.

They hire reporters with little or no experience or education. Older seasoned reporters are "encouraged" to retire early by giving them crap shifts or assignments. This applies to editors and producers as well. Also newsrooms have been faced with draconian layoffs. There simply isn't the depth of experience and intelligence there once was.

But with the pretty on-camera faces they all have great sets and graphics.

[Sneederbunk]

7. Hopefully a room awaits her at the Graybar Hotel.

[gldstwmn]

14. For what?

[Sneederbunk]

15. Fraud for starters.

[gldstwmn]

16. Oh please. She needed money for rent and people gave it.

When you give money away you also need to release the urge to control what happens to it.
Why is DU so up it's own ass lately? Resist the suck.

[ZonkerHarris]

24. People gave it to her under fraudulent pretenses. If she needed money for rent is it okay if she

robs a bank?
Or carjacks an auto?
Or counterfeits a check?
Why do we have laws anyway?
People should just get to do whatever they want, even if it takes advantage of others. Right?

[gldstwmn]

32. According to the Washington Post

their mother had just dropped them off with her for a week. She's essentially co parenting them. Go Fund Me has frozen the money for two weeks for those who want refunds. She hasn't received a dime. I don't know if she was evicted or not. CNN screwed this up. It's more of a misunderstanding than con. She's broke. I'm not mad at her. 🤷‍♀️

[LisaL]

37. She started the go fund me and claimed to be a mother of 3 children.

She is not the mother of 3 children.

[gldstwmn]

43. That's not what it said.

She said "my girls."

[LisaL]

44. I just read the darn thing. Don't tell me "that's not what it said." I know what it says.

She claims she has 3 daughters.

[gldstwmn]

51. Keep being offended Lisa.

[LisaL]

25. Most people wouldn't mind being given money for rent.

Should we come up with whatever sad story to get it?

[gldstwmn]

33. Most people aren't desperate, broke and

being evicted. She hasn't received a dime yet.

[LisaL]

35. I think there are a lot of desperate and broke people about the be evicted right now.

NT

[gldstwmn]

45. But you should get to judge whose

worthy of assistance right?

[Wingus Dingus]

8. LOL, I will never donate to a Go Fund Me.

To me it's just sophisticated panhandling.

[George II]

9. That's a good way of putting it. I'd rather give a homeless person on the street a few bucks...

...than give someone with the resources to set up a Go Fund Me account.

[Wingus Dingus]

10. I'm the same way. And I do give to established charities.

But no, I don't give money to random individuals who beg for money on the internet.

[gldstwmn]

34. You know some of them aren't really

homeless right? You're judging them to be homeless and worthy of the few bucks you throw them. It makes you feel good too. This isn't really that different.

[Shermann]

19. There are good causes to be found there

I've known people personally who fell on hard times and started legit GFM fundraisers.

But I'm not sure how you separate the wheat from the chaff with any degree of confidence.

[KentuckyWoman]

31. I have one time.

I personally knew them though not well and knew the situation was dire, genuine and temporary. 4 kids and their mother dying of breast cancer. She had the same oncologist as my husband, which is how I knew them. Surviving Dad did not ask for help. One of the oncology nurses started the fund on their behalf to help them get over the hump.

There's a lot of real out there. The grifters make it harder for everyone.

[liberal_mama]

12. She didn't seem credible to me. She was trying to force tears and not very maternal with the kids

The whole thing didn't seem right and I got a bad feeling about it.

[gldstwmn]

13. I thought they were her boyfriend's kids?

Their mother had dropped them off for a week when the interview took place by her own admission. CNN didn't get her facts straight.

[Budi]

17. Why didn't she just tell the real story?

Who started the Gofundme?

Ms Kelly?
The BF & father of the kids?
The actual mother?
Friend who knew the story presented wasn't true?

Sounds like the real mom outed Kelly when it came time to collect on the Gofundme $$$

How did Bush come to know of Ms Kelly, right when she, herself was in the eviction news cycle at the Capitol steps?

The whole story, start to finnish needs to be told. Something stinks...

[Shermann]

21. Yeah I'll bet the REAL story began when that $230,000 hit that account

There had to be some in the know who put their hand out. Pay me or the gig is up! Managing that balance would be a real challenge. You have to dish out just the right amounts to keep the lid on without it boiling over or dumping out.

[gldstwmn]

47. Yes, their biological mother.

By Jonathan Edwards

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/11/dasha-kelly-mother-eviction-gofundme-donations/

Behind nearly two grand on rent and facing eviction, Dasha Kelly started an online fundraiser in July, asking strangers to help her and her three daughters stay in their North Las Vegas home.
“We were maintaining just fine before this pandemic hit. Now we are suffering,” the 32-year-old wrote in the introduction to the GoFundMe donation page, which she titled “Help My Girls & I avoid eviction.”
For weeks, the fundraiser languished without a donation, she said. Then, on Aug. 2, CNN ran a story about the family’s struggle. A day later, the news organization aired another interview with Kelly as she sat on her couch with three girls identified as her daughters.
By the time the broadcast was over, donors had given Kelly nearly $100,000, dwarfing her $2,000 goal. The windfall would allow her to pivot from the specter of eviction to the certainty of having her rent covered for the rest of her lease, she said.
On Monday, some 3,700 people had donated about $234,000.
But days after the CNN clip aired, a woman came forward and said that she was the girls’ mother. Kelly then revealed she is not the biological mother of the three girls who sat with her on the couch.
On Monday, she posted an update to her fundraiser, informing people that the three girls — ages 8, 6 and 5 — are not her biological daughters but her partner’s. Although she doesn’t live with the girls’ father or the children, she said the three recognize her as “a mother figure.”
“I’ve loved these girls unconditionally,” Kelly said in the update. “I treat them as my daughters, and care for them in this way.”
GoFundMe has since frozen the money donors gave her. Kelly did not respond to a Tuesday night message from The Washington Post. A GoFundMe spokesman told The Post the company will give people two weeks to rescind their donations before it releases what’s left to Kelly.
By Wednesday morning, the total amount of donations dipped to less than $200,000 as people sought refunds.
CNN did not respond to a request for comment, but it published an update to the story Monday, explaining Kelly’s true relationship to the three girls. Reporter Nick Watt said in a follow-up video that, when he interviewed Kelly in her apartment for the story, everything he saw corroborated the idea that Kelly was their parent.
“The girls all called her mom, appeared to be very much at home and there was nothing we could see to raise any suspicion,” he said.
Watt said he learned that Kelly was not the girls’ parent when a woman named Shadia Hilo reached out to the news organization and, armed with birth certificates, proved she was their mother.
“Shadia Hilo is understandably upset that someone else claimed to be the mother of three of her children, children she also cares for,” Watt said.
When CNN followed up with Kelly, she told the news station that she had described the children as her daughters because “she considers herself to be like a mother to those girls.”
Watt conceded that Kelly spends significant time caring for the girls in her apartment. Hilo told CNN, for example, that she had recently dropped the girls off with Kelly for a week, which is when they appeared on the TV segment from the woman’s couch.
“She clearly does look after those girls part of the time,” Watt said in his video update. “But in that GoFundMe post … she described the girls as her daughters, and that’s just not true.”
On the GoFundMe site, Kelly said she still needs donations to avoid eviction and would use them “to get back on my feet and support my family.” She added that she would put some of the money in a savings account for the girls.
The Aug. 3 interview with Kelly was part of CNN’s coverage of a federal eviction moratorium that had expired days earlier on July 31. Missouri Rep. Cori Bush (D), who also appeared in the segment, repeatedly told Kelly that she was worthy of financial support. Kelly cried and appeared overwhelmed as an anchor gave her real-time updates about how much money people were donating.
“You and your family are worth it,” Bush said. “You are worth having your needs met.”
Bush had just won a fight to secure protections for renters like Kelly. For three nights, the lawmaker slept in a sleeping bag on the steps outside the Capitol. She was part of a group of activists and lawmakers protesting the end of an eviction moratorium originally implemented by the Centers for Disease Control in September during the coronavirus pandemic.
The protest attracted national attention, pushing the Biden administration to respond to Bush’s demands. On Aug. 3, the CDC announced a 60-day ban on evictions in counties with a substantial or high risk of community transmission of the coronavirus, which covers about 90 percent of the country.
Because it falls in the high-risk category, Clark County — where Kelly lives — is covered.

[LisaL]

23. Ms. Kelly started the gofundme.

By the way it's not frozen, I just looked at it.
Some people are still donating.

[gldstwmn]

48. She can't get money out. It's frozen.

[George II]

26. Kelly started the gofundme, and in her narrative she said "my daughters" She blatantly....

...called them HER daughters.

[Budi]

27. So she lied. What was in it for her to 'bend' the truth?

ick.

Defund Gofundme

[JI7]

29. But were actual parents of the girls in on it ?

[LisaL]

30. No.

NT

[gldstwmn]

49. It wasn't a scam to begin with.

[gldstwmn]

36. The Washington Post has a good follow

up on it.

[W_HAMILTON]

18. Calling her a "babysitter" is also a bit disingenuous.

From reading the story, the woman is in a relationship with the children's father; so, while she is not their biological mother, she is more than just a "babysitter." If the two were married, they'd be her stepchildren.

[LisaL]

20. She claimed to be the children's mother, and she clearly is not.

NT

[gldstwmn]

39. Agree, she is essentially a co parent.

Who was it that said it takes a village?

[Sneederbunk]

22. Did the landlord get paid?

[gldstwmn]

38. She hasn't gotten a dime to pay anyone.

The money is frozen for two weeks so that those who want a refund can get one. Most of the money is still there.

[rockfordfile]

28. You could see that coming

[pinkstarburst]

42. I feel sorry for this lady

because obviously she is scared and about to be evicted, but she also purposefully scammed the public and misrepresented the relationship with the boyfriend's three children she sometimes babysits to try to create a more sympathetic GoFundMe profile to get donations. If she'd simply put up her own picture as a single woman and said she needed donations, she likely would have gotten some, but not $250K, not a CNN story, not Cori Bush's support.

[LisaL]

46. Sorry for what?

The go fund me is still accepting donations. She is going to end up with a bunch of money out of the story.

[gldstwmn]

52. Good!

[George II]

54. There's a lot more to this story that's coming out now. This woman has, let's say, "a history".