Stooping lower than we realized people were capable of, Nouel Alba was arrested for running a scam tied to the Newtown, Connecticut shooting this month.
The New York City woman, 37, tried to fleece donors by posing as the aunt of a child killed in the elementary school, federal authorities said Thursday.
Alba is accused of using her Facebook account, telephone calls and text messages to seek donations for what she called a Newtown "funeral fund."
She even went so far as to tell one donor she had to enter the scene of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School to identify her nephew.
Alba is charged with lying to FBI agents investigating charity scams related to the massacre, in which Adam Lanza killed 20 children and six adults.
Alba, of the Bronx, appeared Thursday in federal court in Hartford and was released on $50,000 bond. A telephone number listed for her was not in service.
In text messages with a donor, Alba said she hugged President Obama after his Newtown speech and said she was afraid to see her nephew in a casket.
"11 gun shot in his little body," she wrote, according to the complaint.
Investigators say Alba told them she did not know her PayPal account was being used to solicit money and refunded donations right after receiving them.
According to the complaint, however, she did not return donations for days. If convicted, she faces a prison term of five years and a fine of up to $250,000.
How one even thinks of doing this, we have no idea, but the FBI is asking anyone with knowledge of other scams related to the Newtown shooting to contact it.
Connecticut is also checking the identities of people soliciting money in the name of the Newtown victims, according to the commissioner of consumer protection.
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