The man who confessed to brutally beating and killing Queens jogger Karina Vetrano has had two online funding pages set up for him and his family, and the accounts raked in $2,500 before being put on ice, supporters revealed Tuesday.
Self-described Brooklyn community activist Floyd Jarvis said a GoFundMe page started by community leaders to help the family of suspect Chanel Lewis, 20 had raised $800 before being shut down after two weeks. Any money raised was returned, Jarvis said.
“There were calls for it to shut down. It was showing justice and support for Chanel Lewis,” he told reporters outside Queens Criminal Court, after a hearing for Lewis was postponed.
Jarvis added that a second online fundraiser on the Web site Fundly collected $1,700 but was also shut down, at least temporarily, by the site’s operators.
“That page is in limbo. It’s under investigation for reasons that we don’t know. It’s a legit page. All proceeds go to the family,” Jarvis said.
The Fundly campaign had a bio that read: “[The] purpose of this page is to support Chanel Lewis and his families efforts. Chanel is a 20 year old caring young man with special needs and developmental disabilities.”
GoFundMe said the fund on its site was shut down because it violated its terms of service, which bar fund-raising for “the defense or support of anyone alleged to be involved in criminal activity.”
Fundly did not immediately return a request for comment.
The community leaders and two former classmates of Lewis, who was charged Feb. 5 in the Aug. 2 killing of Vetrano, had shown up to the courthouse for the hearing for Lewis.
The Legal Aide Society, whose lawyers are repping the suspect, refused to comment when asked about why the hearing was postponed.
The agency later released a statement saying, “Chanel Lewis deserves all the protections our laws provides: the presumption of innocence, unbiased and uninfluenced due process, and a meaningful opportunity to fight any and all charges.”
The activists and former classmates who showed up took the opportunity to show their support of Lewis.
“We believe that [the fundraising sites] are discriminating against Chanel. Chanel has not been indicted,” Brooklyn activist Chris Banks said.
“The link we used was to support his family,” Banks said. “We believe they shut it down because of complaints. They were against that we were raising money to support Chanel and his family.”
Former classmates said the heinous murder was not in Lewis’s character.
“He is very chilled, laid-back. He didn’t bother anybody,” said Jamel Reed, 18, who also described Lewis as “gentle.
“I don’t think he did it and I am going to stand by it,” he said.
Vashon Scott-Jones, 22, who also went to school with Lewis at Martin De Porres High School in Queens, said, “He was a very quiet and humble kid. He wasn’t really wasn’t problematic… I can never see him doing such a crime.”
Vetrano, 30, was strangled, raped and beaten when she went out for her routine jog on a path in Spring Creek Park nearby her Howard Beach home last summer.
Investigators found Lewis’s DNA underneath Vetrano’s fingernails, on her back and on her cell phone.
Vetrano’s devastated parents also showed up to the court hearing and left without speaking to reporters.
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