GoFundMe has removed all campaigns created to help an Arizona rancher held on $1 million bail after the elderly man’s arrest in the slaying of a migrant shot to death on his property.
Fox News Digital confirmed that GoFundMe has removed several fundraising events created to help George Alan Kelly, 73.
“GoFundMe’s Terms of Service explicitly prohibit campaigns that raise money to cover the legal defense of anyone indicted for an alleged violent crime. In accordance with this long-standing policy, any fundraising campaign for the legal defense of someone accused of murder is removed from our platform,” a GoFundMe spokesperson said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “Donors who contributed to fundraising campaigns for George Alan Kelly’s legal expenses have been fully reimbursed.”
An active fundraiser for Kelly remains on the Christian crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo.
“Neighbors say he had difficulty keeping invaders out and say Mr Kelly would have acted in good faith,” fundraiser organizer Shannon Pritchard wrote. “It is a tragedy that a simple farmer, who should be protected by the government, has been abandoned and had to defend himself.”
MIGRANT SHOT BY ARIZONA RANCERO HELD ON $1M MURDER CHARGE WAS DEPORTED SEVERAL TIMES BEFORE: REPORT
Arizona rancher George Alan Kelly, 73, is being held on $1 million bond by the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office in Nogales. (Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office via AP)
Pritchard said holding Kelly on $1 million bail is a “purely political” move. The campaign raised more than $10,500 as of noon Thursday.
In a statement to Fox News Digital on Thursday, GiveSendGo co-founder Heather Wilson wrote: “This is exactly why GiveSendGo exists. To allow people to have a voice and get support in times of need. Right now [we] We don’t know more than what is being shared in the news, but we do know that in our country, legal defense is not just for the rich. We will continue to allow legal defense fundraising on GiveSendGo, as the presumption of innocence until proven guilty is the foundation of our justice system.”
“We understand that we are not the judge and jury; we will not remove campaigns based on our own biases,” Wilson added. “We will be praying for everyone involved.”
GiveSendGo gained notoriety for allowing fundraisers to benefit Kyle Rittenhouse, as well as the so-called “Freedom Convoy” of truckers demonstrating against Canada’s COVID-19-related restrictions.
The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office announced Monday that Kelly had already been arrested and charged with first-degree murder in connection with the Jan. 30 shooting of a man authorities believe to be Gabriel Cuen-Butimea, 48. years, according to the Mexican. voter card that he was carrying. The shooting occurred at a cattle ranch Kelly operates with his wife near Nogales, Arizona, on the US-Mexico border.
Border Patrol said a caller from George Alan Kelly’s ranch reported seeing a group of people running and did not know if they were being shot at hours before a migrant was found dead. (John Moore/Getty Images)
In his initial court appearance on January 31, Kelly pleaded with a judge to lower his $1 million bail, saying his wife was left alone on their ranch unable to tend to the cattle herself, Nogales International reported. NewsNation reported that another hearing scheduled for Kelly on Wednesday has been postponed until February 22.
“She’s in there all by herself,” Kelly said at the January 31 hearing. “No one to take care of her, the cattle or the ranch. And I’m not going anywhere. I can’t raise a million dollars.”
US Border Patrol referred Fox News Digital to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office for all inquiries related to this case.
The sheriff’s office has not returned Fox News Digital’s request for comment ahead of Thursday’s publication.
“Federal court records show that Cuen-Butimea has had a history of illegal border crossings and deportations in and around Nogales, with the most recent documented case in 2016,” The Daily Mail previously reported.
The Mail also reported that Santa Cruz chief deputy Gerardo Castillo declined to comment on Cuen-Butimea’s immigration status, claiming it has not yet been confirmed. Castillo reportedly said that investigators are still working to confirm the circumstances of the shooting, as well as a possible motive, adding that it does not appear that Kelly knew the victim.
Citing a dispatch report, Nogales International reported that the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office received a call at around 2:40 p.m. on January 30 from US Border Patrol agents relaying details of a ” possible active shooter” in the area of Sagebrush Road. Border Patrol said a person he called, identified as “Allen,” described a “group of people running” and said he “wasn’t sure if they were shooting at him as well.”
The US-Mexico border fence extends into the countryside near Nogales, Arizona, on March 8, 2013. (John Moore/Getty Images)
At approximately 5:50 p.m., sheriff’s deputies received another report of gunfire on the property. At 6:42 p.m., authorities recovered the body of a “deceased Hispanic male” and said he had no weapons on him at the time, Castillo told the outlet. Investigators reportedly collected two assault-style rifles from Kelly’s property to determine if either was used in the shooting.
Kelly’s neighbor, María Castillo, told KOLD News 13 that it is not uncommon to see immigrants crossing the border and entering the city. Cuen-Butimea lived just south of the border in Nogales, Mexico.
A Twitter user named Paul Olson claims that Kelly is his good friend and that Kelly’s wife is staying at a friend’s house out of concern for possible retaliation.
Olson tweeted that Kelly had been shot many times before during the roughly 20 years that he operated the ranch along the border. Olson’s story was not immediately verified by Fox News Digital, and he did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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As details of the shooting incident remain under wraps, an opinion piece in the Arizona Republic drew comparisons between Kelly’s case and the 2010 unsolved murder of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz. Krentz was shot and killed on March 27, 2010, by a trespasser, and investigators reportedly traced the alleged killer’s tracks to the US-Mexico border.
The case acted as a catalyst for the now infamous Senate Bill 1070, known as the “show me your papers” law, the newspaper reported. The Arizona Republic predicts that Kelly’s arrest for the shooting on her property could similarly turn into a “political powder keg.”
