During the brouhaha that she stirred up claiming a family failed to tip her and left an anti-gay nastygram on her receipt, Dayna Morales claimed that she was donating money that nice folks were PayPal-ing to her to the Wounded Warriors project.
Eh, that may not be entirely true.
Morales, a 22-year-old former Marine, claimed last month that a family of four who racked up a $93.55 bill at the Gallop Asian Bistro in Branchburg, N.J., left her no tip, only a note saying they couldn’t leave any extra cash for her service because they “do not agree with your lifestyle.”
Morales quickly emailed the story to a gay advocacy website and later posted a photograph of the purported check on her Facebook page. The alleged incident made national headlines and resulted in thousands of dollars being donated to Morales, who said she would send all proceeds to the Wounded Warrior Project. But a representative of the Florida-based charity could not confirm Morales had made any donations as of Wednesday, Bridgewater Patch reports
.
A representative for the nonprofit group that caters to veterans returning from overseas checked for donations by Morales’ name and within the ZIP codes for Bridgewater, N.J., where she worked, and Bedminster, where Morales said she lives, and was unable to locate any correlating donations. The donations may have been made from a different ZIP code or by a third-party, the representative told the website.
Sure, that’s possible. It’s not likely, but it’s possible. There are reasons to doubt Morales’ veracity. Her “former Marine” schtick didn’t really pan out. Neither did her original claim — she’s being investigated. We probably already have a smear and a version of “stolen valor” in this story. We’ll see how the donations angle shakes out.
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