told the outlet<\/a> he believes the donations never reached them.<\/p>\n\u201cEric got it!\u201d he said. \u201cFar as I know, Eric got it and took off then, that\u2019s all I know. Patrick got some of our money, I don\u2019t know how much.\u201d<\/p>\n
John \u201cPatrick\u201d Roark, 46, created \u201cofficial\u201d Whittaker pages and told The Post he never received \u2018a dime\u2019 of YouTube donation money. Patrick Roark\/Facebook<\/p>\n
Roark told The Post Saturday the only questionable funds in the entire saga were the donations that went through Carroll\u2019s YouTube account.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only kind of fraud that has existed is the donations that went into a YouTube account that Eric Carroll owns,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He claimed \u201cnot a dime\u201d that passed through YouTube ever went to him.<\/p>\n
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Carroll told The Post he only received \u201cstandard platform monetization\u201d and said, \u201cI have ensured the Whitaker family will receive their appropriate share of the revenue.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a written statement, he said he has \u201cproactively reached out to law enforcement and offered full cooperation,\u201d denied ever soliciting donations for the family and argued he has held revenue until a proper trust can be set up.<\/p>\n
Larry Whittaker said the family\u2019s living conditions never improved despite the surge of online donations. whittakerfamwv\/Instagram<\/p>\n
Carroll also disputed Roark\u2019s claims about missing money.<\/p>\n
\u201cA good portion of the funds flowed to accounts he controlled, and I still need his records to complete a full accounting,\u201d Carroll said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He added that the Whitakers \u201creceived about one-third\u201d of the revenue for one month after Roark allegedly used \u201cmore than half\u201d of their share for expenses but \u201cnever provided receipts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Troopers served a warrant and seized two of Roark\u2019s phones. He said he has no plans to turn over more information, calling the investigation a \u201cwitch hunt.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Whittakers first drew national attention after a 2020 documentary captured the crumbling structure of their Odd, West Virginia home. YouTube\/Soft White Undderbelly<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t have nothing on me. They may think they have something on me, but they don\u2019t,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Roark and Carroll created \u201cofficial\u201d Whittaker social media pages in June, then asked followers for cash and supplies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They rolled out subscription tiers up to $9.99 a month and put the family on Cameo, charging $50 for fans and $400 for businesses.<\/p>\n
Roark also claimed to have a three-way contract to split revenue between him, Carroll and the family, though he did not produce a copy to The Post.<\/p>\n
Lawrence \u201cEric\u201d Carroll, 41, said he only received standard platform monetization and has \u201coffered full cooperation\u201d to state police. whittakerfamwv\/Instagram<\/p>\n
The YouTube channel made \u201cwell over $100,000\u201d and that about $14,000 from his Facebook videos is still sitting in his Venmo, Roark said.<\/p>\n
He added he plans to release the money \u201cthrough lawyers\u201d and insisted it \u201chad to be put in a fund\u201d so the family would not lose state benefits.<\/p>\n
Larry claimed the pair promised to use the donations to build a new home but never followed through.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey didn\u2019t do it, they took the goddamn money and left!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The West Virginia clan branded \u201cAmerica\u2019s most inbred family\u201d have claimed two YouTubers who promised to help them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6788,9,11,10,23627,58,1688,17000,4693],"class_list":{"0":"post-40914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-donations","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-news","12":"tag-schemes","13":"tag-us-news","14":"tag-viral-videos","15":"tag-west-virginia","16":"tag-youtube"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}