The grief-stricken brother of NBC reporter Eliana Moreno has called out scammers he claims are trying to profit off his siblings’ death by creating unauthorized fundraisers.
Johan Moreno, of Brooklyn, issued the blistering rebuke in an X post Wednesday night – one day after Eliana Moreno was among three people who were killed when the NBC helicopter crashed in Los Angeles.
“At this time, our family and her fiancé are not collecting monetary donations,” he wrote. “Any online donation pages are not endorsed by our family. Thank you for your well wishes and understanding.”
Johan Moreno, a writer, shared a throwback picture of his sister working inside NewsChopper 4 – the doomed Eurocopter AS350 that crashed in Chatsworth on Tuesday.
“RIP sis, I will love you to the end of time,” he said. “My family and I just went through the worst day of our lives. We appreciate all the support and love.”
Tributes have poured in for Moreno, 38, after it was confirmed she was on the helicopter when it crashed while covering a deadly bus collision in Chatsworth.
Mourners have laid flowers at a makeshift memorial at Whiteman Airport in Pacoima – the site where the NewsChopper 4 would fly out from.
“She was just so wildly good at what she did,” LA aerial photographer Jake Asner, the memorial’s creator, told the Los Angeles Daily News.
“She had the scanners on, she was talking to … assignment desks … and controlling the camera. …. She did it like it was a piece of cake.”
He believed the airport was the best place for a memorial because it was a place “she loved.”
Jonathan Gonzalez, an NBC Los Angeles reporter, said Moreno was “damn good” at what she did, describing her as “one of a kind,” according to NBC News.
Moreno and the copter’s pilot, George Marciniw, were killed while reporting on a bus collision– as was Guatemalan national Edy Gutierrez Mejia, 29, who was on the ground.
The cause of the crash is still being investigated and the National Transportation Safety Board expects to release a preliminary report within 30 days.
Investigators will seek surveillance video from nearby buildings and review the helicopter’s logbooks as part of their probe.
The helicopter’s charred wreckage is also being examined and will be moved to a secure facility for further investigation.
The final report could take as long as 18 months to be published, but Fabian Salazar, the NTSB investigator-in-charge, said the livestream video documenting the copter’s final moments is “probably the most important evidence.”
The video shows the camera zooming out before several alarms sound as the helicopter begins its descent.
Then Moreno was heard asking, “You can’t pull up?”
The video then cuts out – which appears to be the moment the helicopter crashes.
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