Actually I was mistaken about the income tax. Donations via GoFundMe or similar fund raisers are considered personal gifts and the recipient is not taxed.
Any individual donor who gave more than $17k would have to pay gift taxes - but there is a good chance that no one gave that much. In either case he keeps the $400k tax free.
That can't be right. That leaves too much room for fraud. People paying money owed via GoFundMe so as to avoid income tax.