There's sympathy, and then there's fundraising. ABC News with the details:

Alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has told his mother that people are sending him money and that someone opened an account for him, according to a new recording of their first phone call from prison. .... Dzhokhar also told his mother that he has received at least a "thousand" dollars in a bank account that someone opened for him since his arrest. The mother says the family has also received $8,000 from individuals pledging their support, according to Channel 4 News.

Tsarnaev has been allowed to call his parents about once a month while he awaits trial, but is not allowed to talk to them about the case itself, according to the report from the U.K.'s Channel 4, which was played a recording of the call in question by Dzhokhar's mother, Zubeidat.

The conversation itself took place in Russian and the network has aired only short excerpts of it (which you can hear below), leaving the details of the alleged donations unclear. For starters, Zubeidat appears to be a less-than-reliable narrator. But the frustratingly vague report also suggests, to me at least, the possibility that Dzhokar could have mentioned the "bank account" to put his mother at ease. (In her English-language interview with Channel 4, Zubeidat mentions that her son spent much of the call "just calming me down.") All we really know for certain from the report is that Zubeidat says that the money is pouring in. From whom and from where, of course, goes unsaid.

Tsarnaev's parents have made it clear that they don't believe their sons were involved in the bombings—a position that is at odds with law enforcement officials who say Tsarnaev confessed shortly after being taken into custody. According to Channel 4, however, Zubeidat denied previous reports that Dzhokar told them he was innocent, instead suggesting that he didn't need to. "I know that my kids did not do it," she said.

Here's the full Channel 4 report:

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