A South Florida girl claiming to be a psychic has been sentenced to federal jail alongside together with her accomplice for orchestrating a “family curse, fortune telling and swindling a victim out of more than $3 million,” prosecutors introduced Thursday.
The fraud ran for a number of years and solely ended after the sufferer might not afford to pay for money-cleansing rituals, the Department of Justice mentioned.
Samantha Stevens, a self-professed religious advisor, was sentenced to 2 years and 6 months in jail in October. Michael Paul Guzman, was sentenced final month to 3 years and two months, in line with court docket information. Both had pleaded responsible to cash laundering in Miami federal court docket as a part of a cope with prosecutors. Stevens, 51, and Guzman, 42, additionally agreed to pay practically $3.2 million in restitution to the sufferer.
According to court docket paperwork, Stevens was portraying herself as a psychic and fortune teller in 2012 when she met a sufferer in Miami. Stevens gained the sufferer’s belief and satisfied her {that a} curse had been positioned on her and her household.
“Stevens claimed she needed to perform rituals on large sums of money in order to lift the curse,” prosecutors wrote. “Failure to do so—the victim was led to believe—would result in harm to her and her family.”
Stevens and Guzman spent the sufferer’s cash on automobiles, property and on line casino playing, officers mentioned. The relationship between Stevens and the sufferer lasted till 2016, when Stevens minimize off communication after the sufferer not might pay for the rituals. Once Stevens severed the connection, the sufferer contacted federal legislation enforcement.
According to the Miami New Times, Stevens argued in court docket that the ceremonies she carried out have been an expression of her faith and the shopper “received exactly what she bargained for.”
The decide was not persuaded.
This shouldn’t be the primary time self-proclaimed psychics have been sentenced to jail in Florida. In 2020, a girl and her daughter have been sentenced for “defrauding two victims with their spiritual scams” and in 2019, a girl was reportedly sentenced to greater than three years in jail for a “fortune telling” fraud scheme. In 2014, a South Florida girl who claimed to be a psychic with the flexibility to positively affect terminal most cancers was sentenced to 3 years and 9 months in jail.