Thursday, October 3, 2013

Psychic whipped up bizarre tale to scam $27K: Prosecutors

NYC PAPERS OUT. Social media use restricted to low res file max 184 x 128 pixels and 72 dpi


Jefferson Siegel


Sylvia Mitchell appears in Manhattan Supreme Court on Monday, September 30, 2013. Mitchell, a fortune teller, is charged with grand larceny and a scheme to defraud.



Accused scammer “psychic” Sylvia Mitchell told a desperate single mom a bizarre tale of ancient Egyptian fiction to convince her to cough up $ 27,000 to rid herself of a dependency on money, the duped woman testified Thursday.


“She said she had information for me … that I was dealing with a past life,” the woman, Debra Saalfield testified on the first day of Mitchell’s grand larceny trial in Manhattan Supreme Court.


Mitchell told her in Aug. 2008 when she visited Mitchell’s shop “that I was once an Egyptian princess and that I was part of a ruling city, a good doer, but that I had a problem with attachment to money.”


RELATED: EX-COP BUSTS PSYCHIC SCAMMERS


The wacky ploy worked and Saalfield, a professional dancer from Naples, Fla. who had just been fired from a job in New York and had gone through a nasty breakup, put her faith in Mitchell, a Greenwich Village fortune teller with a history of arrests for defrauding deep-pocketed clients.


“I had a meltdown. I lost it. I was unable to keep myself together,” Saalfield said about the reason she went to Mitchell for guidance, in spite of a warning by her ex-boyfriend. She was living part-time with the ex on Grove St., right near Zena, Mitchell’s clairvoyant business.


But she quickly realized she had done the wrong thing and called Mitchell to try to take it back. She said Mitchell promised her the money would be in a safe place and would be returned.


RELATED: PSYCHIC PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO FRAUD


“I called her immediately and said that I made a mistake and that I needed my money back,” Saalfield said.


But on cross-examination, Saalfield admitted she went to Mitchell “both” for guidance and to spite her former boyfriend, who warned her to stay out of Mitchell’s shop.


Prosecutors say Mitchell exploited two vulnerable victims: Saalfield and another woman, from Singapore, who Mitchell took over $ 100,000 from in exchange for bad spirit ridding services.


RELATED: WEST VILLAGE PSYCHIC CUFFED IN ‘BAD SPIRITS’ SCHEME


“The defendant is not in the business of cleansing spirits. She’s in the biz of cleaning out bank accounts,” Assistant District Attorney James Bergamo said in his opening statement.


Bergmao said Mitchell is a purported psychic but is “far more sinister” than the $ 5 palm reading boardwalk variety.


Mitchell’s lawyer, William Aronwald, said prosecutors will be unable to prove the two women didn’t get what they paid for when they hired Mitchell.


“You will not hear any evidence in this case that she did not provide the services that she was contracted to provide by them,” he said.


Mitchell faces up to 15 years in prison on the top grand larceny count. She is also charged with a single count of scheme to defraud.





Yahoo Local News – New York Daily News




http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=14985

via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info

No comments:

Post a Comment