Psychic conned woman out of millions to lift curses. She didn’t predict what happened next
A fortune teller swindled a Miami woman out of more than $3 million by convincing her that she needed a medium to remove the curses out of her life.
The psychic, however, didn’t foresee her own future: years behind bars in federal prison.
Samantha Stevens, 51, was sentenced to two and a half years and codefendant Michael Paul Guzman, 42, to three years and two months for money laundering and running a fortune telling fraud scheme. The duo was also ordered to pay the victim $3.2 million.
Stevens met the victim in 2012 and told her that she needed to perform rituals by using large sums of money to lift the curses that plagued her life, according to court records. If the victim refused to pay up, Stevens would insist that her family, too, would be harmed.
For four years, the medium hoodwinked the woman out of millions. Stevens even claimed that she had the power to get dead loved ones into heaven, according to court records. She told the victim that her father’s soul was trapped outside the gates of heaven; but there was one caveat: the only way to save him was by giving her money.
While the woman paid away her curses, Stevens and Guzman lived lavishly. Court records show the pair visited casinos in Las Vegas and purchased a Coconut Grove townhouse, a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee and a 2014 Airstream Land Yacht with the victim’s “dirty money.”
In 2016, Stevens ghosted the woman because she could no longer afford the rituals, which the affidavit did not detail.
Realizing she had been defrauded, the victim contacted federal police, which led the IRS’ Miami Field Office to trace the cash back to the psychic and ultimately include prison in the scammers’ future.
