MIAMI – Did she see this coming?
A federal judge sentenced a so-called psychic and fortune teller from Miami who prosecutors say swindled more than $3 million out of a woman by claiming she needed the money to break a family curse.
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Fifty-one-year-old Samantha Stevens was sentenced to spend 30 months in prison on fraud and money laundering charges, officials said Thursday.
According to prosecutors, Stevens met the victim in 2012, gained her trust and convinced her that a curse had been placed on her family.
Stevens claimed she needed to “perform rituals on large sums of money in order to lift the curse,” prosecutors said.
The victim was led to believe that if she didn’t hand over the money, she and her family would be harmed.
Stevens, along with 42-year-old Michael Paul Guzman, with whom she was in a relationship, “spent the victim’s money on vehicles, property and casino gambling,” prosecutors said.
They said the two took the woman’s money over a four-year period, ending in 2016 after the victim could no longer pay for the rituals.
That led the victim to contact federal law enforcement.
Guzman was sentenced to spend 38 months in prison.
The two will also have to pay nearly $3.2 million in restitution.
Read the indictment: