Customers of Psychic Gave Her Thousands to See Their Past Lives
The customers of a Manhattan psychic are being forced to recount their current lives (in front of an entire court no less), lives in which they forked over thousands of dollars to a woman who proclaimed to tell them about their past lives.
Sylvia Mitchell, a high-priced psychic, is being charged with larceny in Manhattan criminal court. Now, two of the women accusing her of fraud (for not really being a psychic), are being cross-examined as to why on earth they coughed up thousands of dollars to a storefront psychic called Zena.
“I chose the cheapest thing on the menu, some sort of reading,” Ms. Saalfield said. That cost $75, and a second reading, $1,000. “She said that I was dealing with a past life, that I was an Egyptian princess,” and had a problem with attachment to money. Ms. Mitchell suggested that as an exercise, Ms. Saalfield write a check for $27,000 that Ms. Mitchell would hold and return whenever she wanted, Ms. Saalfield said.
Another defendant, Lee Choong, wrote more than $120,000 worth of checks to Ms. Mitchell, after Mitchell told her that her unrequited crush on a co-worker was because Choong's family had wronged the co-worker in a past life.
“What led you to go see a psychic instead of a licensed therapist?” Ms. Mitchell's lawyer asked Choong.
“I needed answers,” she said.
