Fortuneteller Accused of $13,000 ‘Curse’ Scam

In what a detective described as “a typical bunco scam,” a Sherman Oaks fortuneteller has been arrested on suspicion of taking $13,000 from a woman to lift a “curse” that purportedly doomed her brother, Los Angeles police said Tuesday.

Police arrested Laura Johns, 28, on Monday at a house at 13528 Ventura Blvd., where she lives and operates, with her husband, a fortunetelling business under the name “Sheena,” Detective William Lacy said. Her husband was not arrested.

Lacy said Johns, whom police called a Gypsy, told a 28-year-old Tarzana woman of the curse, which was “a fear-type inference that referred to her brother being doomed.”

At first, Johns said $700 would be needed for her to lift the curse, according to Lacy. But, after the woman paid the money, the detective said, Johns claimed “something was wrong” and told her to fetch an egg from the store.

More Money Requested

The woman returned with the egg, which Johns broke, Lacy said. After gazing into the contents of the egg, Johns purportedly told the woman that “there was a real bad curse,” and that $1,400 more would be needed to lift it.

After the woman visited Johns several more times and paid her at least $11,000 in cash and, at Johns’ request, gave her a compact-disc stereo system worth $2,000, “finally she got the message” and complained to police, Lacy said.

In talking with the woman, Johns apparently had homed in on her close relationship with her brother, the detective said.

A search of the Johns home turned up Tarot cards, a crystal ball and other paraphernalia, Lacy said.

“I still don’t understand how people get roped into this,” he said.

Johns was arrested on suspicion of grand theft and released on $1,670 bond. She is to be arraigned May 4 in Van Nuys Municipal Court.

Detective Patrick Riley of the police bunco section said the Johns case sounded like a typical scam in which “the egg stunt is part of it, generally.”

“With a sleight-of-hand trick, they’ll drop a foreign object in there, and the person is convinced that it means something,” Riley said.