Soothsayers: Fortune and Misfortune : Case of Sherman Oaks Seer Accused of Fraud Puts Spotlight on Auras, Curses, Tarot Cards and Ethics

Last December a 26-year-old San Fernando Valley woman found a card on her car’s windshield advertising “the holy lady, the spiritual one” who could tell the future and remove bad luck for $5. On a lark, she tried it and, by June, had reportedly lost $13,000.

A 30-year-old man who moved to the Valley from Mexico and established a modest bakery was allegedly bilked out of $27,000 by a seer who said she shared his religious fervor and had had a personal audience with the Pope.

Another woman was offered a $20 Tarot card reading last month while shopping at a Canoga Park convenience store. Two hours later, police say, surrounded by religious paraphernalia and in a darkened room, she was told she had a curse that only $10,000 could lift.

All three were among an uncounted number of people lured to fortunetellers by promises of predicting the future or turning the tide of luck. Instead, some soothsayers’ customers are bilked of thousands of dollars, Los Angeles police say.

Not All Swindlers

Authorities are quick to point out that not all fortunetellers are swindlers. However, the fraudulent practices of a few have cast a spotlight on the profession in the wake of what police call one of the worst cases to hit the Valley in recent years.

The case involves four alleged victims--including the first two mentioned above--and is scheduled to go to trial in Van Nuys Superior Court later this month. It centers on Laura Johns, a Sherman Oaks fortuneteller who called herself Sheena. She is charged with grand theft of more than $40,000 allegedly taken from the four people. Johns has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

“She took all my savings; now I’m struggling to get by,” said one woman, a college-educated professional who asked that her name be withheld because she was humiliated by the episode.

“Every day, I try to block this out of my mind. I get so angry at myself. At first, I couldn’t tell anyone. I didn’t understand it myself, so how could I make someone else understand it?”

When she did eventually report it to the police, detectives told her that she was one of several such victims.

“We don’t know how many people have fallen for it,” said Los Angeles Police Sgt. Bill Martin of the West Valley division, which covers Canoga Park, where the woman was approached at a convenience store. “People that do fall for it, when their light bulb goes on, are often embarrassed, so many crimes go unreported,” he said.

“Many who have been victimized by these people just write it off, but, if they’re burned of several thousand dollars, they might go to the police,” said Police Detective Steve Hooks, who arrested Johns on suspicion of bilking $13,000 from one victim, $27,000 from another and $1,500 from two others.

‘Biggest One’

“Sheena’s the biggest one since I’ve been out here” in the Valley in terms of high-stakes fortunetellers, Hooks said.

Most fortunetellers, however, legitimately practice a tradition derived from ancient Hinduism, said Century City lawyer Robert Most, who has defended about 30 Gypsy fortunetellers over the last three years.

“Many fortunetellers have been practicing 20, 30, 40 years and never had any problems,” said Most, who worked on a landmark 1985 California Supreme Court case that made fortunetelling legal. “Bilking is something that no legitimate fortuneteller would condone.”

Some Southern California cities, such as Long Beach and Torrance, require fortunetellers to be licensed, but the City of Los Angeles does not.

Fraud Termed Rare

“There is a high percentage practicing legitimately, probably at least 90%, and many are practicing under city licenses,” Most said. “Ripping people off, at least in my experience, is pretty rare. We tend to only hear about the times when these things get attention, when a bad apple does things that result in a court case. But that’s very rare.”

The state Supreme Court in 1985 ruled unconstitutional a Los Angeles County ordinance prohibiting fortunetelling. Since then, authorities said, small storefront operations and shingles advertising fortunetellers have cropped up outside private homes throughout Southern California.

According to Most, there are about 100 to 150 fortunetellers in Southern California and perhaps 50 operating in the Valley, although there is no official tally.

At area swap meets, stalls with psychics and Tarot card readers have become popular with a steady clientele.

Marina Macarios, 63, has worked at the Valley Indoor Swap Meet in Woodland Hills for two years. Nicaraguan-born and strikingly attractive, she does a booming business in a stall filled with occult drawings, Tarot cards and her unique blend of “psychic therapy.”

Numerous Visits

In one hour last Friday, she was visited by a young woman, two middle-aged women, a young man and two elderly women, all requesting appointments. On weekends, there is often a line outside her small booth, she said.

“People come in at all hours to see her,” said security manager Bob Horowitz. “If there’s any degree of legitimacy, she’s probably one of the legitimate ones. We’ve never had any complaints about her ripping anybody off.”

“I listen. I just get vibrations from people,” Macarios said. “I sense an inner voice.” She calls herself a psychic and numerologist and combines Tarot card reading, astrology, positive thinking, pop psychology and Catholicism in sessions that cost $12.

Whereas people who allege they have been defrauded by seers speak of curses and frightening threats, Macarios emphasizes helping her customers become more successful.

“I don’t tell you I see an aura of bad vibrations around you, and you have to give me $300 and I will clear the aura,” Macarios said. “I tell my customers not to go for that. The only thing I will say is, ‘I want you to say a prayer,’ because this will increase the positive vibrations. But I won’t cast hexes or curses. I could never do that.”

The young woman who claims to have lost $13,000 to Johns said that the first time she visited the fortuneteller, she was told she was living under a curse. It could be lifted only after she participated in various bizarre rituals and turned over her money to be “cleansed,” the woman said Johns told her.

“She was very slick about it,” the woman said. “She came off as this very religious person. She said money was not important to her, she just wanted food for her family. She was just so persuasive, it was incredible.”

Testing of the Aura

Johns reportedly persuaded the woman, who works in television production, to “test her aura” by putting a jar of water in a brown paper bag by her bed. The next day she was instructed to bring the water in for testing, the woman said.

The fortuneteller rubbed the jar on the woman’s forehead, stomach and legs, then she placed it back in the bag and ordered “the evil in me to manifest itself,” the woman said.

The water turned purple.

“I could not figure out how she did it,” the woman said. “I had watched her hands the entire time. It was strange and bizarre, and it freaked me out.”

Sleight-of-hand is commonly used by fortunetellers, according to police who investigate such schemes.

“If you know how to do it, it’s simple,” Hooks said. “They are taught these skills by other fortunetellers, or they’re passed down for generations.”

To remove the curse, Johns told her she would have to take the water to a special church and perform an exorcism-like cleansing presided over by priests and nuns, the woman told police. Special candles for the ceremony cost her $70, the woman said. The session included several questions about her finances and the people close to her, she said.

“There’s always a solution to the problem, and it normally takes money,” said Sgt. Jose Alcantura, who has testified as an expert witness in fortunetelling fraud cases. “They go through the tricks to make believe that they’re removing curses.”

After the ceremony, the fortuneteller asked her to bring a tomato from home, the woman said. The seer smashed it open, she said, and uncovered two pieces of wood in the form of a cross. This, the fortuneteller purportedly said, symbolized that the curse had left the woman, but would pass on to her brother, who would die if she did not provide $7,000 to lift the curse. Johns, the woman recounted, assured her that she would get the money back after it had been properly cleansed and blessed in a church.

Johns’ attorney said the practices, however odd they might seem, only amount to traditional customs.

Constitutional Right Cited

“My client has a right to practice her religion, whether it’s in the form of fortunetelling or whatever,” said Sammy Weiss, attorney for Johns. “She simply believes that a curse, in lieu of a god, takes your body over. Therefore, you must rid yourself of this curse. She’s got all these procedures, tomatoes and stuff, that may sound crazy, but I’ve heard of a lot of crazier things. It may sound ridiculous to you or I, but she’s totally 100% legitimate.

“If anyone should be charged in this case,” Weiss said, the clients “should be charged with stupidity.”

Weiss regards Johns’ arrest as “overzealousness” on the part of the police, who he believes are trying to close fortunetelling businesses.

He said his client had merely borrowed $7,000 from her client with the intention of paying it back, and then was arrested. Johns is being held at Sybil Brand Institute on $65,000 bail.

“My client gave up hundreds and hundreds of hours of her time and beliefs, and tried to do her best to help them out,” he said. “Of course she takes money from people for her time, her counseling and her fortunetelling.”

Weiss said he thought Johns’ customers “had a lot of problems in their personal life and were looking for some type of outlet.”

“When some people turn to dope or booze, these people turned to fortunetelling,” said Weiss, who said he has represented 50 to 100 fortunetellers in his 15 years as an attorney. “It was a temporary escape for them; it gave them enjoyment and some satisfaction. After a while that dissipated, and the Police Department tried to convince them they’ve been defrauded in some fashion.”

Authorities said that people seek out soothsayers for help with a host of problems, and that they come from all backgrounds. Many go the first time just out of curiosity, as Johns’ customers did.

They are alike in that “they want to believe that this person actually has some sort of power to create things for them,” Hooks said.

The Catholic references that often pepper a fortuneteller’s speech serve to attract a wider variety of people, Alcantura said.

Johns “always tied things in with the church, and I believed in the church, so that intensified it,” the 26-year-old woman said. “When you were there, it was a very religious setting with statues, Bibles and pictures.” The decor of seers also often includes a crystal ball and Tarot cards.

“A lot of it is conversation back and forth, not unlike practicing psychology,” said Most. “Somebody who is good at talking to people, who has a lot of insight into human nature, can give people some ideas and direction.”

Skillful Salespeople

Perhaps most of all, fortunetellers are widely acknowledged as adept salespeople, able to effectively read their customers and persuade them to turn over some cash.

“These people are very convincing,” Hooks said. “They’re very smooth talkers, masters at conversing with people and finding things out about people that they don’t realize they’re giving out.”

Although Johns never actually predicted the 26-year-old woman’s future, the woman said, it took her almost a month of daily sessions to realize that she was being conned. She was frightened by the threats of harm to her brother if she didn’t turn her money over, she said.

“Everything was happening so fast, that’s what I think is part of it,” she said. “If I wasn’t so emotionally involved . . . I was crying in some of these sessions. At that point she would say, ‘You’ve got to stop crying, your brother is going to die.’ Somehow, the ‘what ifs’ kept me going, and also the belief that she’d return my money.”