Post by Joanna on Jan 17, 2014 0:04:49 GMT -5
Psychic-scam defendant gets 4 years in prison and ordered to repay $2.2 million
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – A top lieutenant in a far-flung and lucrative fortune-telling business on Monday was sentenced to nearly four years in prison and ordered to pay $2.2 million restitution to her victims.
Her attorney tried to persuade U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Marra that 44-year-old Nancy Marks (above) deserved leniency. As a member of the Romany culture, where women have worked as psychics for centuries, she didn’t know what she was doing was wrong, said attorney Michael Gottlieb.
Federal prosecutors countered that Marks, like her mother-in-law, family matriarch Rose Marks, chose her victims carefully. They targeted those who had recently suffered devastating losses and milked them for hundreds of thousands of dollars, said prosecutor Roger Stefin.
Nancy Marks’ sentence signals that Rose Marks, 62, is likely to be sent to prison for a long time and ordered to pay a large amount in restitution – likely at least $17.8 million – when she is sentenced March 3, lawyers for both sides said. She has been in federal custody since she was convicted in September of 14 charges in connection with the operation that lured victims from storefronts in New York City and Fort Lauderdale.
“They would make people think they were helping them when they were going through these crises when all they were trying to do was extracting money from them regardless of their emotional or mental health,” he said.
Unlike Rose Marks, who fleeced best-selling romance novelist Jude Deveraux out of an estimated $20 million, Nancy Marks didn’t have a “big score,” Stefin said, but her 10 victims still bear emotional and financial scars of her trickery.
Nancy Marks received the harshest punishment of the seven family members who have been sentenced for their role in what prosecutors say was a $25 million scheme. Further, it is the first time restitution has been ordered.
Marra also ordered Nancy Marks’ husband, Ricky, to pay $570,000 in restitution and her daughter, Vivian, to pay $189,000. Rose Marks’ son, Michael, was ordered to pay $394,000 to the victims.
Restitution orders are pending for other family members and one, Cynthia Miller, also awaits sentencing. Miller is Rose Marks’ other daughter-in-law.
Source: Jane Musgrave, The Palm Beach Post, January 13, 2014.