A Maryland woman who sought the help of a psychic to find love instead was swindled out of tens of thousands of dollars. Meagan Fitzgerald reports.
A Maryland woman who sought the help of a psychic to find love wound being swindled for tens of thousands of dollars.
The victim, a woman in her late 20s who asked not to be identified, found Gina Marie Marks in May 2016. Marks said she was a psychic named Natalie Miller and convinced the victim she had bad energy around her, which would cost thousands of dollars to fix.
“She claims that she has the power to fix everything,” the victim said. “She claimed that I had some black magic around me, some darkness around me that I needed to be removed. She kept asking me for money and she said she needed more money to do the rituals.”
The victim visited Marks at a Bethesda home and paid more than $82,000 in cash and credit.
In November 2016, when Marks stopped answering the victim’s phone calls, she realized she was being scammed.
The victim called police and private investigator Bob Nygaard.
“Gina Marie Marks sized her up and told her that she saw these relationship problems were black magic,” Nygaard said.
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A warrant for her arrest was issued, but she fled, investigators said.
Nygaard tracked Marks down to Miami International Airport and contacted police, who took her into custody just before her flight was scheduled to take off.
Nygaard said it wasn’t his first run-in with the suspect.
“I had her arrested somewhere around 2010 for defrauding three women of $503,000,” he said. “She was sentenced to 18 months in a Florida prison.”
Marks is expected to be extradited to Montgomery County to face grand theft charges.
Anyone else who has dealt with Marks should call police.
