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Fraud

Crundy

Critical Thinker
Crundy
Joined
Feb 8, 2008
Messages
475
Just curious about the USA legal system; How is it that a psychic gets arrested and sent down for 20 days for fraud (e.g. http://whatstheharm.net/curses.html#thanos_savvides) for asking $1,200 to lift a spell, and yet people such as Sylvia Browne get away with charging $2,000 for a personal "reading" which is just as credible?

What is the difference with the two (apart from one being rich and famous)? Presumably the former was proven to not be able to lift curses, so why arn't others asked to prove their ability or face jail?
 
Crundy said:
Just curious about the USA legal system; How is it that a psychic gets arrested and sent down for 20 days for fraud (e.g. http://whatstheharm.net/curses.html#thanos_savvides) for asking $1,200 to lift a spell, and yet people such as Sylvia Browne get away with charging $2,000 for a personal "reading" which is just as credible?

What is the difference with the two (apart from one being rich and famous)? Presumably the former was proven to not be able to lift curses, so why arn't others asked to prove their ability or face jail?
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The first is extortion, i.e. pay me or bad things happen to you. The second is the result of ignorant sheeple willingly handing over their money.



Boo
 
There is also the small matter of finding someone willing to press charges while simultaneously having enough of a case to warrant the DA's efforts.
 
The people who bring criminal charges (prosecutors, attorneys general, district attorneys, etc.) are political animals. Despite very clear laws against fraud (taking people's money by deception), they will seldom go after psychics, faith healers and the like except in the most egregious cases. Even then, they're a lot more comfortable with other charges (like tax evasion, money laundering or whatever) where they don't have to say publicly that the claims that are being made are demonstrably false.
 
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Crundy said:
Just curious about the USA legal system; How is it that a psychic gets arrested and sent down for 20 days for fraud (e.g. http://whatstheharm.net/curses.html#thanos_savvides) for asking $1,200 to lift a spell, and yet people such as Sylvia Browne get away with...
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I think you have a good point there. But just to pick a nit, that particular case you linked was in Cyprus, not USA. ;)

Thanks for linking to my site, though! :)
 
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that particular case you linked was in Cyprus, not USA
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Whoops, my bad. You get the idea though.
Thanks for linking to my site, though!
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I love your site. I once got into an argument with one of my parent's friends, who is a homeopathist. After I had beaten down her last argument she basically said "well even if it is a placebo, it does help some people, so what's the harm?". I explained that people might be dying because they were not getting proper medical treatment and she challenged me to come up with one case where this has happened with homeopathy. Well, I wish your site was around then...
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
The people who bring criminal charges (prosecutors, attorneys general, district attorneys, etc.) are political animals. Despite very clear laws against fraud (taking people's money by deception), they will seldom go after psychics, faith healers and the like except in the most egregious cases. Even then, they're a lot more comfortable with other charges (like tax evasion, money laundering or whatever) where they don't have to say publicly that the claims that are being made are demonstrably false.
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In order to prove theft (or fraud, which the Model Penal Code would call "theft by deception") the authorities need to prove that the defendant had a specific intent to unlawfully deprive the victim of the use or benefit of their property. Lawyers call this a "culpable mental state" or a "mens rea", which literally means "guilty mind" in Latin. Proof of the mens rea, i.e. the "guilty mind" is just as important and necessary as proving that the defendant took the property of the victim. Thus, you would not only have to prove that the defendant was a fake psychic, but that the defendant knew that they were a fake psychic. Not only would you have to prove this, but you would have to do so beyond a reasonable doubt.

Unless the particular defendant was caught admitting that they knew that they were a fraud, it would be impossible to present any proof of the mens rea, much less proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Now, if you have a specific law against psychics or fortune tellers--then you might have a case.
 
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I'd like to see a "Certified Psychic" scheme of some kind, so only people who have been tested and proven to be psychic are allowed to provide psychic services. Any unlicenced people charging for psychic services could then be prosecuted a lot more easily.

It's not that much of a far reaching concept. For someone to perform open heart surgery on a person legally, they have to have been trained and tested to prove that they are able to do so. Why should it be any different?
 
richorman said:
Unless the particular defendant was caught admitting that they knew that they were a fraud, it would be impossible to present any proof of the mens rea, much less proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
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You're right that that makes it even MORE difficult to prosecute, but I think what separates the lack of psychic fraud prosecutions compared to other frauds is political will at least as much as it is the ability to make the case. (Which, I admit, has some overlap. Popular opinion of psychics can be assumed to be reflected in the jury pool.)

You don't think they can prove mens rea based on behavior? Like bilking someone for their life-savings, then skipping town. Isn't mens rea in other fraud cases similarly tricky? ("Honest judge, I really intended to install the siding I took payment for, but I've just been so busy. . .")

Actually, as I think about it, the mens rea is probably the sticking point people have (what I've been referring to as political will). Despite behavior that points to a psychic being a con artist (instructing clients to bring in hundred dollar bills so that the bad juju can be removed from them and placed in the bills which the psychic has to keep), people are much more willing to infer from behavior that a siding contractor who skips town was intentionally defrauding a home owner.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
You're right that that makes it even MORE difficult to prosecute.
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It would have been more accurate to say "virtually impossible to prosecute."

The siding contractor who fails to deliver is not a very close analogy because you have a tangible product that someone failed to deliver.

A "psychic" is generally going to "deliver" something--be it a prediction, a reading, a whatever you want to call it. The poor prosecutor would have to prove that it was a worthless something, that the defendant knew it was worthless, and most likely that the defendant knew that the victim of the crime mistakenly thought that the worthless something had some kind of value.

The only feasible way that I can see of doing that would be some kind of statement by the defendant, by means of a confession, statement to a friend, written documents, wiretaps, you name it, but some kind of admission on their part.
 
I seem to recall something that goes along the lines of "Adult Entertianment only."
 
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