Convicted psychic swindler Rose Marks was sentenced to just over 10 years in federal prison Monday for defrauding clients of her family's fortune-telling businesses out of more than $17.8 million.
Looking frail and downtrodden, Marks, 62, of Fort Lauderdale, sobbed as she apologized to her victims, her family and everyone she hurt, saying her former clients had been some of her best and closest friends.
"At the time, I didn't realize what I was doing was wrong," she said, begging the judge for mercy. "Now, I realize that I caused a lot of hurt and disappointment."
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In trial, Deveraux and several other victims testified that Marks and her family — several of whom worked under the name Joyce Michael in Fort Lauderdale and New York City — exploited them during vulnerable times in their lives. Victims said the women of the family were masterful in their ability to use people's spiritual or religious beliefs to get them to hand over money and other valuables.
Victims testified that she convinced them she could swap people's souls between bodies, prevent a woman from conceiving via in vitro fertilization and even use her psychic powers to prevent the Internal Revenue Service from going after them for taxes.
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Though U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra previously made it clear that he thought the family's crimes were despicable, he rejected the prosecution's request for a much tougher penalty.
The judge said he didn't believe the fraud was sophisticated and, responding to the defense's argument that the Roma, or Gypsy, family was following a centuries-old tradition of fortune-telling, said he believed the fraud was operated more like "a family tradition."
He wondered aloud about the "outlandish" nature of the tales Marks and her family told their clients and why anyone would fall for the absurd promises and predictions they made.
"I'm certainly not a psychologist and I can't try to figure out why any rational human being would have believed any of the representations being made," Marra said. "These people, for whatever reason, wanted to believe these crazy stories that were being told to them. …There's something else in their mental makeup, their psychological make up, that caused them to want to believe in this."
Psychic fraud: Rose Marks sentenced to 10 years in prison - Sun Sentinel
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