Page 57 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - September 2021

Searching for Psychic Ann 57

Searching for Psychic

Ann: One Man's Fight

Against a Shadowy Group

of Grifters

Continued from Page 56

Back in California, Elie was already $60,000 in
the hole. But Psychic Ann made him feel like a
VIP. She gave him an exclusive phone line to
contact her, made time to speak to him multiple
times each day and even coached him on what to
text his ex-girlfriend.

Eventually, Elie reconnected with his girlfriend.
The lawsuit says it happened “through no doing
of Psychic Ann,” but his relationship with the
clairvoyant didn’t end there. Psychic Ann and
her partners had nothing to offer by way of
mending Elie’s love life, so they shifted the
focus back to his mother’s impending illness. He
sent another cashier’s check, but it was the last.
gold at the pickup spot, Nygaard didn’t initially crimes were unsophisticated and more like “a
think much of his interaction with the women. family tradition.”
Elie became confident about his mother’s
Ten minutes after he left, though, his phone
health. With everything fine and well, he wanted
rang. It was the doctor. She asked if he could “Therein lies the problem,” Nygaard said. “Law
his deposits back.
meet her at a gas station on the corner. “I didn’t enforcement traditionally doesn’t view self-
know if she wanted to hook up or what the story proclaimed pyschics and the criminal
That’s when Psychic Ann and the others started
was,” he said. enterprises of which they are a part as being on
to go dark. Reaching them became more and
the same par or level as traditional organized
more difficult. When he did manage it, they
At the gas station, the doctor explained she crime.”
promised they were close to sealing the energy.
wanted to tell him something she had been too
They only needed a little more time.
embarrassed to mention in front of her The scammed are being financially destroyed,
coworker. A self-described psychic had ripped he said. Most police look at psychic fraud as a
According to the lawsuit, the deflections and
her off, taking $12,000. Even she couldn’t joke, turning away people who report it. Police
delays and promises went on until July, when the
believe someone of her intelligence could fall who attempt to take on the cases are often met
reality hit Elie: He’d been scammed. “At that
for something like this, Nygaard said. with reluctant prosecutors worried about ruining
point I knew it was all bullshit," he said. "I was
their track record. Victims are usually told no
just in shock."
Nygaard closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. crime has been committed because they
He thought on it, and then asked, “Was there a willingly gave away their money.
Bob Nygaard, a 59-year-old who lives in South
name? Marks?” Shocked, the doctor looked at
Florida, has seen it all before. As a private
him and said, “Yes it was. It’s Gina Marks.” She “When people gave their money to Bernie
investigator, he’s made a career out of hunting
asked how he could have possibly known the Madoff, did he put a gun to their head?”
down fraudulent psychics. Over the years, he’s
name. Joking, Nygaard said, “I’m psychic.” Nygaard asked. “If they’re right, and I’m wrong,
helped victims collect millions of dollars in
they ought to let him go.”
damages.
Nygaard’s work on the Marks case, which
ultimately led to her arrest, garnered him a lot of Nygaard and victims of such fraud are still
One night in 2008, Nygaard headed to happy
attention from the press. It was as if floodgates waiting for law enforcement to take them
hour at a bar and grill in Boca Raton. It was the
had been opened, he said, and they haven’t seriously. It's gotten better in some places,
pickup spot, Nygaard told me, and there he was
closed since. His phone rings constantly and his Nygaard said. In others, cops, prosecutors and
sitting across from two attractive, single women,
email inbox is full of inquiries from people just judges are just as clueless as ever.
a doctor and a nurse. He sipped a Bacardi and
like the doctor.
Coke, telling the women old war stories from his
*****
days working as a transit police officer in New
When the conned come to Nygaard, they
York City.
generally feel just as helpless as they did when Elie may have been wise to the con artistry, but
confronting their psychic. there was still a lot he didn’t know about
One of his stories piqued the women’s interest.
Psychic Ann. For one, she went by many names:
He told them about a band of five men known as
Though some of the criminals he deals with are Dorothy Marks, Dorothy Leath, Kathleen Marks
the Parks Brothers in New York. The group had
run-of-the-mill con artists, Nygaard said many and Kathy Leath, to name a few. (It wasn’t the
carried out a spate of home improvement scams
are connected to a larger network of Romani- same Marks that Nygaard had worked on. Marks
targeting the elderly, along with other swindles
American organized crime. He stresses not is a common name among such swindlers, as is
across the country.
everyone from this background is a fraudster. It Evans.)
is just a trend he has observed after years of his
“I said that one of the types of crimes that I
work. That first night they spoke, though, Elie only
really took an interest in was con artists,”
knew that he was talking to Psychic Ann.
Nygaard recalled. “I really like to match wits
More often than not, the hardest part of pursuing Psychic Ann, whatever her real name, was also
with con artists and cause them to be arrested.”
cases like this is getting law enforcement and connected to multiple businesses.
prosecutors to take them seriously. The judge in
The trio exchanged phone numbers and left the
Nygaard’s Marks case said he questioned the (Continued on Page 58)
bar a little later that night. Not having struck
mental makeup of the victims and that the