10 years in U.S. prison for Canadian who stole $175M in fake-psychic fraud

— A former Montreal resident has been sentenced to 10 years in a United States federal prison for a multi-decade fraud that manipulated more than one million Americans into sending money to fake psychics.

Patrice Runner, 57, was convicted of 14 charges, including mail fraud and wire fraud, in June 2023 after a trial in a New York Federal Court.

Runner, a Canadian and French citizen, was found to have stolen more than

$175 million from 1.3 million people in the U.S. between 1994 and 2014 by sending letters promising psychics would help them achieve wealth and happiness in exchange for a fee, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement.

In their sentencing recommendation, prosecutors said that on average Runner “defrauded more than 7,000 victims per week. Seven thousand victims would be notable in any case — but for Runner, that was only seven days’ work out of more than 20 years.”

Runner used a Montreal company to send the letters to people across the U.S. and Canada. Each one claimed to be a personal communication from “so-called ‘psychics’ Maria Duval and Patrick Guerin,” according to the Justice Department.

However, no purported psychics were involved in the operation and the personalized letters were nearly identical forms sent to people whose names were obtained from mailing lists created by other con artists.

People who sent money would receive dozens of additional letters offering to sell them more services and items with supposed magical powers.

Prosecutors had sought a 30-year sentence for Runner, a former Montrealer, who directed the scheme from a number of countries before he was arrested in Spain, from where he was extradited to the U.S. in 2020.

“Runner took total advantage of his victims and their desperation, millions of times. Each of those more than six million victim payments represents a person reaching out for help that never came and that Runner never even tried to provide.

Runner promised his victims easy, magical answers in exchange for a fee, and provided nothing in return except a cheap, fake trinket,” prosecutors wrote.

Runner’s defence lawyer had sought a five-year sentence, arguing that many of his client’s “customers” didn’t feel that they had been ripped off and that of those who did the vast majority lost no more than $40.

“The government has portrayed Patrice Runner as greedy, cynical, and heartless. He is none of those things,” James Darrow, an assistant federal defender, wrote in his sentencing recommendation.