Spanish psychic ‘took £25k from woman to beat evil eye’
A SPANISH television tarot reader is on trial accused of scamming a woman out of more than £25,000 to save her from “the evil eye” through rituals that included a trip to Jerusalem to bury personal items in holy ground.
Pepita Vilallonga, a self-styled “seer” and regular late-night television tarot reader for 40 years, is accused of inducing such fear in her alleged victim that she could not stop spending money on rituals that she had never previously believed in. The plaintiff, a 77-year-old woman identified as Rosalía, told the court on the opening day of the trial on Tuesday that in autumn 2016 she had fallen into depression due to a painful hernia and financial worries.
One night watching television she saw Ms Vilallonga ply her trade and called for a personal appointment at the latter’s private premises in Barcelona, paying €100 for a tarot reading to answer her doubts over whether she could get a quick sale on her house.
Rosalía claimed Ms Vilallonga told her: “You have the evil eye on you. Death is at your back – you won’t live to the end of the week.”
Rosalía said that the tarot reader, one of her collaborators and her son, also accused of fraud, convinced her that her pet dogs were also in danger, leading her to start paying between €4,000 and €17,000 for rituals to ward off the curse. One of these rituals allegedly required the presence of Giorgio, whom she was told was a Vatican chaplain, and another is said to have involved the burial of her dogs’ collars and one of her socks in Jerusalem.
Rosalía said she came to her senses after talking to a friend, and went to Ms Vilallonga to demand receipts for the money she had obtained by emptying her pension funds. She claimed that she received threats when she asked for receipts and can only show evidence of having paid €2,400.
Rosalía’s lawyer has asked for an eight-year jail sentence for Ms Vilallonga, who was arrested in 2017 on suspicion of defrauding another woman of €300,000 but was not charged. Ms Vilallonga,
‘If they had told me I had to pay €100,000, I would have stolen the money or done whatever it took’
who says she gained her gift from her grandmother, denied the accusations, which she said had caused her reputation to be soiled. “We cannot make medical claims because we are not doctors; we simply treat the soul.”
The public prosecutor has not levelled criminal accusations against the tarot reader, arguing that the sound of mind know what to expect when they seek out tarot readings. “You believed it all?” the prosecutor asked Rosalía.
“Yes, at that moment, if they had told me I had to pay €100,000, I would have stolen the money or done whatever it took,” she said.