The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Mentor psychic sentenced to 8 years
Woman stole $1.4M from 12 clients
Perhaps she should have seen it coming.
A Mentor psychic was sentenced April 27 to the maximum eight years in prison for stealing $1.4 million from 12 clients over a 15-year period.
Gina Miller, a married 42-yearold Madison Township woman, begged Lake County Common Pleas Judge Vincent A. Culotta for leniency since she has two teen sons — one of whom is bipolar.
“I’m sorry for anything I’ve done wrong,” she said. “Give me mercy for me and my son so I can
take care of him.”
But the judge said he could not ignore the fact that Miller “preyed upon those who came upon her in a vulnerable, desperate state.”
Defense attorney Louis Carlozzi asked the judge for a minimum sentence, noting that Miller had no prior criminal record and would not be able to pay the victims back if she were behind bars.
“Gina will never commit this crime ever again,” Carlozzi said. “In my 22 years of practicing law, I’ve never met a client with such genuine remorse.”
Carlozzi said Miller was the breadwinner of her family, and has been a fortune teller since she was 9 years old.
The defense attorney added that being a fortune teller was simply a part of her nomadic Romani culture.
“Her actions were not illegal. She took it a step too far,” Carlozzi said.
Assistant Lake County Prosecutor Charles Cichocki balked at the defense attorney’s version of events.
“She was not prosecuted due to her ethnic origin or career,” he said. “Gina Miller was prosecuted because she was a con artist.”
Cichocki said Miller charged $50 to $75 a session to determine a person’s frailties through cold readings, quickly sizing up victims through high-probability guesses. She then charged victims a larger fee to get to the root cause of a problem — usually to get rid of a curse.
“Many victims were seeking answers for problems that made them highly susceptible
to her psychological tactics,” he said. “Once all their cash was gone, she tricked them into leasing vehicles for her or giving her Rolex watches.”
Miller would tell her clients that they or a family member would be struck with tragedy, illness or death if they failed to let her help them get rid of the “darkness,” Cichocki added.
She isolated victims from their family members, and warned clients her work would fail if they spoke to others about it.
“She said she was doing God’s work,” the prosecutor said. “She preyed upon those with religious beliefs. She told them she could stave off death or help them win the lottery. Then she stopped taking their calls after they ran out of money.”
Cichocki played an audio tape in court of a victim wearing a wire for Mentor police. The victim had been leasing Miller a late-model Cadillac, and her credit was suffering because Miller had not been making the payments as promised.
“What will happen if I don’t make the payments?” the victim asked Miller.
“Your grandson would die,” Miller responded.
Many of the victims were elderly. Some were worried for their children in the armed forces or prison.
“One victim had diabetes. She told him not to take his medicine. He lost his leg to an amputation,” Cichocki said.
Miller’s $233,000 home is now in foreclosure. She spent much of the money on fancy furniture, furs, vacations and gambling.
Four of Miller’s victims spoke in court. The NewsHerald agreed not to identify them.
One young woman said she declared bankruptcy after becoming trapped in Miller’s game.
“I wish I had done more to escape from you before it got really bad for me,” the woman said. “At one point I wanted to get revenge on you by showing up on your front lawn to blow my brains out,” she said.
A 72-year-old woman told the judge she is forced to work two jobs now just to make the minimum payments on her credit cards.
“She has ruined my life,” the woman said.
“I cannot live long enough to pay off the debt. At 72 years of age, I should be retired and enjoying my final years. I couldn’t afford to attend my mom’s funeral in South Carolina in February. My entire family is now upset with me.”
Miller previously pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated theft with a forfeiture specification.
She operated Gina’s Psychic Studio at 7496 Mentor Ave.
Miller originally was charged with 28 counts. However, all of the counts merge into one for sentencing purposes, so the maximum penalty will be the same even though she pleaded to just one offense, Cichocki said.
The forfeiture specification means Miller will lose property seized by officials that was used in the commission of the crimes.
Mentor police first began looking into the business in March 2015 after she was accused of stealing money from an elderly woman over six months.
Police said investigators have identified other potential victims in the case, but the statute of limitations had run out for some of them. In other cases, people were too embarrassed to cooperate.
Culotta, who also ordered Miller to pay each victim back, said the theft was the largest amount he’s seen as judge.