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Patrice Runner, a 57-year-old Canadian and French citizen, directed a ruthless psychic mail scheme for over two decades, beginning in 1994, the jurors found.
It was one of the largest -- if not the largest -- scam of its kind ever, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Friday, June 16, in announcing the verdict reached a day earlier on Long Island.
Runner sent mailings to millions of Americans that claimed to be personal letters from popular psychics, including one who was known as Maria Duval, the DOJ said.
In the letters, the purported psychics claimed to have seen a "personalized vision" of the elderly or ailing recipient, federal authorities said. They promised to help that person achieve great wealth and happiness or overcome sickness -- all for a fee, of course.
The letters, which went to tens of thousands of targets a week, were pretty much identical and not personal, the Justice Department said in a release.
Once an initial payment was made, the release says, victims were "bombarded with dozens of additional letters" -- sometimes as many as 60 -- all "purporting to be personalized communications from the psychics and offering additional services and items for a fee."
Some victims were directed to send anywhere from five to $50 for "unique and supernatural objects" that were actually cheap, mass-produced trinkets. Others were urged to pay for "personalized astrological services and studies" that authorities said never materialized.
"Some victims made dozens of payments in response to the fraudulent letters, losing thousands of dollars," the DOJ release says.
Runner and his co-conspirators got the names of elderly and vulnerable victims by renting and trading mailing lists with other mail fraud operators, it says.
The so-called psychics identified in the letters had nothing to do with any of it, federal prosecutors emphasized.
Runner was in charge, providing instructions to co-conspirators who ran the day-to-day operations, federal authorities said. He hid his involvement behind shell companies registered in Canada and Hong Kong while moving about through Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, and Spain, they said.
Spanish authorities eventually seized Runner in Ibiza in April 2019 a year after he was indicted by a grand jury on Long Island. He was extradited to the U.S. in December 2020.
Runner was convicted Thursday of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering by the jury in U.S. Court for the Eastern District of New York in Central Islip.
The judge didn't immediately set a sentencing date. Runner will remain in federal custody on Long Island until that happens, authorities said.
Four other people previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud in connection with the scheme: Maria Thanos, 59, of Montreal, Canada; Philip Lett, 52, of Montreal, Canada; Sherry Gore, 72, of Indiana; and Daniel Arnold, 61, of Connecticut.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service investigated the case. Assistant Director John W. Burke and Trial Attorneys Charles B. Dunn, Rachel Baron, and Ann Entwistle of the Justice Department’s Consumer Protection Branch secured the verdict and are handling the sentencing.
Meanwhile, authorities urged citizens to watch out for similar lottery, prize notification and sweepstakes scams.
Fraudsters often will use official-sounding names or the names of real lotteries or sweepstakes, or pretend to be a government agent -- purportedly helping to secure a prize, they said.
Don't fall for it.
If you get a phone call, letter, or email promising a large prize in exchange for a fee, don't respond. Instead, contact the National Elder Fraud Hotline: 1-833-FRAUD-11 (1-833-372-8311).
The hotline, managed by the Justice Department's Office for Victims of Crime, provides "personalized support to callers by assessing the needs of the victim and identifying relevant next steps," the DOJ said in its release.
The hotline is open Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET. English, Spanish and other languages are available.
The Federal Trade Commission also provides a hotline at 877-FTC-HELP and a website at ftccomplaintassistant.gov that accepts consumer complaints.
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