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Psychic Who Bilked Lovelorn Man Out Of $550K Released From Jail In Plea Deal
By
Ben Yakas
Published Jan 27, 2016
Modified Jan 27, 2016
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Jan 27, 2016
Modified Jan 27, 2016
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It's hard to forget the story of Niall Rice, a 33-year-old consultant from England who was living in East Williamsburg when he was duped into paying two Midtown psychics a total of $718K in a desperate attempt to fix his life and find his soulmate. One of those psychics was Priscilla Kelly Delmaro, who was found guilty of grand larceny charges last May. The Times reports she was released from jail after only eight months this week thanks to a plea deal—and she hasn't been ordered to pay restitution to the man who she bilked out of $550K.
To catch you up: a depressed Rice first visited a Delancey Street psychic named Brandy, and started paying her money in the vain hope she could reunite him with the woman he loved, whom he had met and fallen for during rehab in Arizona.
After paying her hundreds of thousands of dollars, he turned to Delmaro in 2013; she started asking for large payments so she could talk to the spirits on his behalf. When she said she needed diamonds to protect his energy, he paid $40,064 for a ring from Tiffany’s. Things escalated: she asked for money for special crystals, a fake funeral ritual, a time machine and an 80-mile bridge made of gold (costing $80,000).
Even after Rice discovered that Michelle had died in February 2014, the payments kept coming. Delmaro swore she could reincarnate Michelle inside another woman who he would meet in California. The man lost his apartment, sold his car, and went into debt paying her.
Delmaro eventually admitted to the fraud: "I’m very sorry for what happened," she told a judge in court. The Times said that Rice is furious over her lenient sentence, writing a victim-impact statement railing against the plea deal:
“Think of a person,” Mr. Rice wrote, “going through difficult times. Perhaps it’s a death in the family, addiction, they could have just been let go from their job, even an illness or physical injury. Each one of those people you are thinking of has the potential to be a future victim of this crime.”
It seems there were two main reasons Rice got the plea deal: it was hard to find other victims to testify ("For those that do, like myself, they face instant criticism, are judged as a sucker — an idiot," Rice said of fellow victims), and Rice and Delmaro had sex once:
On one occasion, Mr. Rice and Ms. Delmaro had sex, Mr. Rice and Ms. Delmaro’s lawyer, Jeffrey Cylkowski, have both said. The change in their relationship could have made the payouts look like gifts, potentially hurting his credibility as a witness in the case.
“Delmaro will have profited $71,125 a month, tax free, for each month she was required to spend in jail,” Mr. Rice wrote. His statement was critical of the prosecutor in the case for not seeking out other victims by obtaining a search warrant for Ms. Delmaro’s cellphone. He also submitted accounts of a video that purports to show Ms. Delmaro’s companion, Bobby Evans, boasting that he was a “millionaire” and that, apparently using her middle name, “Kelly did it.”
As a final indignity, Rice's statement was not read outloud in the court. Delmaro, who has three children, will serve four years of probation.
As we've noted before: fortune tellers and "psychics" are garbage entertainers who prey on the weakness of the gullible and vulnerable for financial gain—this has proven true again and again and again and again and again and again. It's all fun and games until someone who is damaged (in some sense) loses their life savings.
As one convicted fortune teller put it: “If they are taking your money, they are not for real."
Tagged
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east williamsburg
fortune tellers
priscilla kelly delmaro
psychics
scams
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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