FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A South Florida “psychic” who admitted she defrauded about $1.2 million from clients – including a mentally ill man who was hearing voices – was sentenced to nearly 3 1/2 years in federal prison Friday.

Cynthia Miller, 36, who ran the Astrology Life store in Fort Lauderdale, was the last of nine family members to be sentenced for their roles in a psychic fraud conspiracy that federal prosecutors said fleeced more than $20 million from clients all over the world.

Miller, who advertised as a psychic and “life coach,” is a daughter-in-law of Rose Marks, the convicted ringleader of the conspiracy, which operated for more than 20 years out of homes and stores in some of Fort Lauderdale and Manhattan’s ritziest neighborhoods.

Miller admitted that she claimed she could communciate with spirits or guides, including Michael the Archangel, and had the power to remove curses and negativity from her clients’ lives. She told customers that money or valuables they gave her would either be burned, sacrificed or donated to charity or churches.

One of her victims was a man who heard voices in his head and was grieving the recent death of his father when he sought help at her Fort Lauderdale store.

He eventually gave her $400,000 worth of gold coins in the belief that she could fix his problems, prosecutors Roger Steffin and Larry Bardfeld said.

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Although Miller asked the man if he was taking his medication, she continued to take gold coins from him and told him that his “lack of faith” was the cause of his troubles.

When he later asked her to return the coins, Miller told him they “were buried in a cemetery and she could not remember where … that only Michael the Archangel would know” how to find them. The man later received psychiatric care in Mexico and his native Turkey.

Prosecutors said some of those gold coins were later found in a safety deposit box controlled by Miller’s husband, Michael Marks.

Miller also admitted that she took a huge amount of money from a Japanese woman who underwent multiple surgeries.


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