A wealthy, wide-eyed stock trader was duped out of nearly $500,000 by a fortune teller who told him there was “evil in his life” and that she could get rid of it for him, for a price, authorities said.
Douglas Lonneker – a free-spirited, successful entrepreneur from tony Wilson, Wyo. – was fleeced by scam artist Tammy Mitchell at her storefront business at 11 E. 32nd St. over several months last year, after she told him he was “cursed,” officials claimed yesterday.
Mitchell – featured as a fraudster in a 2006 segment of ABC’s “20/20” called “Duped in America: Why We Believe” – warned Lonneker, 42, that he needed to send her money “for praying, meditation and an exorcism,” according to the criminal complaint.
Mitchell, 43, “claimed and pretended uses of occult powers to answer questions and give advice on personal matters and to exorcise, influence and affect evil spirits and curses,” charges the complaint, filed in Manhattan Criminal Court.
Lonneker – a self-proclaimed “spiritual” man, real-estate investor and market trader who briefly lived in Manhattan before settling in Wilson – bought Mitchell’s claim hook, line and sinker, authorities said.
It wound up sinking him to the tune of $487,000, they said.
She was charged with grand larceny and fortune-telling and is being held on $10,000 bail, said a spokeswoman with the Manhattan DA’s Office.
It’s unclear what first brought him to Mitchell’s tiny store with its green awning boasting “Psychic Reader.” It appears that Lonneker may have lived at the building briefly in 1987. He did not return calls for comment.
But neighbors at the building weren’t surprise he got duped.
They said Mitchell regularly approached them in the hallway with similar lines of “evil” lurking around them – and was very convincing.
One neighbor said she recently warned him, “I see a spirit behind you. You’ve got jealousy from spirits.’
Mitchell has been busted at least four other times for allegedly swindling people from New Jersey to Florida.
Mitchell’s lawyer, Brian Kaplan, declined to comment.
Additional reporting by Tom Liddy