She didn’t see this in her future.
A Greenwich Village psychic who was convicted of stealing over $120,000 from two vulnerable victims — after turning down a no jail plea deal — wept Thursday as a Manhattan judge sentenced her to 5 to 15 years behind bars.
The normally primped and preened soothsayer looked haggard with her hair frizzy, her roots outgrown and not a dab of makeup on her face.
“I would just like to say that 30 days in Rikers island has been very difficult on me,” Sylvia Mitchell said tearfully as her husband and children looked on from the gallery.
“I have had a lot of time to think and I realize what I’ve done is wrong,” she added, pleading for leniency.
“I just want to be with my children, go back to school and find a new profession and start over again,” she whimpered. “My children really need me and I miss them and I’m sorry.”
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro, who had tossed Mitchell in jail after the Oct. 11 jury verdict as a flight risk, was unmoved.
He hit the 38-year-old mother of two teenagers with the hefty sentence and also ordered her pay full restitution to the victims.
“We have lots of con artists in NYC,” said Carro. “You had the perfect set up, you had that nice storefront.”
He said she preyed on the vulnerable and troubled. “You just conned them out of thousands of dollars never thinking about their family,” he said sternly. “Children also have to learn that when you steal there’s a consequence to it.”
Prosecutors read letters from both victims who testified during the trial.
After losing her job and boyrfriend in the same week, ballroom dancer Debra Saalfield coughed up $27,000 to Mitchell who promised to help her improve her life.
“She has destroyed a piece of me that I will never get back,” she wrote. “She has taken my self respect away from me. She has affected my health, my family relationships and my honor.”
Lee Choong, who has an MBA from NYU, developed a crush on a female co-worker and was struggling with her sexual identity when she sought out guidance from Mitchell who swindled her out of $100,000.
Choong said the loss of her life savings has made it difficult to provide proper care to her ailing mom. “I suffer guilt and sorrow whenever I think about this,” she wrote. “I constantly wish I could do more for my mother.”