Too bad he couldn’t foresee getting caught.
Federal regulators filed suit today against a self-proclaimed psychic who allegedly scammed $6 million by conning suckers into believing that his extrasensory abilities would make them “piles of money” by trading foreign currencies.
Sean David Morton — who bills himself as “America’s Prophet” — “falsely touted his historical success in psychically predicting the various rises and falls of the market,” according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The California-based huckster — whose Web site shows him posing with celebs including Sting, Robin Williams and the late Farrah Fawcett — solicited investors on late-night radio shows and at the 2006 “New Life Expo” in New York City, the Manhattan federal court filing says.
The suit seeks to put an end to Morton’s alleged fraud and force him to cough up his “ill-gotten gains” along with unspecified fines.
Morton, 51, allegedly lied repeatedly to more than 100 investors in his Delphi Investment Group, which the SEC says “was not an actual company but was simply a moniker Morton used.”
He falsely claimed investor funds would be placed into three different accounts called “Vajra Productions,” “27 Investments” and “Magic Eight Ball Distributing,” that were really just shell companies, the suit says.
In reality, the SEC says “he invested only about half of the funds with foreign currency trading firms” and diverted the rest, including $240,000 that went to a non-profit religious organization called the Prophecy Research Institute that he runs with his wife, Melissa, who’s also named in the suit.
Morton, who’s slated to appear later this month at the New Life Expo at the New Yorker Hotel, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.