Woman claims fortuneteller who could ward off evil spirits made her $20,000 disappear
Published By admin
A Long Island man who claimed he could ‘banish evil spirits’ is now facing criminal charges after allegedly scamming a senior citizen out of tens of thousands of dollars, Nassau County police said.
Hemanth Kumar Muneppa, 33, was arrested Thursday in the parking lot of a Hicksville bank, where authorities say he was attempting to get a 68-year-old woman to withdraw an additional $42,000 after previously convincing her to pay $20,000 for psychic services.
According to investigators, Muneppa worked out of a psychic and astrology business called Anjana Ji on South Broadway, where he posed as a fortune teller and offered to ‘purchase the power to fight evil spirits’ on the victim’s behalf.
Police said the woman returned to the shop on Friday for further services, where Muneppa allegedly demanded another $42,000 and drove her to a nearby bank to retrieve the cash.
Bank employees, concerned that the woman was being scammed, alerted police and officers arrested the so-called fortune teller at the scene.
Muneppa, of South Richmond Hill, has since been charged with third-degree grand larceny, third-degree attempted grand larceny, and two misdemeanor counts of fortune telling – a rarely used statute in New York that criminalizes accepting money for spiritual services unless they are strictly for entertainment.
Content retrieved from: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14922031/Long-Island-fortune-teller-scammed-Hemanth-Kumar-Muneppa.html.
