Bob Nygaard

An incident in late 2008 at a neighborhood bar set Nygaard on the career path of investigating psychic scams.[1][6] At a happy hour, Nygaard met two women in the medical profession and regaled them with stories about how he had outsmarted con artists and helped their victims. Shortly after leaving the bar, one of the women – a doctor – called him requesting a meeting alone. She was embarrassed, but revealed she had been scammed by a local psychic named Gina Marie Marks,[1][5] a well-known Florida fortune-teller with a recently published pseudonymous memoir Miami Psychic: Confessions of a Confidante.[4] Nygaard took the case and investigated Marks, ultimately uncovering five other victims of Marks who had been defrauded of a total of $65,000. Despite having gathered this evidence, the authorities refused to press charges against Marks after she agreed to return all the money to the group of victims Nygaard had uncovered. The authorities felt that was enough,[5] but Nygaard disagreed:

It's a revolving door of justice where these people get in trouble, and they try to pay people off – usually pennies on the dollar, but in this case it was the full amount ... And then they never have a conviction on their record and they just go out and do the same thing.

The coverage of the Marks case led to more requests for help, which in turn led to more media coverage and additional cases.[4]

In April 2014, ABC News did a segment on a South Florida psychic fraud case, and interviewed Nygaard. He was later hired as a consultant for segments on scammers. That led to a 20/20 piece featuring Nygaard's work, which was a "ratings home run, with an estimated 8.2 million viewers". Nygaard said that as a result, "My phone started lighting up, and it hasn't stopped since".[7]

On May 7, 2018, Nygaard and one of his clients (Priti Mahalanobis) appeared on the Dr. Oz television show to discuss the way in which Ms. Mahalanobis had been scammed out of $136,000 by a fake psychic in Orlando named Peaches Stevens.[8][9]

On August 11, 2018, CBS first aired episode 3 of season 1 of its show Pink Collar Crimes, titled "The Psychic Didn't See Him Coming". The episode tells the story of Gina Marie Marks and of Nygaard's investigation of her crimes over a period of 10 years, from 2008 to 2018. Nygaard played himself on the show.[10][11]

On March 17, 2021, ABC TV aired episode 6 of season 1 of The Con, "The Psychic Con"[12] which interviews Nygaard and mentalist Mark Edward throughout the episode while telling the stories of three of Nygaard's clients.[13] Each woman became emotionally dependent on their psychic and were defrauded out of tens of thousands of dollars, but then sought the help of Nygaard to obtain justice.[14]

A psychic storefront

The scale of the psychic fraud problem is tremendous. Nygaard says he is familiar with a Florida case in which a woman claimed to have been defrauded of $17 million by fortune-tellers,[15] and he personally has worked a case where his client was defrauded of $900,000.[16]

A Skeptical Inquirer article reports that, as of February 2020, Nygaard had "helped to cause approximately forty self-proclaimed psychics to be arrested and successfully convicted" and had helped victims recover in excess of $4 million. Regarding the recovery amount, Nygaard said that the $4 million reflects what his clients have actually recovered as a result of his efforts. The criminal restitution orders, he says, were for much more. However victims are largely unable to collect on such orders given that self-proclaimed psychics rarely keep any assets in their own names.[17]

Nygaard has been involved with a number of notable cases, including the following:

In 2015, on behalf of his client from Brooklyn, Nygaard led police to Priscilla Kelly Delmaro, who had defrauded his client of over $700,000. Delmaro had convinced her client that he and a woman named Michelle were "twin flames kept apart by negativity", and she could bring them together. After the victim learned Michelle had died, Delmaro said she would reincarnate her in another woman's body.[18][19] Over Nygaard's objection, Delmaro was offered a plea bargain including a sentence of less than one year, with no requirement to pay restitution.[20] Nygaard called the outcome a "travesty" that will encourage what he says is a booming nationwide trade in psychic scams.[21]

Gina Marks as photographed by Nygaard, 8/31/17

In 2016, Gina Marie Marks, using the pseudonym Natalie Miller, convinced a Maryland woman that she had bad energy around her which she could fix. When Marks stopped answering the victim's phone calls after being paid $82,000 over many months, the woman realized she was being scammed and called the police and Nygaard. An arrest warrant was issued, but Marks had fled. Nygaard tracked her to Miami International Airport, and contacted the police, who took her into custody just before she boarded a flight to Barcelona.[22] Nygaard said, "I saw her come in with her husband and then I followed her through the TSA line, went in (and) followed them to the gate just about 15 to 20 minutes prior to her boarding the plane and heading to Europe". For Nygaard, this was a repeat run-in with Marks; he was instrumental in two previous convictions in Broward County when Marks was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2010, and forced to repay more than half a million dollars to her victims.[22][23]

In 2018, Marks was convicted of stealing more than $340,000 from five victims over three years. In September 2018, Marks was sentenced to six years in prison and ordered to pay restitution to her victims, with the judge stating that Marks' actions were premeditated and she preyed on vulnerable people.[24][25]

In 2018, CBS aired an episode of its show Pink Collar Crimes documenting Marks' criminal activities and her pursuit by Nygaard.[10][11]

In 2017, Melissa Lee of Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, was charged with felony grand theft for defrauding her clients of over $100,000. She was arrested after Nygaard tracked down the psychic on behalf of a young actress who alleged that the psychic had fraudulently taken $32,000.[26]

In 2017, a woman from Washington reported that she was defrauded by Linda Marks, who was operating a fortunetelling business north of Seattle, when the psychic claimed to be helping her with "spiritual cleansing and destroying evil energy". Eventually, suspecting a con, the woman enlisted the help of Nygaard, who said his client had paid Marks over $50,000 over many months. Mount Vernon police met with Nygaard and Seattle police, and started gathering details on Marks. Nygaard located Marks, leading to her arrest in Mount Vernon on charges of first-degree theft by deception; she was initially held on a $75,000 bail bond. A decade earlier, Marks had defrauded victims in South Florida of more than $2 million. In May 2006, Marks was convicted in U.S. District Court in Miami, but had been freed from Florida prison in 2008.[27]

On September 6, 2019, Sherry Tina Uwanawich (aka Jacklyn Miller), a self-proclaimed "Gypsy healer", was sentenced to 40 months of incarceration by a U.S. District Judge in Florida, and ordered to pay restitution to Nygaard's client.[28][29]

Uwanawich said she grew up in the "Roma culture", and the women in her family all made money in fortune-telling "at the behest of the men". She had worked at low-income locations until 17 years old, when she encountered Nygaard's client, who was then 27-year-old, at the Galleria in Houston, Texas in 2007. Uwanawich gained her trust, eventually convincing her that a witch had placed a curse on her family. Uwanawich then claimed she needed large sums of money in order to lift that curse, before harm befell her and her family. The relationship between Uwanawich and her victim continued for seven years, even after Uwanawich moved to Florida. In total, through 2014, the victim turned over approximately $1.6 million to Uwanawich.[28]

The victim, a Brazilian medical student who was suffering from depression,[30] turned over money to Uwanawich, which came from numerous sources, including job earnings, loan money, money borrowed from friends and family, and hundreds-of-thousands of dollars from an inheritance. The victim also paid for the psychic's services with clothing, gift cards, and a leased automobile.[28]

Following sentencing, Nygaard said:

I'm really proud of [my client] for being brave and seeking justice instead of suffering in silence as many victims often do... If there's one thing that I've learned from years of specializing in investigating confidence crimes it's that anyone can be scammed by a professional con artist when going through a vulnerable time in his or her life.[28]