While October is known as the spookiest month because of its connection to Halloween, most people understand that all of the ghost stories and paranormal activity is based in fantasy. It's supposed to be a little bit of fun to make our Halloween a little bit more exciting.
However, one woman has taken it to another level, and her "witchy" actions have actually landed her in trouble with the police.
Dorie "Madeena" Stevenson has been arrested and charged for something you don't hear much about. Her charges are for committing the illegal act of "Witchcraft."
That's right. Witchcraft is in the Criminal Code.
The woman has been under investigation for five months after claiming to be a psychic. She was discovered after one of her victims came forward, alleging that Stevenson had scammed them for over $60,000.
The so-called psychic was operating a registered business, but she was taking advantage of her clients. The victim claimed that she was forcing them the buy her gifts like cellphones, appliances, gift cards and more in order to be "cleansed."
Police released a statement with an explanation of cases like these.
"What we typically see is a tendency for perpetrators to take advantage of persons when they are in their most vulnerable state," Detective Sergeant Dave Costantini said.
"Victims are manipulated into believing something bad will happen to them unless they remit cash," the statement continued. "We even see incidents where victims are required to make purchases and remit these purchases in order to be cleansed. Purchased items include; new cell phones, jewelry, appliances and gift cards."
The con continues when the psychic assumes that the person will be too embarrassed to turn them in.
"Purchases are made under the assumption these items will be returned, but they never are. When victims cannot be squeezed any longer, the perpetrators rely on the victim's embarrassment in not contacting police."
Investigators were able to monitor her, and confirm that she had been extorting her clients, and charged her with extortion, fraud over $5,000, and "Witchcraft - Fortune Telling".
Witchcraft is defined in the Criminal Code of Canada as:
"Every one who pretends to exercise or to use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration; undertakes, for a consideration, to tell fortunes; or pretends from his skill in or knowledge of an occult or crafty science to discover where or in what manner anything that is supposed to have been stolen or lost may be found."
Now that they've managed to apprehend the con-artist, police suspect that there may be more victims who haven't come forward yet.
While it's odd that a law like this remains on the books, at least it has come in handy to help put a stop to someone who has been ruining people's lives.
Source - Huffington Post / The Star / Global / Narcity
