Phony psychic sentenced for bilking woman of savings

A phony psychic who fled prosecution in Seattle and ended up on a wanted-fugitive list in Canada was sentenced Friday to 1-½ years in prison nearly nine years after tricking a lovesick woman into turning over her life savings to win back her boyfriend.

In sentencing 79-year-old Sophie Evon to a sentence longer than the standard three- to six-month range, King County Superior Court Judge Nicole MacInnes said she was unmoved by Evon's plea of guilt once she was finally caught after years on the run.

Prosecutors had asked for the exceptional sentence because of the amount of money involved and the victim's vulnerability.

But Evon's attorney said his client accepted responsibility by pleading guilty to three counts of first-degree theft in October and had already cut the victim two $5,000 "good faith" restitution checks.

Prosecutors said Evon and her daughter-in-law, Sylvia Lee, met the victim at a video store in the summer of 1999 and persuaded the woman that she needed a $300 "spiritual cleansing" to help her win back her ex-boyfriend.

Evon and Lee — who then ran a business called Ms. Lee's Psychic and Astrology Readings — told the distraught 26-year-old that her ex-boyfriend had been cursed by his former girlfriend, police and prosecutors said.

Over the next couple of days, Evon and Lee persuaded the victim, a recent immigrant from China, that she could free her boyfriend from the curse and be reunited with him by allowing them to pray over all the cash she could get her hands on, prosecutors said.

Despite her "doubts," the victim withdrew more than $200,000 cash from her savings account and her parents' retirement account and entrusted it to the two.

When the victim returned for an appointment with Evon and Lee two days later, she found the psychics and the money gone.

The two fortune tellers were tracked to Toronto, where they were arrested.

Lee, a U.S. citizen, was extradited to Washington, convicted by a jury of three counts of first-degree theft in 2001 and sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Evon, a Canadian citizen, fought extradition. When she was ordered extradited and her appeal denied, she fled from house arrest, King County deputy prosecutor Scott Peterson said.

She was the subject of a Canada-wide warrant until her arrest in Calgary last year.

Though the victim spoke at the hearing about what the ordeal had cost her, she asked to remain unnamed out of embarrassment.

"I'm afraid people will find out what happened to me," she said. "What a stupid person I was."

The victim, who now lives in Boston and is married to another man, flushed a deep red when asked during a break in Friday's hearing about the former boyfriend.

He wasn't really that important in the larger scheme of things, she said. She was lonely and desperate for advice, she said.

Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com