A woman who claimed to be psychic in order to mastermind a scheme that resulted in a Maryland man embezzling more than $4 million from his employer has been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia announced Thursday.
Gina Rita Russell, 35, is the sixth defendant to be sentenced in the scheme, after being indicted in 2018 along with her ex-common-law husband Robert Evans, his brothers Tony John Evans and Corry Blue Evans, and the brothers’ parents, Archie Kaslov and Candy Evans, all of New York.
The "elaborate" scheme dates back to 2009, when Russell performed a "psychic reading" for a New York woman, though she has no psychic powers, and convinced her that bad things would happen to her unless she raised large sums of money for Russell and her family.
The woman began paying Russell money from her lawful jobs, but that wasn't enough. Russell convinced the woman to lie to her father so he would send her large sums of money for expenses such as therapy and university tuition. When the woman's father eventually stopped sending money, Russell convinced the woman to engage in sex work.
As a sex worker, the woman met a client from Maryland who eventually declared his love for her and proposed, despite being married with children. "Preying on his affection," the woman conspired with Russell and her family to extort money and gold bars from the victim.
The woman claimed her life was in danger because she owed money to bad people. In order to help her, the Maryland man embezzled more than $4 million from his Washington, D.C., employer between January and March of 2017.
As part of the scheme, Russell had Tony John Evans impersonate a mobster during calls with the Maryland man, and threaten the lives of his children. Russell also dictated threatening text messages and instructed the New York woman on what to say to the Maryland man.
The man dropped large sums of cash and gold bars at various drop locations in New York, believing he was delivering the money to mobsters. The money was in fact going to members of the Russell-Evans-Kaslov family.
Russell pleaded guilty to interference with interstate commerce by extortion in 2019, and her sentencing was initially scheduled to happen after her five co-defendants were sentenced, but was delayed further after authorities discovered she ran a similar scheme in Los Angeles.
Russell had convinced a Los Angeles woman she had psychic powers, convinced her to defraud her father, and when that money ran out, persuaded her to raise additional funds through sex work.
After that scheme was uncovered, a warrant was issued for Russell's arrest in March of this year, and she has remained in custody since.
Russell was sentenced Thursday to 125 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $4,217,542.86 in restitution.
Tony John Evans, 35, and Robert Evans, 37, were each sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to interference with interstate commerce by extortion. Corry Blue Evans, 31, pleaded guilty to bank fraud and was sentenced to 41 months in prison. Archie Kaslov, 57, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and was sentenced to 30 months in prison. Candy Evans, 55, pleaded guilty to tampering with a witness by corrupt persuasion or misleading conduct and was sentenced to one year and one day in prison.
With TMX
