Psychic can’t prevent conviction for fraud

Reyna Zetina, a forty-one year old Mexican residing in Corozal who allegedly obtained over seventy thousand dollars by claiming she was a psychic healer, was fined a total of twenty-two thousand dollars yesterday after she pled guilty to ten of twenty-four counts of Obtaining Property by Deception. Justice Herbert Lord, who imposed the fines in Corozal Supreme Court, ordered Zetina to pay three thousand dollars forthwith and the balance by June, 2008. She was unable to come up with the cash, however so she was taken to prison to begin serving a sentence of five years and nine months. The incidents occurred over a two year period beginning in November of 2004. In one case Zetina collected one thousand seven hundred dollars from sixty-seven year old Antonio Burgos of San Roman by promising to cure him of blindness in his left eye. In another she received money and jewellery amounting to eight thousand dollars from twenty-three year old Clementina Calianas by promising to cure her brother’s sickness. In a third case in April 2005, she was given eight hundred and twenty-five dollars plus jewellery from fifty-five year old Clementina Pech by promising to rid her house of evil spirits. Apparently none of the medical problems were solved and those spirits are presumably still in residence. Zetina was not represented by an attorney. Crown Counsel Douglas Carr represented the prosecution. It is not known if any of the victims will be prosecuted for extreme gullibility.