Psychic scam found guilty of mail fraud

The Court of Appeals has sustained the criminal conviction against someone who made a fortune promoting fake psychic services. The opinion provides interesting detail into how these scams operate, noting the shocking amount of money this service generated.

The case is United States v. Runner, issued on July 9. The defendant's organization, Direct Marketing Services (DMS) sent letters to people promising they might receive a financial windfall. You would have to complete a questionnaire to qualify. By this point, DMC would start charging you money. The Court of Appeals (Calabresi, Chin and Merriam) writes:

customers who answered got dozens of different mailings offering a fantastical array of supernatural goods and psychic services.  These ranged from mystical ceremonies, to ancient crystals, and to charms that guaranteed good luck. Each item cost around $45. These offerings, the mailings assured, would alleviate the customer’s suffering—whether it was financial hardship, romance troubles, or familial strife. But these were all lies. There was no psychic who had read the customers’ letters (or cashed their checks). It was Patrice Runner and his business, Direct Marketing Concepts (“DMC”)—the mass-mailing enterprise he had founded in Montreal, Canada—that did all that. Duval had sent nothing, though she was, in fact, a real person who lived in France and had a reputation as a psychic. DMC did have a licensing agreement with Duval that permitted DMC to use her name and likeness, but she was not actually involved in any of the mailings.  So, for about two decades, DMC mailed around one-hundred different promotions to hundreds of thousands of people throughout the United States and Canada.

Over the course of 20 years, DMC earned more than $150 million. That, ladies and gentlemen, is an awful lot of money. My guess is that the judges on this case, highly educated intellectuals, cannot believe a scheme like this earned this kind of money.

 For more details on how these scams work, read the opinion. The marketers are very good are convincing people. Eventually, the government got wind of this. They charged defendant with wire fraud. The jury convicted defendant and the Second Circuit affirms, holding that defendant used these letters to induce customers into transactions that would cost them money through fraudulent tactics. A recent Supreme Court decision, Kousisis v. United States, 145 S. Ct. 1382 (2025), informs this analysis.