Bizarre case of extortion involving millions. Picture: EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA/Pexels
A woman who obtained the services of a psychic on social media, to contact her dead mother so that she could find closure after her mother’s death, claimed millions from the psychic after the latter allegedly blackmailed her by threatening to divulge certain intimate details if she was not paid.
The plaintiff, only identified as KA, turned to the Pietermaritzburg High Court in a bid to retrieve the more than R5 million which she paid to the psychic over months. Her father also instituted a claim for R540 000. This is money that he paid over to his daughter in the belief that she was setting up a beauty shop and needed the money.
His daughter, without telling him at the time, used the money as part of the blackmail money to pay the psychic.
The latter, only identified as a Ms Govender, represented herself in her defence. She pitched at court on the first day of the trial and then vanished. She left the court saying she was ill, but attempts to locate her since, failed. She thus did not place her version before the court.
The plaintiff and her father meanwhile asked that she had to repay the various amounts – running into more than R5m – on the grounds of unjust enrichment.
The plaintiff told the court that she was not present when her mother died of a heart attack. She had a close relationship with her late mother and she regarded her as a friend and a confidant. She had no opportunity to bid farewell and her heart was broken when her mother died in 2017. She saw an advertisement by the defendant offering psychic services and responded to it. The advertisement described the defendant as being able to connect with the dead.
The defendant told the daughter that she was able to connect with the mother and that she could communicate with her. The daughter desperately wanted those services because she wanted closure.
As they both shared the Hindu religion, the daughter believed the defendant had supernatural powers, which enabled her to pray to a deity and connect with the dead. The defendant’s fees were loosely discussed.
The daughter was not present when the defendant communicated with her late mother. She received updates on these communications and she was thus very happy with the services.
But a few months down the line, the defendant started blackmailing her, she said. This started off with the defendant telling the daughter that there were people who wanted to harm her. She then demanded money from the daughter to “cast a spell on these people”.
The blackmailing allegedly continued, with the defendant apparently threatening to post intimate details and pictures of the daughter on social media.
The daughter testified that she had shared the most intimate details of her relationship with her boyfriend and other relationships that she was involved in with the defendant. She trusted the defendant and she went as far as sending the defendant her explicit photographs that she would have sent to her boyfriend.
She was afraid that the exposure of the information by the defendant was going to disgrace her conservative family, who were respected by society.
The daughter made several payments, of which proof of payments were handed to court. One of the payments was made to a car dealership, demanded by the defendant, which she made for the purchase of a Ford Mustang on behalf of the defendant.
Pictures were handed to court showing the defendant wearing pieces of jewellery and a pendant with a Krugerrand coin. The pendant belonged to the daughter and it previously belonged to her late grandmother.
The alleged blackmail transactions amounted to R4 992 778.61.
Under pressure from the defendant, the daughter said she was also forced into a situation where she had to lie to her father that she needed money in order to make payments for the beauty salon.
She later confessed everything to her brother and then approached her current attorneys in order to take action against the defendant.
A clinical psychologist testified that the daughter was emotionally vulnerable and she was trapped in a traumatic relationship in which she was forced to pay for services that she did not want or face physical harm or reputational damage.
The court concluded that there was no evidence which suggested that the payments made before October 2017 (when the psychic was said to contact the deceased) were improper and that they were induced by means of fraudulent misrepresentations and/or extortion.
However, the payments made afterwards point to extortion. The defendant was ordered to pay back nearly R5m to the daughter and R540 000 to the father. The court also ruled that a copy of the judgment had to be handed to the prosecuting authority for consideration of instituting possible criminal proceedings against the defendant.
Pretoria News
zelda.venter@inl.co.za
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