Scammed: Psychic Shenanigans?

Linda Marks calls herself a gypsy psychic. She says she can tell your fortune for $35.

"I'm a pretty good judge of people. Been doing this for 30 years," says Marks, 54, who lives in Delray Beach, Fla. "I give em' all the right answers." She says she has made around $2 million over her career.

But Delores Hoffert says Marks is a criminal. According to Hoffert, Marks stole almost $300,000 from her late husband. Harold Dow reports.

Leroy Hoffert had been given only six months to live when he first met Marks. Delores says Marks told her husband she could cure his cancer. "He thought he was going to die if she didn't intervene," she says. But Linda Marks' help would cost money – lots of money. He recently died from the disease, at the age of 87.

Three years ago, when she couldn't find the couple's emergency cash, $10,000, Delores got suspicious and went to the bank. She found that their account was empty. Delores says Marks convinced Leroy to give her all their money. She convinced Leroy he could never tell a soul about the money, not even his wife.

"She'd convinced him that I was trying to kill him," says Delores. "I mean this woman is a very sick individual as far as I'm concerned, and evil."

Leroy even bought Linda Marks a new Cadillac Escalade. "She told my husband she needed a truck to pray in for him," says Hoffert. "She ruined my life. She took away anything I have to live on and I'm 71 years old. He kept saying 'I'll get the money back and she's going to cure me.'"

Lynn Boys knows how Hoffert feels. A 55-year-old accountant living in Bermuda, Boys fell under Marks' spell in 1999. After seeing a newspaper ad about a psychic, Lynn and her parents went to see Marks.

"She knew some of the challenges I was encountering and said she could help," says Boys. "Linda Marks presents herself very well. She's very shrewd, cunning and sly."

According to Boys, Marks proved her power by doing strange things with a chicken egg: "When she opened the egg, a snake came out. She said, 'Oh, there's still lots of evil around you.'" She told Boys that she would get her money back. Boys gave Marks more than a million dollars.

"These are strictly gypsy stunts that have been around literally centuries for centuries," says James Randi, a professional magician who makes a living investigating claims of psychic phenomenon. "These psychics are vultures!" he says.

He showed Dow how the egg trick was done, doing it the same way Marks allegedly did to Boys.

Like Leroy Hoffert, Boys was sworn to secrecy. After months of keeping the secret, Boys finally told her husband she had given away the family fortune. He was so upset that he left her. She is now broke.

Her life ruined, she has joined Hoffert and 15 others in a civil lawsuit charging they were conned by Marks.

Marks says she runs a legitimate business, licensed by the city of Del Ray Beach. She doesn't deny that some of her customers have given her hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"I feel good about my work," she says. She says she did not guarantee Leroy Boys he would be cured. He gave her money simply because he liked her, she says. "I don't force nobody. I don't beg nobody," she says.

She also says she never played any kind of egg trick on Boys.

Barry Silver, who is representing Boys and Hoffert in their suit, says he is not hopeful about getting any money from Marks.

And police say that Marks may not have committed a crime at all. According to police, promissory notes and IOU's signed by Marks and her customers makes prosecution difficult.

Delray Beach Police Chief Larry Schroeder says that these IOU's and promissory notes are binding agreements that make the cases not criminal, but at best civil.

Silver disagrees: "It's complete and utter nonsense, I mean the concept that somebody could steal someone's life savings and then because they write a promissory note, all of a sudden, that means the police can't do anything is absurd."

Delray Beach police seem to be reconsidering the case against Marks. The Florida state attorney's office has also launched an investigation.

Marks was arrested in May, but it wasn't for her psychic work. She was charged with fraud for allegedly collecting money on phony insurance claims for a car she reported stolen that police later found hidden in a storage unit. Her trial is expected next month.

There's no trial date set for the lawsuit, but even if they win their case, its unlikely they ever get all their money back from Marks.

A recent visit to Marks house revealed that nearly all her furniture was gone. Her phone was disconnected, and her house is in foreclosure.

"The money had to be cursed," says Marks, "because it brought me nothing but darkness."