Jan 19, 2018

Florida psychic paid $3.5M for spiritual health gets prison

DAVID J. NEAL
Miami Herald
January 18, 2018

AVENTURA - SUNNY ISLESA psychic got paid $3.5 million to get rid of demons. That’s not why she’s in prison.

A Martha’s Vineyard senior citizen paid part-time Aventura resident Sally Ann Johnson $3.5 million for spiritual healing, cleansing and exorcisms to rid the woman of demons. That didn’t get Johnson in any trouble.

Federal prosecutors clearly questioned Johnson’s spiritual/psychic powers, which she sold through several South Florida businesses. But that didn’t get Johnson in trouble.

Johnson didn’t file income taxes from 2007 through 2014 — depriving the Internal Revenue Service of $713,460 — and tried to hide the money. That got her two years and two months in federal prison.

That sentence came down Wednesday after Johnson, also known as “Angela Johnson” and “Sally Reed,” pleaded guilty to attempting to interfere with the administration of Internal Revenue laws. She was also ordered to pay $3,567,300 to her Martha’s Vineyard customer, referred to in court documents as “V.P.,” and $725,912 restitution to the IRS.

According to a filing by Johnson’s lawyer, Miami’s Paul Petruzzi, Johnson is one of the two million American Romani people, and “among Romani beliefs is the belief that Romani women possess certain spiritual and/or psychic abilities. Ms. Johnson’s grandmother, mother, and stepdaughter each have (or had) these abilities.

“Ms. Johnson has been a spiritual advisor and psychic for over 20 years.”

A Petruzzi filing says Johnson splits time between her home in New York and the Aventura home of companion Anthony Ephraim, with whom she has two teenage sons. She also considers Ephraim’s adult daughter as her own. Sunbiz.org says she ran Psychic Match (2011-12) and Stones of the Century (2011-15) out of a Williams Island apartment and Psychic Spiritual Salon (2004-05) out of a Hallandale Beach strip mall location.

But it was in Martha’s Vineyard that she made $3.5 million keeping her septuagenarian customer, a graduate of Radcliffe in the 1950s and Harvard in the 1970s, spiritually healthy.

Prosecutors say in court documents that “Johnson, using the name “Angela Johnson,” directed (V.P.) to make payments for Johnson’s purported services in the name of “Sally Johnson” and “Stones of the World,” and further directed (V.P.) to wire these payments to three different bank accounts with which Johnson was associated, including an account held in the name of an associate of Johnson’s who used at least two aliases.”

http://amp.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/aventura/article195370909.html

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