possessed by spook lawsuit

[joe sz]

Rare witchcraft charge laid

Fraud Alleged

National Post

December 11, 2009

Amy Husser, Canwest News Service

Police have invoked a rarely used witchcraft charge against a Toronto woman accused of defrauding a lawyer of nearly $150,000 after she reportedly suggested she was possessed by his dead sister's spirit.

Vishwantee Persaud, 36, is facing eight charges -- including two counts of fraud over $5,000 -- stemming from the nine-month relationship, said Detective-Constable Corey Jones of the Toronto police.

"The pretend-to-practice witchcraft charge is part and parcel of a larger fraud case in which she befriended a gentleman, who is a lawyer, claiming to be a third-year law student," he explained.

Det.-Const. Jones said the 51-year-old man -- identified by the Law Times legal publication as veteran criminal lawyer Noel Daley -- began to serve as a mentor to Ms. Persaud in February 2009. He paid her a modest wage.

As the two developed a friendship, Mr. Daley began to share personal facts about his life -- including information about his dead sister.

At that time, Det.-Const. Jones said, Ms. Persaud told him "she came from a long line of witches and she was capable of doing Tarot card readings."

Mr. Daley asked for a reading. "What she brought up in the reading was that the deceased sister's spirit had returned to Earth to guide him in business success and financial prosperity, and that the spirit of his sister had inhabited a female form close to him that he had recently met -- basically [implying] that it was her," Det.-Const. Jones said.

The law, outlined under Section 365 of the Canadian Criminal Code, doesn't make witchcraft illegal, but rather the deceitful practice of it: "Every one who fraudulently ... pretends to exercise or to use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration ... is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction."

Ms. Persaud pitched Mr. Daley a number of business opportunities -- including representing movie stars during the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Mr. Daley told the Law Times. He said he paid for clothing, spa treatments, office supplies, groceries and rent and transportation fees, among other things -- to the tune of $148,000.

When the TIFF celebrities did not show up to a party apparently organized by Ms. Persaud but paid for by Mr. Daley, he suspected he'd been had.

Det.-Const. Jones said Ms. Persaud, who was charged in mid-November, has a history of fraud, and was before the courts on several other charges at the time.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada ... id=2327491 (DEAD LINK)