Woman sentenced for scam in which she claimed psychic powers, pushed victim to sex work

Washington — It's a scam that reads like something straight out of a movie: false claims of psychic abilities, sex work, and co-conspirators claiming they're in a mob to threaten one of the victim's children. On Thursday, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia announced a more-than 10-year sentence for one of the ringleaders of the elaborate scheme.

The sentencing memo starts off with this explosive statement: "Gina Rita Russell is a dangerous woman."

According to prosecutors, Russell and five of her partners in crime got one Maryland man to embezzle more than $4 million from his D.C.-based company to feed their expensive tastes.

This scam started in October 2009, when Russell offered psychic services to a woman in New York City, demanding this soon-to-be victim provide her money otherwise "bad things would happen" to her and her family.

Russell then got the victim to get money from her father by claiming it was for therapy, sleep studies, and university classes.

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By 2016, once the victim's father stopped providing money, Russell got the victim to get more money through sex work. Russell told the victim to squeeze even more money through sex work by claiming to clients she was in physical danger.

This tactic helped Russell land her biggest paydays.

Russell's initial victim, who was now engaging in sex work, carried out a romantic relationship with one of her clients - a Maryland man.

In 2017, Russell instructed the woman to tell the Maryland man she owed money to New York mobsters, claiming they demanded $100,000 but would take payment in the form of two expensive Rolex watches.

The Maryland man could not cobble up enough money to pay for these watches and instead suggested he embezzle the funds from his D.C.-based employer.

In the span of just three months, Russell was able to get her initial female victim to force her male victim to embezzle more than $4 million from his employer.

During this ongoing scam, one of Russell's partners posted a picture of the money they scammed from the man on Instagram.

There was another picture found of the co-conspirators celebrating getting more money, with one more photograph of cash and Rolex watches.

Russell also took a video of her daughter holding bundles of cash.

Throughout the scam, Russell had her female victim continually remind the male victim that New York mobsters would harm her if she did not give them money.

At one point, one of Russell's partners pretended to be a mob boss, and spoke to the male victim over the phone to threaten him and his children.

Right before their arrests, Russell and her partners demanded from the man $1.6 million in gold bars in exchange for the female victim's freedom.

Shortly after the man paid around $50,000 in gold to the scammers in March 2017, he and the woman were allowed to leave.

The Maryland man did not show up to work, however, and his employer noticed financial irregularities with the company's bank account.

This is when law enforcement stepped in.

In April 2017, the man was arrested for the embezzlement.

Just two days later, Russell and the female victim sign a confession implicating only them and falsely exonerating Russell's partners in crime.

However, a year later and after the FBI executed search warrants in Manhattan, a grand jury indicted Russell and her five partners on 13 counts - including bank fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit extortion.

In July 2019, Russell pled guilty to one count of interference commerce by extortion.

But just two months ago - in May 2024 - the government filed to have her bond revoked after discovering Russell was committing the same crimes in California.

There, she lied to a victim by saying she was a psychic, demanded money to help her, convinced the victim to lie to her father for more money, and pushed the victim to sex work to even more money.

The court documents included scathing statements, including one that said Russell and her partners "have a penchant for the finer things in life but are averse to engaging in honest work, choosing to callously use people instead."

These documents also said the judge in this case has called it "one of the worst non-violent crime cases that he has seen in all his years on the bench."

All told, Russell was sentenced to 125 months in prison, which is more than 10 years. The other five co-conspirators have already been sentenced.