‘Psychic’ woman to spend over 10 years in prison for extortion scheme

WASHINGTON ( DC News Now ) — How was a 35-year-old woman in New York able to convince a Maryland man to embezzle more than $4 million from his Washington, D.C. employer? By telling the love of his life she was a psychic.

Gina Rita Russell, 35, was sentenced to over 10 years in prison on Thursday for masterminding an elaborate fraud, extortion and money laundering scheme.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) said the scheme started in Manhattan in 2009 when Russell performed a psychic reading on a woman.

“Though Russell had no psychic powers, she convinced the New York woman that she did and told the woman that bad things would happen unless the woman raised large sums of money for Russell and her family,” a USAO press release read.

Russell convinced the woman to lie to her father, claiming she needed money for therapy, extensive sleep studies and university classes. After giving his daughter “enormous sums of money,” he eventually stopped providing her financial assistance.

Out of a financial means, the woman was convinced to earn more money through sex work.

She advertised sensual massage services online and, through one of her ads, met a Maryland man.

The man fell in love with and proposed to her, even though he was already married and had children.

Russell and the New York woman conspired with Robert Evans, Tony John Evans, Corry Blue Evans and Archie Kaslov to extort money and gold bars from him. As a result, he embezzled more than $4 million from his D.C. employer between January and March of 2017.

Evans impersonated a mobster during calls with the Maryland man, asking him if he needed to remind him where his children went to school. Russell also dictated threatening texts and told the New York woman how to interact with the Maryland man.

The Maryland man converted his embezzled funds to cash and gold bars, which he delivered to various New York locations.

He thought the funds were going to mobsters, when they really went to members of the Russell-Evans-Kaslov family, the USAO said.

Russell pleaded guilty to the scheme in 2019 and was originally scheduled for sentencing in May 2024.

That is, until prosecutors learned she had engaged in a similar scheme in Los Angeles.

While in California, Russell convinced a woman that she had psychic powers and defrauded the woman’s father out of money, then persuaded her to turn to sex work for more funds.

Russell was ordered to spend the next 10 years and five months in prison and pay $4,217,542.86 in restitution. Following her time in prison, she will serve three years of supervised release.

Her co-conspirators received the following sentences:

• 35-year-old Tony John Evans pleaded guilty to interference with interstate commerce by extortion and was sentenced to five years in prison;
• 37-year-old Robert Evans pleaded guilty to interference with interstate commerce by extortion and was sentenced to five years in prison;
• 31-year-old Cory Blue Evans pleaded guilty to bank fraud and was sentenced to nearly three and a half years in prison;
• 57-year-old Archie Kaslov pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison;
• 55-year-old Candy Evans pleaded guilty to tampering with a witness by corrupt persuasion or misleading conduct and was sentenced to one year and one day in prison.

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