Gina Marks: PA Fortune-Telling Charges and Past Convictions

Gina Marie Marks is a 52-year-old self-described psychic from Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, whose curse-removal scams have produced criminal cases in four states over more than two decades. In October 2025, Montgomery County prosecutors charged her and co-defendant Steve Nicklas with stealing more than $600,000 from two women through their storefront business, Jenkintown Psychic Visions.¹ She has prior convictions in Florida and Maryland, an earlier civil resolution in California, and comes from a family with a long record of similar fraud.

The 2025 Pennsylvania Charges

Marks and Nicklas, 40, ran Jenkintown Psychic Visions at 475 Old York Road in Jenkintown. The Montgomery County District Attorney’s office opened its investigation in December 2024, and both were arrested in New Jersey in late September 2025, extradited, and arraigned on October 7, 2025.¹

The felony counts include corrupt organizations, dealing in the proceeds of unlawful activities, theft by unlawful taking, theft by deception, receiving stolen property, and conspiracy to commit theft. A misdemeanor fortune-telling charge accompanies them.²

Prosecutors said Marks and Nicklas used tarot readings and cold-reading techniques to draw out clients’ fears, then convinced them they were the target of powerful curses that only paid rituals could lift.² District Attorney Kevin Steele said the defendants “preyed on people who were looking for help, guidance and hope, exploiting them for financial gain.”³

How the Two Jenkintown Victims Were Drained

The first victim called for a phone reading in 2022. Marks, using the alias “Naomi,” told her a powerful curse was threatening her marriage, business, and family. Nicklas, going by “Stephan,” was brought in as a second seer to reinforce the story. From September 2022 through August 2023, the woman sent $595,959 in cash, jewelry, clothing, concert tickets, and gift cards for what she was told was an “altar ritual,” with the items to be returned. Nothing came back.⁴ Prosecutors said her “desperate desire to remain married” was used against her.²

The second victim reached the shop in June 2023. Marks asked for increasingly personal photos and details, saying they were needed for rituals, and when the woman hesitated allegedly threatened her with reputational damage and other “personal repercussions.” Between June 2023 and February 2024 she handed over at least $18,000 in cash and a Chanel purse.¹

Records from Cash App, Zelle, and a credit union showed the money moved directly into accounts held by Marks and Nicklas.³

Where the Case Stands

Marks posted bail set at 10 percent of $50,000, and Nicklas posted at 10 percent of $25,000. A preliminary hearing was set for October 20, 2025, before District Court Judge R. Emmett Madden.² Nicklas, through his attorney, has denied any involvement and said he will fight the accusations. No attorney has been publicly identified for Marks, and no trial date has been reported.⁵

The Florida Convictions

The Pennsylvania case is one entry in a long record. Working in South Florida under the names “Regina Milbourne” and “Zara Margazio,” Marks previously pleaded guilty to fleecing five Broward County clients out of a combined $65,000, telling them she needed to “rid the money of demons.”⁶

In October 2009 she was charged with grand theft for taking $30,000 from a client through a “cleansing ritual.” A larger, parallel scheme ran from August 2008 to February 2010 against a Coconut Grove woman. Marks told her she was cursed, had cancer, and was surrounded by evil spirits, and directed her to perform rituals involving eggs, spitting into jars, and eating only red fruit. Over 19 months the victim gave up $298,000 in cash, gift cards, jewelry, purses, and clothing.⁶

The Broward Sheriff’s Office arrested her in March 2010. In September 2010 she was sentenced to 18 months in prison and eight months of probation after pleading guilty to two counts of organized fraud and one count of grand theft, and was ordered to pay $500,000 in restitution, $400,000 of it due at sentencing.⁶

The Earlier California Incidents

Before Florida, Marks worked in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1999 she paid $300 for airtime on a San Francisco call-in radio show to advertise her services. The San Mateo County District Attorney’s office later found she had taken $75,000 from one client and $45,000 from another under the guise of “cleansing” their money. In one instance she took $75,000 in a hotel room, saying she would carry it to a secret shrine in San Jose, and never came back.⁷

No criminal charges were filed. Her attorney arranged full restitution to both victims, and the San Mateo DA’s office declined to prosecute.⁷

The Maryland Prison Sentence

In 2017, Marks was arrested in Montgomery County, Maryland, working under the alias “Natalie Miller.” Claiming she could cast love spells and reverse curses, she took a combined $340,000 in cash and credit card payments from five victims over two years.⁸

A 26-year-old woman seeking relationship help paid more than $80,000. Another lost $2,654 after being promised a refund once the “curse was broken.” A private investigator tracked Marks to Miami International Airport, where she was arrested before she could leave the country.⁸

She pleaded guilty to felony theft in February 2018 and was sentenced to six years in prison in September 2018, with roughly $300,000 in restitution.⁸

The Book and the Stage Names

In 2006, while operating in South Florida, Marks published Miami Psychic: Confessions of a Confidante under the pen name Regina Milbourne. Regan Books, a HarperCollins subsidiary, released it, and it grew out of a 2004 Miami Herald article. The co-author was Miami Herald contributor Yvonne Carey.⁷

Her attorney at the time confirmed “Regina Milbourne” was a stage name. The book suggested she had left the psychic business, but her services website stayed online after publication, and the book left out her criminal history.⁷

A Family Pattern

Marks’s family has a long record in fortune-telling fraud. Her father, John Uwanawich, known as “Johnny Gee,” has been described as the patriarch of a South Florida family of fortune tellers, and his record includes a charge for bribing a police officer. Her mother, Betty Jo Ephraim, has prior convictions for fortune-telling swindles. Her brother, Tony Unich, was arrested in 2008 at the Trump Palace in Sunny Isles on charges of license and title fraud involving luxury vehicles bought with a false driver’s license.⁷

Another relative, Sherry Tina Uwanawich, was sentenced in 2019 to 40 months in federal prison for a wire fraud scheme that convinced a Houston woman a curse had been placed on her family. Over several years the victim paid roughly $1.6 million for cleansing rituals, and Uwanawich was ordered to repay the full amount.⁹

The Fortune-Telling Count in Pennsylvania

One of the counts, fortune telling, is a third-degree misdemeanor under Section 7104 of the Pennsylvania criminal code. The statute dates to 1861 and prohibits charging money to predict the future “by cards, tokens, the inspection of the head or hands of any person” or “by consulting the movements of heavenly bodies,” and bars the sale of love potions, spells, or charms.¹⁰ It is the least serious count against Marks. The felony corrupt-organizations and theft charges carry the heavier exposure.

1
NBC Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Fortune Tellers Scam Montgomery County
2
Delaware County Daily Times. Jenkintown Psychics Accused of Defrauding 2 Women of $600,000
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NBC News. 2 Arrested in Fortune-Telling Scheme That Duped Victims of $600,000
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PhillyBurbs. Jenkintown Psychic Visions Scam
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Fox 29. Montgomery County Fortuneteller Scam Jenkintown
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NBC Miami. Hollywood Psychic Will Be Seeing Bars
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Miami New Times. Psych Job
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NBC Washington. Maryland Psychic Sentenced to 6 Years for Scamming Clients
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U.S. Department of Justice. South Florida Woman Sentenced to Prison and Ordered to Pay $1.6 Million in Restitution
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GoErie.com. PA Fortune Telling Tarot Legalization