Fortune teller accused in $220,000 scam in Seattle arrested in Canada

A 77-year-old fortune teller on the run for eight years after she was accused of scamming a despondent Seattle woman out of $220,000 was arrested in Calgary this week.

Calgary officials said Sophie Evon will be extradited to Seattle within a week to face charges that she stole the money in 1999 from a 26-year-old woman sad from a breakup with her boyfriend.

At the time, prosecutors said Evon and her daughter-in-law ran a psychic parlor in North Seattle when they offered to cleanse some evil spirits for the woman. They prayed, lit candles, burned leaves and persuaded the woman to buy $4,500 in gold coins to repel bad spirits.

They manipulated the victim into tapping her elderly parents' life savings, then vanished with the money, prosecutors said.

In 2003, Evon eluded Toronto police, when they were about to nab her at a psychic parlor as she was running out the back, according to Canadian news reports.

Evon's daughter-in-law, Sylvia Lee, was sentenced to 18 months in 2001, after police arrested her in Toronto. They found her through her common-law husband's Rolls Royce.