Canada, Lawsuit of the Day

Canadian Lawsuit of the Day: Lawyer Not Charmed By Witch's Ruse

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Some stories really write themselves:

Vishwantee Persaud allegedly defrauded a Toronto lawyer of tens of thousands of dollars by telling him she was the embodiment of the spirit of his deceased sister, come back to help him in business. Ms. Persaud now faces charges under a rarely used section of the criminal code for pretending to practice witchcraft.

We can also put the Toronto lawyer’s brain in the category of “rarely used.”

“She said she came from a long line of witches and could do tarot-card readings,” says Detective Constable Corey Jones, who investigated the case. “It was through this that she cemented [the lawyer’s] trust,” setting the stage for the fraud to follow, which, according to Det. Constable Jones, included claiming fictitious expenses such as law-school tuition and cancer treatments.

Sorry, I just don’t have a lot of sympathy for the lawyer who fell for this. I’m not inclined to believe in the supernatural. If Whoopi Goldberg shows up at my house, she better bring more than a levitating penny.
Still, one has to ask why there are witchcraft laws still on the Canadian books.
Canada explains itself, eh, after the jump.


Using witchcraft to perpetrate fraud is (or was) common enough that this particular law has been around since 1892:

“It’s a historical quirk,” says Alan Young, a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. Some sections of the Canadian criminal code reflect offences that were more prevalent centuries ago. When the code was enacted in 1892, witchcraft per se was no longer a punishable offence, he says, but lawmakers wanted to ensure witchcraft wasn’t used as a cover for fraud.
Section 365 states that any one who fraudulently pretends to exercise or to use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, or enchantment or who “undertakes, for a consideration, to tell fortunes … is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.”
“It’s not really about occult activity,” Prof. Young says. “It’s about defrauding people.”

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All right, fine. Can we get back to the gullible lawyer now?

The lawyer met Ms. Persaud, who claimed to be in law school, in early 2009 and started to mentor her. According to Det. Constable Jones, he probably gave Ms. Persaud more than $100,000 over the year.

Sorry, Toronto lawyer man. It’s good that the person who defrauded you has been captured, yet I do fear thy nature. It is too full of the milk of human kindness.
‘Historical quirk’ leads to charges of witchcraft against Toronto woman [The Globe and Mail]

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