
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 31, 1993                   TAG: 9303310173
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK                                LENGTH: Short

VA. BEACH MAN CLAIMS PSYCHIC BILKED HIM

A Virginia Beach real estate speculator has filed a lawsuit accusing a psychic of bilking him out of about $500,000 and several properties in exchange for prophecies and divine guidance.

Edwin B. Lindsley Jr., in his late 60s, alleges that Doris B. Ward and her family used his trust to cheat him out of a fortune over an 18-year period. The case has been transferred from Circuit Court in Virginia Beach to U.S. District Court in Norfolk.

According to the suit, a pressing business deal moved Lindsley to seek help from a higher power in 1975. As "a religious man whose goal was to please the almighty," the suit contends, Lindsley turned to Ward, a psychic who professed to read the future and articulate God's will.

Lindsley continued to consult Ward when doing business over the years and, in time, she was given unrestricted power of attorney over his affairs and made the beneficiary of his will, the suit says.

Lindsley claims he was stripped of his free will and induced to make increasingly lavish gifts to the psychic and her family in return for her prophecies and God's blessings on his work.

The suit said Lindsley gave a house and other property to Ward's family and large sums of money to her.

The psychic told Lindsley to turn over his money to her for safekeeping and he did so, the suit said. The suit seeks $1.5 million in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages.

by CNB