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

DATE: TUESDAY, April 4, 1995                   TAG: 9504040082
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

OUT-OF-LUCK CLIENT SUES `MISS STELLA'

A man who was hoping to become a millionaire, first with the help of a palm reader and then with the lottery, is now trying his luck with the court system.

Warren E. Smith, who claims that a Roanoke palm reader gave him some bad advice on playing the lottery, filed a $3 million lawsuit Monday against Lola Rose Miller.

Miller, also known as Miss Stella, is serving a one-year prison sentence for cheating customers who came to her Williamson Road business seeking advice.

When Miller was convicted in January, a Roanoke judge ordered her to pay back $18,000 to the customers she defrauded. That's small change compared with what Smith says he lost - a total of $75,724 over five months last year.

``It was a lot of money she got off of me,'' said Smith, who lives in Franklin County. ``It makes me mad.''

The lawsuit, filed in Roanoke Circuit Court, seeks to collect a $3 million lottery jackpot that Smith didn't hit, even after Miller gave him numbers that she promised would win.

According to the lawsuit, Miller told Smith that ``she had gone to church and God had given her the numbers, and that the numbers would win.''

Later, in explaining why the numbers did not win and asking Smith for even more money, Miller said one of his family members had placed a curse on him, the lawsuit claims.

Over five months, she persuaded Smith to give her almost all of his available money - even $29,000 that he withdrew from his individual retirement account. In addition to the $3 million lottery jackpot, the lawsuit seeks to recover Smith's losses and impose $350,000 in punitive damages.

Miller, whom prosecutors have described as a manipulative fortuneteller who preyed on her troubled customers, was arrested last year after telling an undercover police officer that she could end the woman's marital problems by removing an evil spirit in the form of a potato growing inside her body.

All the woman had to do, Miller told her, was come back with a glass of water, a dirty sock and $1,200. But when police did return, it was to arrest Miller on charges of obtaining money by false pretenses.

According to the lawsuit, Miller told Smith that he and his family would be in danger if he did not pay her the money.

by CNB