THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 28, 1995 TAG: 9501270073
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 187 lines
WITH ONE HAND, Edwin B. Lindsley Jr. grabbed - land, headlines and enemies.
For 30 years, Lindsley earned his reputation as the savviest, nerviest land speculator around. He did it by grabbing big chunks of Virginia Beach that other folks assumed were theirs - little strips of land under a mall, a junior high school, city streets, ordinary folks' back yards.
He did it with years of tedious, eye-straining research, reading tiny print on microfilmed documents in the courthouse, then exploiting weaknesses in other people's deeds for profit.
With this hand, Lindsley grabbed wealth and power.
But with the other hand - the generous hand, the God-fearing hand - Lindsley gave things away.
For 18 years, Lindsley gave away a fortune: half-a-million dollars and six valuable properties in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake. He gave it all to one woman in Pensacola, Fla. - Doris B. Ward - and her two daughters.
This was a side of Lindsley no one ever saw - until Lindsley himself, a very private man, opened his personal life to public scrutiny by suing the Florida woman in Norfolk's federal court in 1993.
The claim was astonishing: Lindsley, one of the shrewdest, most feared businessmen in Virginia Beach, claimed he was the victim of ``psychic sabotage.''
He claimed that Ward, a psychic, had operated a massive, 18-year swindle by professing to be a ``Prophet of God,'' and Lindsley had believed her all those years. He had given away his riches, he claimed, because he thought it would ``gain salvation for his soul.''
That was not, of course, how the psychic saw it.
She claimed Lindsley showered her with gifts as an act of unselfish love. She said Lindsley, a bachelor, had proposed marriage to her many times, had sent her presents as a token of their ``deep and abiding love and affection.''
She said Lindsley broke off the relationship in 1992 and now is harassing her family with phone calls and anonymous packages, sending people to follow them in Pensacola and bad-mouth them to friends and neighbors.
Ward wants $14 million from Lindsley and a judge's order that Lindsley leave her alone.
Lindsley wants his land and money back, plus $2.5 million in damages.
The case was scheduled for trial starting Monday. It promised to be an embarrassing spectacle for both sides.
Now, however, lawyers say a confidential settlement is likely next week.
That means the psychic will not have to produce hundreds of cards, letters and ``professions of love'' she says Lindsley sent her.
It also means Lindsley will not have to describe in detail why he believed that ``God spoke to Lindsley through only (the psychic) and that Lindsley's relationship with God and his religious well-being was based upon his relationship with'' her.
But while the trial is off, Lindsley's personal life remains open for public inspection, amid the legal briefs that fill four fat court files.
The evidence raises a paradox: How could a hard-nosed businessman who delights in musty legal minutiae be so gullible - for so long?
Love of God, perhaps.
``Lindsley considered himself a very religious man, whose goal was to please the Almighty,'' Lindsley's lawyer claimed in his legal complaint.
In another legal paper, Lindsley said a psychologist would testify that his psychological makeup makes him ``susceptible to persons who make false spiritual claims.''
So powerful was the psychic's hold on Lindsley that, according to his lawsuit, Lindsley's personal salvation depended on it.
Eventually, Lindsley claims, the psychic ``controlled him and . . . used his strong, dependent religious beliefs to overcome his volition and/or business acumen.''
At a hearing in September, Lindsley's lawyer, J. Wayne Sprinkle, suggested that Lindsley may have been mentally incompetent from 1975 to 1992, when he was controlled by the psychic.
The psychic's lawyer was incredulous.
``With all due respect to opposing counsel,'' said the lawyer, Alan D. Albert, ``I think they had better think long and hard about suggesting that Edwin Lindsley was mentally incompetent for 18 years, because the number of land transactions that he entered into and the number of deeds that he created, executed, signed . . . are legion. They are in the hundreds.
``And if he is under disability, every one of those deeds is invalid.''
It began as strictly business.
The year was 1975. Lindsley, then 51 years old, was already a ``land salvager'' without peer. He was a constant irritant to city officials, staking claims to public land by reviving long-forgotten easements and corporations.
At some point in 1975, Lindsley ``believed himself to be in need of a psychic or Prophet of God for personal and business guidance,'' Lindsley claimed.
What kind of business it was, and why he needed a psychic, is not known.
Soon, Lindsley was introduced to Ward, a Florida psychic who could see into the future and ``articulate God's divine will to those on Earth.''
They became friends and business associates. Ward advised Lindsley on business deals, and Lindsley listened.
But Ward was a jealous adviser, according to a psychic ``expert'' whom Lindsley hired to testify on his behalf. Ward did not want her ``readings'' with Lindsley recorded. She warned Lindsley that all other psychics ``were of Satan.'' She isolated Lindsley from all his friends.
Finally, Lindsley claims, she extracted gifts.
It started with a house in Great Neck in 1979, four years after the pair met.
Ward told Lindsley that her daughter needed money so she could do ``God's work'' and look after Ward's parents, the lawsuit says. Ward told Lindsley he would ``gain salvation for his soul'' if he obeyed.
And Lindsley did. He gave Ward's daughter a house on General Longstreet Drive in Virginia Beach that is now worth $145,000.
Two years later, in 1981, he gave the daughter an Exxon station on Independence Boulevard. Ward told Lindsley her daughter had ``some kind of physical problem'' and needed money for treatments, the lawsuit says.
Lindsley obeyed again. He gave Ward's daughter the land the gas station sits on, worth $352,000 today. In addition, the gas station pays about $18,000 a year in rent to Ward's daughter, the lawsuit says.
On and on, the gifts went.
In 1983, it was a property on Virginia Beach Boulevard leased to a car dealer. In 1988, it was land under a telephone switching station. In 1991, it was land under 89th Street near Fort Story. That same year, it was park land in Chesapeake.
There were cash payments, too, totaling $219,500.
All of these, Lindsley claims, were coerced by Ward for personal gain. All the while, Lindsley says, Ward was acting as his ``psychic, friend, agent, personal consultant, religious counselor, and messenger from God.''
Ward tells a different story.
In her answer and counterclaim, Ward admits that she is ``a deeply religious woman who prays daily, that she seeks to do God's will, and that from time to time, she has been blessed by God with the ability to perceive what she understood to be future events.''
But Ward denied that she ever claimed to be a psychic or to ``have a gift from God to articulate God's divine will to those on Earth.'' She denied, too, ever getting money from Lindsley for her religious gifts.
Rather, Ward says, she and Lindsley had ``a close personal friendship.'' She said Lindsley sent her hundreds of cards, letters and notes professing ``deep love,'' and he even proposed marriage repeatedly.
The gifts, she claimed, were given out of ``mutual love and affection.''
And then there was the nasty matter of $300,000 cash.
Ward has it; Lindsley gave it. But under what circumstances remains fuzzy.
In his lawsuit, Lindsley paints a sinister picture. In the summer of 1990, he says, Ward told him that his younger brother, Robert Lindsley Sr., who had died that year, was really murdered by his own wife.
Lindsley says Ward advised him to avenge his brother's death by suing his sister-in-law. He says the psychic predicted that June Lindsley would countersue and that Ed Lindsley would win but that the dispute would tie up his assets and put him out of business.
To stop that, Ward counseled, Lindsley should give some of his money to her for safekeeping, the lawsuit says.
Lindsley did. He gave Ward three installments of $100,000 each in 1990 and 1991.
Now, Lindsley wants the money back.
Ward's version is very different. She says Lindsley gave her the money free and clear - a gift. To prove it, she has put into the court record Lindsley's gift-tax forms, filed with the Internal Revenue Service ``under penalty of perjury.''
Anyway, Ward argues, even if Lindsley did give her the money to hide it from his sister-in-law, that is ``an improper and illegal purpose, and accordingly may not be enforced under Virginia law.''
The relationship unraveled in melodramatic fashion.
It happened after Lindsley's mother died in February 1992. Lindsley, who is 70, had cared for his mother as she grew old and sick.
Soon after the funeral, according to the lawsuit, Ward told Lindsley she had gotten a message from God: The woman who was with Lindsley's mother when she died was responsible for her death.
Lindsley couldn't believe it. He questioned Ward, but the psychic became insulted and ``feigned a heart attack,'' the lawsuit says.
It was over. Whatever faith Lindsley had in Ward was shat-tered.
Lindsley demanded his $300,000 back; Ward refused.
In the end, Lindsley did what he has always done in countless real estate deals: He turned to his battery of lawyers and fired off a lawsuit.
Ward fired back. She accused Lindsley of defamation, conspiracy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
In the nasty aftermath, Ward claimed, Lindsley had people spread lies to her friends, neighbors, even her minister, that ``Mrs. Ward and her daughters have committed crimes and acts of moral turpitude.''
Despite the nastiness, a trial is unlikely. Lawyers on both sides say a settlement is imminent. Neither Lindsley nor Ward is commenting. And while terms of the settlement probably will be confidential, the most important point has been agreed to.
According to a terse memo in the case file, there will be a restraining order against both Lindsley and Ward: ``No contact, no bad-mouthing one another, etc.'' ILLUSTRATION: Ed Lindsley gave a psychic half-a-million dollars and six
valuable properties.
KEYWORDS: PSYCHIC LAWSUIT ED LINDSLEY DORIS WARD by CNB