‘Psychic Fraud’ Investigator Facilitates Arrest of Fortune Teller in Midtown

A fortune-teller has been arrested in Manhattan for allegedly convincing a client to hand over nearly $90,000 in 2023, namely by telling the person that the money would go toward lifting a “generational curse” on her son.

Pamela Ufie was taken into custody after being pursued by a retired cop and self-described “psychic fraud” investigator, who had facilitated her arrest before; the private investigator, Bob Nygaard, had gone so far as buying a plane ticket to see to it that her mystical street shop ended up shuttered.

In New York State, it is a class B misdemeanor to claim possession of “occult powers” while giving advice, a fact that many local residents may understandably not be aware of. After all, fortune telling is a fairly popular pastime in NYC, with plenty of patrons not ending up tens of thousands of dollars lighter in the pockets.

Details from Ufie’s arraignment, which were shared with Straus News by the Manhattan DA’s office, alleged that she approached a woman near 1540 Broadway—located in the vicinity of Times Square—back in April 2023, telling her that her son had the aforementioned “generational curse.”

Between then and October of that year, Ufie then allegedly coaxed $87,000 out of the woman by saying that it would be used to “acquire specialty materials necessary to conduct rituals,” which would supposedly dispel the curse.

Ufie, 29, could face substantial prison time in connection with the incident. The misdemeanor charge has a maximum sentence of 90 days, but Ufie was also charged with “fraudulent accosting” and grand larceny charges, the latter being a felony with a maximum sentence of 15 years.

Ufie was arrested near Bryant Park on July 10 after Nygaard, who used to work in Nassau County law enforcement, spotted her. Nygaard, who pursues certain fortune tellers for a living, had reportedly flown all the way from Florida after learning Ufie had set up a stand near the park.

In an interview with Straus News, Nygaard described what amounted to a personal stakeout on July 10, which began when he spotted Ufie on the West 40th Street side of the park. He said that he fruitlessly attempted to convince a highway patrol officer, plus the officers in an NYPD patrol squad next to the New York Public Library, to make an arrest.

By that point, she was “gone with the wind.” Hours later, he spotted her again, and called the cops. At one point, he said he hid behind a Nathan’s hot dog stand, since Ufie knew who he was from previous legal encounters. After a cop car rolled by around 30 minutes later, he said that he chased it down to a red light, and banged on its back windows to get the attention of officers. The arrest followed.

Nygaard said that he had first arrested Ufie as part of an undercover sting around 2016. Crucially, he also said that he had facilitated her arrest in Times Squares a few years ago, in connection with two fortune-telling hauls that he said amounted to over $80,000. According to Nygaard, Ufie plead guilty in that case back in September 2024, and ended up paying $50,000–which he personally believed was a “sweetheart deal.”

In a post on the social media site X.com after the July 10 arrest, Nygaard referenced this case: “Proud to have helped cause Pamela Ufie to be arrested but last time she was offered a sweetheart plea deal without @NYPD or @ManhattanDA investigating the scope of her activity fully. Will they give a damn this time or does the apathy run too deep?”

He added that the woman who lost $87,000, whom he described as a “hard-working room attendant [who had immigrated] from the Caribbean,” contacted him within days of the prior plea deal. Thus began his plans to fly back to New York for the latest incident.

Nygaard told Straus that he believes people like Ufie are “emotionally abusive” swindlers on the level of Bernie Madoff, the infamous Wall Street Ponzi scheme operator, and opined that they were substantially different from people who attract “voluntary” clients.

He has said that he began understanding what “psychic fraud” was while on assignment for the DEA and FBI, back when he was active in law enforcement. After moving to Boca Raton after his 2008 retirement, he quickly took up his current private investigator gig.

In a 2017 interview with the New Miami Times, Nygaard also explained that his choice of post-retirement profession was partly sartorial, saying that he “relished” being able to wear fedoras and trench coats after being “restricted” to a police uniform for years.

Some people who have been arrested for claiming unprovable “occult” powers have mounted interesting defenses, such as by claiming that it should be protected under the religious liberty clauses of the First Amendment. However, precedent has not quite ruled in their favor, with a New York-based fortune teller named Abraham Ballard failing to win an appeal of his conviction back in the 1980s.

Yet according to the Columbia Undergraduate Law Review, the Ballard case established that “intent to defraud” is the key prosecutorial metric separating guilty fortune tellers from honest occult brokers.

Albert Dayan, Ufie’s defense lawyer, did not return a call seeking comment as of press time.