Psychic behind elaborate con of tree farm heir Ralph Raines Jr. faces 9 years in prison
The Oregonian/February 19, 2015
By Bryan Denson
A psychic who perpetrated one of Oregon's longest, wildest and most elaborate frauds - separating a Gaston tree-farm heir from a family fortune estimated at $15.5 million - is scheduled for sentencing Thursday in Portland's U.S. District Court.
Government prosecutors want to put 44-year-old con artist Rachel Lee behind the bars of a federal prison for nine years - less time than it took for her to make off with all but a fraction of Ralph Raines Jr.'s money.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Donna Maddux and AnneMarie Sgarlata filed a 75-page sentencing memo that reads like a movie-of-the-week script. But the essence of the story can be found on page 53:
"(Raines) Jr. visited a fortune teller, and as a result, he lost his fortune."
The fleecing of Raines - a 10-year series of hoaxes and swindles - began in 2004, when Raines stopped by Lee's Psychic Shop in Bend.
He was a 57-year-old lifelong bachelor, a likeable man described in court papers as naïve and gullible. He had long been fascinated by the paranormal and he would later tell investigators that he had visited at least as many psychic readers as they had visited shoe stores.
For the next couple of years, according to prosecutors, Raines kept meeting Lee and sharing his life, including his secrets and work history. Lee fabricated her own background, telling Raines she was a widow who had helped keep the books for her husband's auto repair shop.
The two grew close, and Raines showered his new confidante with money. For example, on Valentine's Day 2006, he bought Lee a $915,000 house in Portland's elegant West Hills and paid for the furnishings and decorations so she would have a nice place to live.
Lee, who had talked Raines into buying the 4,601-square-foot home as an investment, took residence with an ever-changing cast of her family and friends. Among them was Blancey Lee, her longtime paramour. Raines thought of Blancey as Rachel Lee's longtime on again, off again boyfriend - but for a time they held themselves out in public as being engaged.
The Portland home was Raines' first real estate purchase. He lived in what prosecutors describe as a dilapidated house in Gaston, a rural community west of Portland where his father - Ralph Raines Sr. - built the family fortune.
The elder Raines owned 1,000 acres of forestland. The old man sold timber off the land - always in selective cuts rather than in land-denuding clear-cuts. He also built a portfolio of $5 million in investments.
In October 2006, Ralph Raines Sr. suffered a stroke and his health declined until his death on Feb. 2, 2011, at age 91.
"After two years of cultivating (Raines) Jr. and building trust, (Raines) Sr.'s stroke opened a new and dangerous door in the ongoing fraud scheme orchestrated by Rachel Lee," government prosecutors wrote.
Raines Jr. hired Rachel Lee as his dad's full-time home healthcare worker, paying her $8,985 a month. He also paid Blancey Lee to do work around the Gaston property. He would eventually sign papers giving Rachel Lee power of attorney, allowing her to take control of his finances, according to prosecutors.
She got Raines to sign checks and transfer large sums of money. She bought real estate - including psychic shops in Bend, Scappoose, Portland and Canby - and prosecutors say Raines never fully understood the nature of those transactions.
The coup de main came in 2007.
"Rachel Lee recruited her daughter, Porsha Lee, to play a critical role in this fraud," prosecutors wrote. "Together, Rachel Lee and Porsha Lee created a character - a fake persona to introduce to (Raines) Jr."
They decided to call Porsha Lee "Mary Marks," which happened to be the name of Rachel Lee's mother. Porsha wore a blond wig, which is about all it took - Raines fancied blondes with fair complexions.
Mary Marks was a clever honey trap.
Raines recalled that he met her on Oct. 21, 2007, when he flew home to Portland from a tree farm convention, according to the government's sentencing memo.
He had phoned Rachel Lee from Portland International Airport and asked her to pick him up, and she said to meet him in the smoking area outside. While sitting on the bench, Raines met a woman wearing glasses and a hat. She had bright blond hair. She turned to him and asked in a British accent if his name was Ralph.
When Raines said yes, she explained that she wasn't a psychic reader by trade, but sometimes got readings on people, prosecutors wrote. She pretended to get a reading on Raines, telling him his birthdate and other personal information.
She introduced herself as Mary Marks, a part-time bookkeeper, and the two made plans to have coffee later in the week. For more than six years, as Porsha Lee went from her late teens to early 20s, she would stay in character. Throughout that time, she pretended that she only knew Rachel Lee - her mother - through Raines.
"Marks" spent the next few years worming her way into Raines' life. She explained that she needed a green card, and Raines agreed to elope with her to save her from being deported, prosecutors say. Rachel Lee drafted some phony papers, which Raines signed, and assured him that he and "Marks" were legally married.
Prosecutors aren't certain when the phony marriage happened, but Raines and "Marks" presented themselves as husband and wife at a Forest Grove High School reunion in August 2010. Raines told his cousin and former classmate that he was keeping the marriage on the down low until his new "wife" fixed her immigration issues.
That November, the home that Raines owned in the West Hills was transferred into the name of Mary Marks. The following month, Porsha Lee opened a bank account in her name and that of Mary Marks. It was in this account that she stored fruits of the ongoing fraud, prosecutors allege.
It's not entirely clear when "Marks" first pitched Raines on fathering a child through in vitro fertilization. But Raines told investigators in 2014 that he agreed to play his part when his "wife" gave him a metal container that looked like a cooking pot.
"As directed by Lee/Marks, (Raines) Jr. placed his donation in the insulated pot along with dry ice," then stored the container in his refrigerator, according to prosecutors. Later, he gave her the sample with the understanding that she had arranged with a doctor in California to perform the in vitro procedure.
"Marks" later told Raines she was pregnant with their child. The story came out of necessity; she really was pregnant - by another man.
It's unclear where "Marks" gave birth, but she later presented a baby boy to Raines as their "son." She had already given him a name: "Giorgio Armani."
Rachel Lee then served as young Giorgio's nanny at the West Hills home.
As it happens, the baby really belonged to Pebbles Lee - Porsha Lee's sister. (The sisters had given birth within weeks of each other.)
"Marks" had relinquished her own baby to the boy's real father and needed a stand-in baby so she could continue performing as the mother of Ralph Raines' child.
Investigators would eventually uncover videos of the toddler Giorgio calling to Raines - "Da da."
"Marks" duped Raines into providing sperm to conceive a second child through in vitro in 2012. She faked a pregnancy by wearing padding that appeared to be a "baby bump." Raines picked out a name - "Gloria Jean" - and bought a vanity plate that showed what prosecutors described as "the names of his growing family."
In December 2012, "Marks" phoned Raines to say she lost the child.
It was about that time that Rachel Lee had finalized liquidation of Raines Tree Farm properties. She would eventually turn the money into vacations in Las Vegas and Beverly Hills, where she and her co-conspirators shopped at Gucci, Luis Vuitton and Cartier.
Prosecutors say Rachel Lee and Blancey Lee bought a 2012 Bentley Mulsanne for $335,695 and a 2013 Ferrari convertible for $226,437 on the same day, giving them vanity license plates that read "MR BIG" and "MR BIG 1."
A cast of investigators - Portland police, Canby police and IRS criminal investigators - would eventually unravel the case after Portland Police Detective Elizabeth Cruthers began to raise concerns about the suspected financial exploitation of Ralph Raines Jr.
Prosecutors say Rachel Lee drained the tree farm and all of the Raines' family investments for her own benefit.
"In addition to the financial devastation caused by this fraud scheme, the forest Raines built no longer stands," they wrote. "Today, visitors to the property find a clear-cut where the Raines Tree Farm once thrived."
Rachel Lee's lawyer is expected to call Ralph Raines Jr. to the stand Thursday to question him about details of the crimes.
It's unclear why.
Rachel Lee is the first of three key figures in the case, including Porsha Lee and Blancey Lee, to be sentenced in the case. All have pleaded guilty.
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