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By Matt Bean
Court TV
Here's
one reason television soothsayer Miss Cleo's Jamaican accent might seem a
bit off: The shaman, real name Youree Dell
Harris, is from California, not the Caribbean.
According
to a birth certificate released Thursday by the Florida
Attorney General's office, the purported shaman was born in
the Los Angeles County Hospital on Aug. 13, 1962.
"The
company made a special effort to tell people that she is a master shaman
from Jamaica," said David Aronberg, an
assistant attorney general in Florida. "We wanted her birth
certificate from the beginning."
The
certificate, which the Los Angeles clerk's office sent to Florida after
authorities there filed a broad suit against Harris and the company that
employs her, Fort Lauderdale-based Access Resource Services (ARS), shows
that Harris' parents are a Californian woman, Alisa Hopis, and Texan
David Harris.
The
document released Thursday puts an end to what had become a crusade to
unveil the origin of the television psychic, who claimed to be descended
from a line of Jamaican shamans.
One
rumor placed her in Seattle as a
playwright before her Cleo gig. Another placed her in the cast
of the 1980s crime drama, Miami Vice (Michael Paul Thomas, a star of the
series, was a spokesperson for ARS until 1998 and is currently suing its
owners, Larry Feder and Peter Stolz). But while rumors swirled, Harris and ARS
remained tight-lipped about her origins.
As of
Thursday evening, the company's website still claimed,
"...she’s become a household name simply by the sheer force of her
psychic gifts, which she’s honed since she was a little girl in the
Caribbean. Born in the Trelawny section of
Jamaica, Miss Cleo says she noticed at very young age that she had unique
talents."
A
lawyer representing the psychic could not be reached for comment
Thursday.
Courttv.com's Investigation
Since a
Courttv.com investigation in January
found that many of the psychics who staff the psychic hotline, which
charges just under $5 per minute, use scripts instead of performing
actual tarot card readings, the troubles for the shaman and ARS have
piled up.
In
February, the Federal Trade Commission charged ARS with
consumer violations ranging from misleading advertising to
overly aggressive collection efforts.
Florida
was the eighth state to move against Feder and Stolz, who launched the Mind and Spirit psychic
network in 1999 but had been running other telephone psychic operations
since 1993.
The
state originally held ARS to a series of agreements in which the company
agreed to a number of stipulations, including that it change its
advertising to make it more clear that callers would not speak directly
to Miss Cleo.
A study
by the New York State Consumer Protection Board reported that Feder and Stolz's business
brings in as much as $400 million annually.
Florida
also obtained "most favored state" status, which means that ARS
would be held to clauses resulting from lawsuits in other states as well.
But ARS
did not abide by the deal, which was one reason the state sued, Aronberg said.
More
answers about Miss Cleo's origins could emerge when the Florida attorney
general's office talks to the psychic herself. Aronberg
said his office is scheduled to depose the psychic on March 28, but that
the date could change since both Harris and ARS received extensions to
respond to the original suit.
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Here is the
follow-up story…
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FORT
LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Television psychic Miss Cleo
repeatedly invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination
Wednesday, refusing to discuss a birth certificate showing she was born
in Los Angeles to American parents.
Miss
Cleo, whose real name is Youree Dell Harris
and who has claims to be a Jamaican shaman, was giving a deposition in
a civil suit filed by Florida.
The
suit accuses her of deceptive trade practices for her television ads
pitching a psychic hot line that charged up to $4.95 a minute.
Assistant
Attorney General Dave Aronberg told the South
Florida Sun-Sentinel that on Wednesday, he went line by line through
Harris' birth certificate, asking her if it was accurate. Each time she
took the Fifth Amendment, he said.
Harris'
lawyer, William Cone Jr., said the closed-door interview went well and
his client said she felt wonderful.
"I
won't give the devil his due. I praise the father for every day that I
have," said Harris.
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