Spiritual healer tricked woman into sex to save her marriage and then took her money

A spiritual healer tricked a woman into having sex with him to solve her marriage problems — and then made her pay $7,500. Syed Shah conned the 28-year-old mom into believing he could “purify” her relationship.

Shah, 30, from Birmingham, England, this week was found guilty of two charges of rape and one of fraud following a trial at Birmingham Crown Court.

Judge Patrick Thomas QC jailed him for 12 years — after it was revealed he had sexually assaulted another woman while performing a healing ritual Shah also was ordered to register as a sex offender for life and must pay the victim $12,600 in compensation.

The court heard how the woman, who had been married for three years and had a young son, was having difficulties in her marriage.

A friend introduced her in June last year to Shah, who offered to help “cure” her marriage.

The ritual involved sacrificing a goat and getting her to perform daily readings.

She later returned to tell Shah nothing had changed. He told her that there were more rituals to be carried out — and they involved having sex with him.

The woman had sex with Shah twice, and also gave him $7,500.

But she began to feel uncomfortable about what was going on and concerned that she was being unfaithful to her husband.

It was when she saw a report on the Birmingham Mail website revealing that Shah had sexually assaulted another woman whom he persuaded to undress that she went to the police.

Shah subsequently was jailed for two years after admitting the previous offense.

Giving evidence, Shah — who denied being a spiritual healer — claimed he had been contacted by the woman through her brother, and that she had only come to his home once alone when she had asked him to kill her mother-in-law.

He denied having sex with or taking any money from her.

Defense attorney Gaias Gozem asked the judge to be as lenient as possible and said the message must get through to Shah that this kind of behavior could not be tolerated.

The judge told Shah: “This was a vile set of offenses.

“You abused the high reputation that your family name gave you within the community in order to have your will with a perfectly decent and respectable young woman who had the misfortune to be vulnerable because of her personal circumstances.

“You took advantage of her both sexually and financially.

“You have behaved in a manner that any right-thinking person would regard as not just grossly hypocritical but abusive to a very high degree.

“You fought the case and made her go through in public the humiliation of describing what happened to her.”

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