Ms. Delmaro greeted him and assured him that he and Michelle were “twin flames,” but that negativity was keeping them apart. “Spirits talk to me,” she said, according to the man’s statement, but there was a price. He paid her $2,500 and, after a second visit, $9,000 more.

A month later, in September, Ms. Delmaro told him she needed diamonds to protect his energy. He paid $40,064 for a ring from Tiffany’s and gave it to Ms. Delmaro, who promised he would use it as an engagement ring someday, the man said.

Michelle lived in Los Angeles. Go to her, Ms. Delmaro said.

He went. He texted Michelle. I’m on a boat, she replied, but let’s meet tomorrow.

“I was ecstatic,” he wrote. They met and talked and made plans for that night. But she backed out.

“She felt I had been acting strange,” he wrote.

Ms. Delmaro told him the trouble had come from a spirit that was stalking him. She needed $28,000, then $28,000 more. Michelle had grown cold so suddenly, he thought, that the spirit explanation sounded right, and so he paid.

A month later, Ms. Delmaro suggested they perform a fake funeral ritual to make the spirit think the man was dead. Another $40,000.

When that didn’t work, Ms. Delmaro said she needed a time machine to go back and cleanse his past. When the man balked, she said a suitable watch would do the job, and gave him a list of choices. He said he selected one of the cheaper ones: a rose gold Rolex for $30,000.