Gypsy Feud over Fortune-telling Business in Southern California

In affluent Newport Beach in California's Orange County, two Gypsy clans have gone into court in a turf war over fortune-telling. It's a rare public airing of customs and practices that normally are kept secret from the rest of the world. The Merino clan claims that the Stevens clan broke into an office, stole a credit card machine and threatened to kill a Merino couple if they didn't shut down a fortune-telling operation. The case has revealed a system of intermarriage and social customs going back generations. Anne Sutherland, a professor of anthropology at the University of California in Riverside, is author of Gypsies: The Hidden Americans.