Social media influencer pleads guilty to $1m US pandemic loan fraud
07.03.2023 - 06:57
/ msn.com
A social media influencer has pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining more than $1m in COVID-19 pandemic-related loans from the US government used to fund a lavish lifestyle which she flaunted on Instagram. Danielle Miller, a self-proclaimed con artist whose scams have been chronicled in a New York Magazine profile last year, appeared before a general judge in Boston by video from a prison cell to plead guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges.
The 33-year-old also agreed to forfeit $1. 3m (£1m) as part of a plea deal with prosecutors and serve six years in prison, 16 months of which could overlap with a five-year sentence she was handed in October in a separate Florida bank fraud case.
Miller has been accused by prosecutors of using the identities of more than 10 people to fraudulently set up bank accounts and obtain more than $1m (£831,450) in pandemic-related loans intended for small businesses. She is said to have spent the money on travel and luxury items including a Rolex, a Louis Vuitton bag and Dior shoes, as well as posting photos on Instagram of herself at opulent hotels in California where she used a bank account in the name of one of her victims.
Miller, originally from New York, is the daughter of a former New York State Bar Association president and was also a student at the prestigious Horace Mann School. She was already facing charges in a separate Florida state court fraud case when she was arrested in May 2021 at a luxury apartment in Miami, which she had moved into during the pandemic.
Read more:The fake German heiress who conned New York's elite"Honestly, I more so consider myself a con artist than anything," Miller was quoted as saying in the New York Magazine article. "You know
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