A social media influencer pleaded guilty Monday to using identities she stole to obtain more than $1 million in pandemic relief to help fund a lavish lifestyle, prosecutors said.
Danielle Miller, 32, assumed identities through the online Massachusetts driver’s license portal and other methods and displayed some of the cache from her scheme on social media, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for Massachusetts. Victims also came from Wisconsin and Arizona, a criminal complaint filed in the case noted.
Federal officials say hers is one of the more egregious cases of fraud that emerged from government efforts to recharge the economy in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which locked down communities and businesses starting in 2020.
In all, Miller obtained $1.5 million through fraud, most of it related to pandemic relief efforts, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
Authorities said in the complaint that, in September 2020, she used counterfeit ID to buy $2,390 worth of private jet airfare from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to the Los Angeles area.
There, she spent $5,500 at Petit Ermitage, a luxury hotel in West Hollywood, and posed for a photo in front of a Rolls-Royce at the Beverly Hills Hotel, according to the complaint. She posted an image of her with the car on Instagram with the words “She’s back.”
The next month, she used a pilfered identity to rent a Honda Civic, which was “abandoned” in Miami, it said. Inside was a document from the Florida unemployment department in her real name, the charging document said.
Miller pleaded guilty Monday to three counts of wire fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. She is free on $100,000 bond and living in the New York City area, according to court documents.
A still-active Instagram account belonging to Miller shows her in photos posted last year wearing an ankle monitor.
Her attorney, Mitchell C. Elman, said Miller has accepted responsibility…
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