BOSTON – Officials say a woman in Miami, Florida has pleaded guilty to $1.5 million in COVID-19 relief fraud and also publicized “luxurious use of fraud proceeds and stolen identities” on her Instagram account.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Boston said in a news release that Danielle Miller, 32, pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft. Miller was arrested in May 2021 in a criminal complaint and then was eventually indicted by a federal grand jury in July 2021.
Prosecutors claim that Miller used more than 10 people’s identities and used fake businesses to apply for, as well as receive, Economic Injury Disaster Loan funds and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance as well as other unemployment benefits from July 2020 to May 2021, according to The Associated Press.
Prosecutors said that Miller had counterfeit driver’s licenses with the victims’ names but her photograph. The AP reported that in one case, Miller obtained a victim’s Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles records online and took that information to open a bank account in their name.
Miller had used a counterfeit driver’s license to get a Gulfstream private jet charter flight from Florida to California in Aug. 2020, prosecutors said, according to the AP. They also claimed she stayed at a luxury hotel all under the victim’s name.
The U.S. attorney’s office said that Miller posted about her “extravagant lifestyle” on her Instagram account with over 34,000 followers, according to the AP.
Miller is expected to be sentenced on June 27, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
In convicted, Miller faces up to 20 years for each wire fraud charge, up to three years of supervised release, and up to a $250,000 fine. The aggravated identity theft charges if convicted is two years in prison to be served consecutively with other sentences, a year of supervised release, and up to a $250,000 fine, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
