According to federal authorities, an Instagram influencer who exploited stolen identities to get more than $1 million in pandemic-related loans and use the money to flaunt her opulent lifestyle on social media, was sentenced to five years in jail on Thursday.
According to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Massachusetts, 32-year-old Danielle Miller, who has a total of 34,000 followers on Instagram, obtained loans for pandemic relief using the stolen identities of more than ten other persons.
She then utilized the money from the falsely obtained loans to live a high-society lifestyle, which included acquiring a fancy condominium and hiring a private jet, according to the statement.
Miller, of Miami, was given a five-year jail term and three years of supervised release by a federal judge, according to the prosecution. She was also required to make reparation, but the exact sum won’t be known for some time.
She entered a guilty plea in March to a pair of counts of aggravated theft of identity and three counts of wire fraud.
Miller’s attorney, Mitchell C. Elman, issued the following statement via email on Thursday: “Ms. Miller acknowledged responsibility for her actions & conveyed her remorse to the Court, the Government, and the Victims Affected.”
Miller utilized the illegally obtained money to increase her social media profile, according to a statement from Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy with the District of Massachusetts.
“Today’s sentencing ought to make it crystal clear that maintaining a high-society social media footprint on the backs of struggling taxpayers is a route to prison, not fleeting fame,” he said.
“Ms. Miller is a convicted felon, not a figure of influence. In order to take almost $1.2 million in pandemic relief loans that were intended for persons in need, she stole the identities of innocent people, Levy continued.
Miller “devised and executed a scheme” between July 2021 and May 2021, according to the prosecution, to receive pandemic loans from the federal government. According to the prosecution, these loans included money from the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan administered by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Prosecutors claimed that Miller also applied for and obtained federal loans using fictitious business names as part of the conspiracy. She also carried fake driver’s licenses bearing the names of the victims but bearing her picture instead.
Miller advertised her opulent lifestyle on Instagram, posting pictures from fancy hotels in California that were paid for with a victim’s bank account whose identity was stolen, according to the prosecution.
A private jet charter trip from Florida to California was also booked by Miller using a fake driver’s license in the name of a Massachusetts victim. Prosecutors allege that Miller rented a posh apartment in Florida using the identity of another victim in a different incident.