Federal prosecutors announced on Monday that a Florida woman who illegally received more than $1 million in federal coronavirus relief funds by using stolen identities to charter a private plane to transport her cross-country pled guilty.
Danielle Miller, 32, of Miami, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston.
Prosecutors claimed that between July 2020 and May 2021, Miller used the identities of more than ten different people and fictitious business names to apply for and receive more than $1 million in Economic Injury Disaster Loan funds, as well as Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and related unemployment benefits.
Miller had fake driver’s licenses with the names of the victims and her picture on them. Prosecutors claim that in one case, she obtained online access to a victim’s Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles records and used the personal information to open a bank account in that person’s name.
Prosecutors claim Miller used a fake driver’s license to book a Gulfstream private jet charter flight from Florida to California in August 2020. She stayed in a five-star hotel under the same victim’s name.
In another case, the prosecution claimed she rented a posh apartment in Florida using someone else’s identity.
Miller, according to investigators, boasted about her lavish lifestyle on her Instagram account, which had over 34,000 followers. She posted about her expensive purchases as well as her stays at opulent hotels in California, which she paid for with one of her victims’ bank accounts. Miller is scheduled to be sentenced on July 27. Her arrest occurred in May 2021.
