DANIELLE MILLER SENTENCED TO SIXTEEN YEARS
On Monday, Assistant State Attorney Andrew van Sickle announced that Danielle Miller was sentenced to a term of sixteen years by Circuit Court Judge Dana Moss. Danielle Miller previously pled guilty to thirty-eight counts of Fraudulently Using Personal Identification Information. The Court ordered that the sentence run consecutively to her previous case in which she was sentenced to a term of five years.
Recently, Danielle Miller gained notoriety as the subject of an article in New York magazine and several television documentaries. Danielle Miller came to Florida during the pandemic in 2020. While in Florida, she traveled to Sarasota with Ciera Blas, a co-defendant. In an elaborate scheme, Ms. Miller used the identification information belonging to other individuals to defraud banks throughout the State. However, an alert manager notified the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office who ultimately arrested Danielle Miller. Detective Carlos Verdoni investigated the case.
At the sentencing, Detective Verdoni revealed text messages that Ms. Miller communicated with individuals in countries as far away as Nigeria to pay for personal information obtained through mail theft, phishing attacks and social engineering. Afterwards, Ms. Miller used her extensive criminal network to obtain credit reports, driver’s licenses and credit cards of individuals from all over the United States. Afterwards, Ms. Miller would drain the accounts or use the credit cards to purchase luxury items. In one instance, she rented a water side villa in Miami at the cost of $27,000 a month.
In turn, Danielle Miller stated that she had changed her ways. Several witnesses testified on her behalf that Ms. Miller was simply misguided and a harsh sentence would be unjustified. However, the State presented a phone call made while she was in jail that outlined another “hustle,” as she termed it, to sell paper coated in bug spray to individuals within the facility suffering from drug addiction.
“This was a ground-breaking case, as the entire crime was derived almost entirely from digital evidence taken from Ms. Miller’s cellphone. Although she was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for fraudulently obtaining a million dollars in pandemic related loans, she was not punished in a manner commensurate with her crime, as she was already sentenced to a term of five years for her previous case. Thus, the State Attorney’s Office and the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office took the responsibility of obtaining justice. I am grateful for the support of the State Attorney and the Sheriff for this endeavor” said Assistant State Attorney van Sickle.
He continued, “identity theft, itself, represents a loss in the billions. In fact, identity theft is so profitable, state actors employ thousands of individuals to defraud corporations and individuals in the United States. Ms. Miller’s case proves that cryptocurrency was used to pay individuals outside the United States for stolen information. Thus, social media and documentaries that romanticize these individuals who commit these crimes are reprehensible and do not account for the victims whose lives are shattered as a result.”
If you have any questions or would like further information, please contact Assistant State Attorney Andrew van Sickle in the Sarasota County office at 941-861-4400.