Original subtitles

ANNA: I think the term "influencer"

is, like, so shallow.

Nobody should be calling themselves an influencer.

[inquisitive music]

It's not up to you to decide if you're influencing anybody.

It should be up to others to judge

if you're really one or not.

- [whispering] Influence.

This is an episode about Danielle Miller, isn't it?

Where does it start?

Everything that she's ever tried to do

is just gain attention.

- She was just like, oh, like,

Danielle Miller, that nice girl.

But no, she wanted to be somebody.

DILLON: And now she can craft her story on social media.

- She has found something she wants to be...

And that is a famous con artist.

- I feel like she wanted to be that bad girl.

She wanted to show her family that she's a bad girl.

And that's what she did.

NATHANIEL: Social media has afforded her the opportunity

to showcase what she was doing

at the peak of the alleged criminal conduct.

- She thinks that there's no consequences.

You can send her to jail, she'll get out.

She can do whatever she wants.

DETECTIVE: When we went through the car,

they found several IDs.

So I just need to know which person are you gonna be today?

So I can write my report correctly.

- I want a lawyer.

- This girl is someone creative and beautiful and smart

and resourceful and artistic.

But she's also batshit.

She belongs in a fucking cage.

[upbeat dreamy music]

♪♪ ♪♪

[upbeat music]

♪♪ ♪♪

[curious music]

♪♪ ♪♪

GABRIELLE: My name is Gabrielle Bluestone.

I am a journalist and author.

My beat is scammers and fraud.

On July 28, 2021,

I saw the DOJ tweet out a press release

about an Instagram influencer

who had been using pandemic funds

to fund a lavish lifestyle.

You better believe I clicked that as fast as I could.

And it was shocking because,

you know, I was one paragraph in,

and I realized, oh, my God, I know this girl.

It was about Danielle Miller.

I was the Class of 2007 at Horace Mann,

and Danielle was a year behind me.

Horace Mann is a New York City private school

in Riverdale, New York,

and it is a place of extreme privilege.

It is where, you know, the kids

of kind of the titans of New York, um,

are often sent.

Then Governor Eliot Spitzer,

uh, was a parent at that school.

The head of Goldman Sachs was a parent at that school.

Danielle's mother was a former Rockette,

um, and her father was a prominent estate attorney,

who also served as the president

of the New York State Bar Association.

But Horace Mann was the kind of place

where the kids of lawyers and doctors

were the middle class kids.

And so it is a very bizarre kind of experience.

I had lost touch with Danielle after high school,

but I went about getting in contact with her.

At that point, she was in custody in Sarasota,

and, you know, it was a wild experience

to walk into the jail

and see a former high school classmate.

As I started investigating the story

and looking at her Instagram, I realized

it's impossible to discuss who Danielle is today

without talking about when this incredibly

traumatic event happened to her in middle school.

[tense music]

♪♪ ♪♪

DILLON: What comes to mind when I hear Danielle Miller?

Immediately, Swiffer Girl.

I'm Dillon Breslin, born and raised in New York City.

I was a freshman in high school,

and a classmate of mine was asking everybody,

had they heard of or seen the Swiffer Girl videos?

There's an eighth grader at Horace Mann who taped herself

masturbating with a Swiffer.

And it turned out he had literal burned DVD copies.

And he was literally handing them out like lollipops

at the doctor's office.

He just gave it to me, and he was laughing.

And I did watch the videos as soon as I got home.

GABRIELLE: Danielle had made this video

for a boy that she liked.

And the boy that she liked had sent it

to her then-best friend,

who sent it to a few people,

who sent it to a few more people.

It was one of those moments, like, you don't really forget,

'cause nothing had ever gone viral like that before.

[inquisitive music]

EJ: The Hill Schools are a trio of private schools.

It's Fieldston, Horace Mann, and Riverdale.

I was there in Riverdale

from seventh grade to senior year.

It was just word of mouth.

You know, some eighth grader at Horace Mann

had privately sent a video of herself with a Swiffer,

and it was something that circulated for a while.

GABRIELLE: It spread across the country through AOL.

That was kind of the nexus of it.

And before you knew it, like, your camp friends had seen it.

Your friends in LA had seen it.

And then in a really horrifying turn of events,

it did end up on file sharing profiles like Kazaa.

She was kind of innocuous.

Then she became the most famous high schooler

in New York after Swiffergate,

as it was referred to at the time.

There were stories going around that she had been

charging people for autographs, and, you know, the school

had made her parents watch the tape along with the principal.

And she says none of those were true,

but what definitely was true was,

everywhere she went, people knew who she was.

DILLON: The guy's popularity actually increased.

♪♪ ♪♪

For Danielle, since this was her coming out party,

if you will, to the rest of the city...

She was immediately outcasted.

GABRIELLE: Everyone kind of acted like it was her fault

that that had happened to her,

you know, when in retrospect, she's the victim.

NIKI: I'd never heard of Swiffer Girl,

so when presented with the idea

of interviewing Swiffer Girl,

I googled it.

♪♪ ♪♪

And I was just, like, blown away at the story.

I couldn't believe it.

My name is Niki Takesh.

I have a podcast with Julia Fox

called "Forbidden Fruits" on Spotify.

At the time, Julia was, like, the most famous person.

So we actually had Danielle Miller as a guest.

Today's guest, I know New York people will know her.

She's the infamous Upper East Side Swiffer Girl.

- Just got off Zoom with one of my

probation officers in Florida,

and she has not listened to the podcast I did,

"Forbidden Fruits," with Julia Fox and Niki Takesh.

She's super excited to.

And if you haven't listened to it yet,

then you should click below.

- Our podcast was the first time that she ever, like,

gave kind of any sort of confirmation

that she is the Swiffer Girl,

which I thought was very shocking.

DANIELLE: This is also crazy because this is literally

the first time ever that I'm confirming or denying

that I'm Swiffer Girl ever to the public.

NIKI: So it was kind of the first time

that she'd publicly spoke about what she went through.

DANIELLE: It's just crazy because at such a young age,

like, I had to start, like, compartmentalizing,

like, how to trust people, and like, that--

that was just, like, so gnarly,

and you're so young.

I mean, people were really,

really mean to me for a long time.

- I remember my friend was over,

and we were talking about it.

And my mom overheard, and she was like, this is horrible.

That poor girl, like, what a horrible thing

for someone to make this public.

And I think she was the only person

who voiced that opinion at the time.

I certainly did not hear that

from other people at high school.

I don't think the language of consent

was really ever on the table.

- It was, like, a very bizarre time

to kind of come of age as a woman.

There was this really aggressive sexuality

that kind of defined that era.

Paris Hilton was the most famous person on the planet,

and it was weirdly acceptable for, you know, magazines

to run upskirt photos

of Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan.

And that definitely trickled down into the way

that impressionable young teenagers

were expressing themselves online.

- Girls like Danielle and I, who grew up in that era,

like, that's what we saw.

Those were who we, like, kind of idolized, in a way,

like infamy.

SECURITY GUARD: Behind the barricades.

FAN 1: Don't be shy.

FAN 2: Can I get a smile, Paris?

Paris, look over this way.

- I mean, I think nowadays, we have way more compassion

for women, and instead of, you know, bashing them

or calling them sluts or this or that--

which is definitely what was going on in 2004

when she made those Swiffer videos--

now we can see it as, she's a victim.

And she is.

She really is a victim of child porn.

DANIELLE: Like, even with Paris's video or whatever,

like, she was over age.

Like, this still, like, comes back to the point

that, like, people were just readily passing around

child pornography and laughing about it

and thinking it was funny and then attacking me for it.

NIKI: You know, she never moved schools.

She didn't move cities.

So, you know, she had to live with this identity

as the Swiffer Girl.

DANIELLE: It's, like, pretty wild to think that, like,

the one mistake that I made

became not just a definition of, like,

my coming of age story, but, like, of all of my peers'

coming of age story.

- That adolescent mischief and sexual exploration

is nothing new.

But what was new in 2004-- very new--was the ease

in which adolescents could capture themselves

engaged in this type of sexual exploration

and share the proof, if you will.

And I am not surprised that in 2004,

the boy who passed it along

and the others who passed it along

didn't get in trouble, because there was

no revenge porn or nonconsensual porn law

on the books.

DILLON: If the Swiffer Girl videos were leaked today,

I foresee an entirely different scenario,

where these guys are kicked out of school,

potentially prosecuted, thrown in jail, lives ruined,

and the roles would have been completely reversed.

- She would have had better mental health assistance,

and she would have been recognized as the victim

that she was.

[upbeat music]

♪♪ ♪♪

QUENTIN: I've never seen the video.

How do you survive?

I mean, you just have to own it and live with it.

My name is Quentin Brown.

Um, my friends call me Esme,

and I grew up in New York.

I did not have exposure to Danielle

until I was maybe 15.

I had a girl sleeping over at my house,

and we were on Park Avenue, and we were in our taxi,

and there were a group of people on the corner,

and Danielle was there.

And the girl I was with yelled out the window, "Swiffer Girl."

And I felt like I was in the car with someone very cruel.

I was really lost at that time in my life.

And at that time, Danielle, however we met--

I think she invited me to dinner.

And Danielle has a lot of really amazing qualities.

And more than anything, there was an unspoken thing

that everyone knew about her.

Um, so whether she was or wasn't in a place to judge,

she just wasn't judgmental.

And she was pretty wild.

- Like, the shock value was strong when I found out

that I was gonna meet her, because she was an urban legend

at that point, like, Swiffer Girl--

literally, she was Swiffer Girl.

- She kind of became the girl that if you wanted to party

on a weeknight or go to a bar, well,

that was who you would call.

- Well, I asked her about that on our podcast.

Did you use drugs?

DANIELLE: Well, no, everyone thought I did drugs.

So everyone thought I'd had sex.

Everyone thought I did drugs.

Everyone thought I was this bad girl.

And I literally-- the way that I coped with it,

I leaned into that really fucking hard.

- The fact that she was confident, outgoing, happy,

and always down to have a good time,

I have to assume that that was survival.

- She went on to Arizona.

When she graduated Horace Mann,

she thought she would have some kind of anonymity,

and every time she told someone

that she had gone to Horace Mann,

their first question was inevitably,

oh, my God, do you know Swiffer Girl?

And then after that, she moved out to Los Angeles.

QUENTIN: LA is a shining beacon

of make yourself whoever you wanna be.

And she chose to restart as a con artist.

♪♪ ♪♪

DILLON: I moved to Los Angeles in May 2013,

and Danielle Miller popped up

and wanted to reconnect.

And she targeted the individuals who were

New York City transplants.

[soft inquisitive music]

- I was living in Beechwood Canyon at the time,

and my life had shifted a little bit.

GABRIELLE: Esme made headlines

in recent years...

Because she had married one of her friends.

Tiffany Trump served as their flower girl.

But at the time, Esme was just a well-known socialite

from New York who was living in LA.

QUENTIN: Danielle told me she had been accepted

to work at the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce.

And I remember thinking that was incredible.

I had a whole new life in LA.

Like, I sort of distanced myself here and there.

But she was one of those people

who you could call at any time, and she would come.

I have a rare neurological disease

that can cause seizures,

and I remember texting Danielle,

"Just wanna take a shower,

"but I'm nervous I'm gonna have a seizure

and I'm gonna crack my head open."

And she said, "I have a lunch break.

"Why don't I come over? You can shower.

I'll make it. I'll be there."

She provided a lot...

And she really wanted to be accepted and loved.

[upbeat music]

♪♪ ♪♪

So I took her out.

She met a few people.

Danielle is very funny.

She's very clever. She's very personable.

And she's definitely a chameleon.

DILLON: She wanted everybody's attention.

She wanted to be everybody's friend.

QUENTIN: One day, she approached me

about a gala that was hosted

by the Beverly Hills

Chamber of Commerce.

And she said, "I don't know anyone here.

"I just moved here.

"I am new to this job, and I just want them

"to think I've sold tables.

"I can buy a table.

Can you put it in your name?"

So I went, brought friends.

But, you know, it's not fun. [chuckles]

And it's, like, the mayor speaking.

It's not like, uh, something

for 22-year-old people to enjoy.

You know, after, she thanked me,

and she posted all these pictures.

So at the time, we were seeing each other occasionally.

There was a club called Warwick.

We had gone out-- she, I, Dillon.

We all got way too intoxicated, and we parted ways.

I went home, and I went to sleep.

And I don't know how much time passed, but I woke up,

and Danielle was standing...

[soft suspenseful music]

In front of my bed,

and she was rummaging around.

And she said that she was looking for her keys

or had left her keys.

It was just so bizarre.

- The next day, I was like, well,

we're in a house where you literally

have security cameras all around.

And so we looked.

Lo and behold, we watched Danielle Miller

climbing into her home.

Esme is like, why the fuck was she here?

- I can't recall if I ever confronted her about it.

I don't even think I wanted to.

Dillon and I just took her as, that's Danielle.

It's harmless.

♪♪ ♪♪

And then it was

probably the first week of October.

[phone rings]

My mother called me, screaming,

"You've stolen money again."

I had made a lot of bad decisions, um,

due to drug abuse.

But I was so shocked, as one is

when they're accused of something they haven't done.

She said that there had been roughly $20,000 taken.

I can remember it as if it were yesterday.

I remember going to Citibank.

My roommate and I walked in.

We found a teller.

I couldn't even say anything.

And my roommate said, "Okay, this is the situation.

We need to see every check that's been issued."

And they were all my writing, and it's the same checks,

same checks, same checks.

And then it just came through Danielle Miller.

And then the next one, Danielle Miller.

And then I saw one for 4,500

to the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce.

I just literally stared in horror.

♪♪ ♪♪

I kept my checkbook in my office.

Danielle had seen me open that drawer.

She knew where they were.

So I went back to my mom.

And I knew we were gonna confront her

or figure this out.

My mom said to me, "I don't wanna call the police,

and I'm not going to."

And my mom took over the situation for me

with Danielle's father.

And it was suggested to my mother that basically,

the amount would be reimbursed in full.

So my mom's job for the next two months

became chasing Danielle on money owed to us.

But about a year later, it happens again.

So at this point, um, I hired an attorney,

and we began a suit.

- On our podcast, when I brought up

Quentin "Esme" Brown and the check fraud,

she shut that down.

Are you able to talk about the alleged crimes in--

I believe it was 2012 or 2013 with Quentin Brown

and writing checks to yourself?

DANIELLE: Oh, yeah, no, I'm not talking about that

for, like, her protection. NIKI: Okay.

Got it.

Are you guys still friends?

DANIELLE: No, we don't speak anymore.

QUENTIN: With Danielle, I don't think

there's any desperation or need for money.

So I don't know what the gain was for her.

This is not just a theft.

This is a cycle of behavior

that should have been prevented.

♪♪ ♪♪

MACKINZIE: All right, all right, all right, all right.

What's up, guys?

Yo, my name is Mackinzie Dae.

I usually go by Mac, Mack Dae of D, the Bad Doctor.

Uh, we are here in an undisclosed location

because I'm mentioning Danielle Miller.

[upbeat inquisitive music]

I was introduced to Danielle Miller in a outside bar

from a friend, and, uh, that is the start

of a very serious six months.

These little tiny moments in your life, right,

can change everything.

- What's crazy is that Mackinzie,

who has been through two wars,

said that his time with Danielle

was the craziest thing he's ever been through.

MACKINZIE: Danielle is terrifying.

There is nothing else in this woman, uh, other than evil.

When I first met Danielle Miller

when I moved to LA to start my film career...

- This is Mackinzie.

He directed today's music video.

It's about to be fire.

- Thank you so much, bro. - Absolutely.

MACKINZIE: You know, I'm living in, like,

the epicenter of, like, all these, like, YouTubers

and Instagrammers, and, like, social media kids,

and like, Danielle Miller.

She quit her job to start her own agency

called Epoch Advisory.

The only context that I had to be able to figure out

if this girl was legit or not was this article

about how she's everywhere.

Later, I found out that the article was paid advertising.

She had paid for it.

But it was a great fucking article.

It's like, she knows entertainment.

She knows styling.

Plus, she knows social media.

She also had access to money

because she said she was a trust fund kid.

And I'm like, oh, cool, someone that can help me.

And so we partnered up.

SINGER: ♪♪ Floating by myself, by myself ♪♪

MACKINZIE: And it was always, like, us on the red carpet,

like, oh, who, who, who?

Dani Miller and, uh, Mackinzie Dae.

Then these guys, they offer me a job.

[vocalizing]

- [laughs]

MACKINZIE: It was a three-month contract

to do the Dolan Twins' music video.

- Let's get 40,000 thumbs ups.

- It's a four-minute song, and it's, like,

heavily produced, time period piece, on a low budget.

I need help.

So I decided to invite Dani to be a co-producer.

We were doing the music video.

It was a really sick project.

But I got pulled aside numerous times by the talent,

and they hated her.

The talent comes up to you and goes, yo, throw me a water.

And she goes, you can get it yourself.

She just uses every and every instinct

to just be, like, this New York, like, glamor girl.

Like, what do they call that, "Gossip Girl"?

I realized that if we weren't paying attention to her...

PERSON: D.

MACKINZIE: She was creating chaos.

PERSON: Is that a wrap?

Is that a wrap?

MACKINZIE: She will not put in the effort

to do the real shit.

I was like, hey, listen, this is not working out.

It's not cool.

It's been, like, the most terrible experience

I've ever had.

Everyone hates you.

I cannot talk to this woman anymore.

It's like, I pull the plug.

And then everything after that was batshit crazy.

She would send me devastating text messages, like...

Hold on. Where's my phone? I guess we'll do this.

[soft suspenseful music]

She sent me, "I'm sorry for all the things

"that you think I've done, for all the things

"that I've put you through.

"This is literally it for me.

"I'm way better dead, and you're going to be

"a lot happier that way.

"It doesn't matter because I've only caused you problems.

You said that my parents have too."

My response--"Danielle, you're going to continue

to hurt people along the road unless you heal yourself."

♪♪ ♪♪

So I go to her house to get all my shit out of it

because we were working together.

And I'm looking for my laptop,

and I see a little nice envelope.

And it says, you know, Mac Dae, whatever.

And it's a brand new debit card.

I also found out that she was creating all these, like,

fake credit cards, stealing from, like,

merchant banking accounts.

♪♪ ♪♪

- I honestly think that Mackinzie was just

another victim of her fraud.

So I asked her about the allegations.

I'm curious what your response is to--

you know, this magazine article states that

you basically stole Mackinzie's identity

and took out loans and credit cards.

DANIELLE: 100% no.

NIKI: She just kinda denied everything.

/narrator: There's no court documents about it.

Like, I don't know what they're talking about at all.

NIKI: Right. So he never pressed charges?

DANIELLE: No, because he doesn't have anything

to press charges against me for.

MACKINZIE: I hate this girl, dude.

I fucking hate this girl.

Every person you ever meet, you rob, you con.

You destroy their lives, and they don't even know

until five months later when you totally bankrupted them.

Are you fucking kidding me?

The whole thing is, like--

I don't even know how to wrap this up in a sensible manner.

♪♪ ♪♪

GABRIELLE: I was surprised by how many records came up,

especially from her time in California.

There were a number of eviction records.

There were these court files

by Esme Brown against her.

And you could really see the progression

of how she kind of went from petty crime

to criminal mastermind.

♪♪ ♪♪

EUGENE: My name is Eugene Kagansky,

and I got Danielle Miller arrested.

[indistinct radio chatter]

[inquisitive music]

♪♪ ♪♪

EUGENE: I'm the founder of BodyFactory Skin Care.

It's an aesthetic bar specializing

in aesthetic beauty.

We do Botox fillers, uh, different facials.

In 2017, Danielle Miller purchased

a bunch of different services,

including, uh, laser hair removal, facials.

She did the lip augmentation treatments,

as well as, uh, under-eye treatment,

jaw reduction treatment.

And I can see all the transactions,

they're coming in through the online store.

And usually I flag those kind of large transactions

just to be sure that they're all legit.

And then one day, I'm receiving emails

saying that all of those transactions

start coming back as a fraud.

I decided to investigate a little bit more,

so I let Danielle Miller keep coming back to a location

to more treatments.

I don't think that she realized that she's dealing

with a Russian Israeli immigrant

that really care for his business

and that I will be the one who is gonna catch her.

So on November 25, 2017, Danielle Miller

booked an appointment for laser hair removal session.

I immediately called the detectives

and told them that she is on her way.

When she arrived, the detective were standing

outside of the location.

And I told her that all the transactions

that she purchased online were declined.

She was like, oh, my God, this has never happened.

It's not me.

- On our podcast, Danielle denies the whole thing.

DANIELLE: I didn't do that. [laughs]

Someone must have used my profile at this place

and used someone's credit card.

But I literally didn't do that.

- So at that time, our detective took her bag.

And they handcuffed her, and they took her.

To be honest with you, I have a little smile on my face

because I felt like I did what I needed to do.

It was identity theft.

She scammed my company in about $6,000.

I came from another country

and established myself in the United States.

And every dollar, uh, I--I take it very seriously.

Her father is a big lawyer in New York.

They have money.

They give her everything,

all the best education

and the best schools and the best clothing

and the best housing.

In my opinion, what she really wanted is attention.

Because the money was not the problem.

- When she was initially arrested,

uh, her family helped get her released.

[suspenseful music]

But once she went back to California

and began missing court dates,

a bench warrant was issued for her arrest.

- She ends up going to Mexico in October 2018

to celebrate her birthday...

And upon re-entering the country

is met with Border Patrol, who is like,

you have a warrant out for your arrest.

She was wearing an Herve Leger bikini,

a Missoni wrap, and Valentino rock-studded heels,

and put into handcuffs.

Put her on a commercial flight in handcuffs

with a towel wrapped around her

and sent her to New York to press charges.

She told us on her podcast about it.

DANIELLE: They had to, like, tell the whole staff

of the plane that they were armed

and they were bringing, like, a fugitive on the plane.

And I had to get on last and walk past every single person

on the plane, handcuffed to myself,

in my [bleep] bathing suit, to New York,

to 32-degree weather,

to the last row on the fucking flight.

Literally, everyone was staring at me, and I clearly--

NIKI: Oh, my God.

DANIELLE: You would have thought I could have done

this, like, fugitive strut a million times,

'cause I just played into it, leaned into it,

as I did with, like, the Swiffer Girl stuff.

I was like, okay, I just have to own this right now

because I'm gonna fucking lose it.

- A friend of mine reached out to me on Instagram,

and she said, have you heard where Danielle is?

She said, she's at Rikers Island.

GABRIELLE: You know, Danielle is an incredibly charismatic,

uh, person who prides herself on being able

to make friends wherever she is.

Apparently, in, like, the first ten minutes in the dorm,

she heard someone say her name in kind of a crazy accent,

and that person was Anna Delvey.

[suspenseful music]

♪♪ ♪♪

- Hi, guys. My name is Anna Delvey.

I'm the real, live, um, Anna

from Inventing Anna.

- I have a question.

What are you wearing? You look poor.

REPORTER 1: She's been called the Soho Grifter.

REPORTER 2: Gray's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes

behind an upcoming project for Netflix

based on this New York Magazine article.

NIKI: Honestly, Anna Delvey, the fake German heiress,

was, like, part of the reason I started a podcast.

I'm obviously talking about my dear sis,

Anna [bleep] Delvey.

I was so fascinated by her.

And things that she did were just so unbelievable.

- And seeing the reaction I've been getting,

um, changed my perspective about the impact my story had.

People reacted like Anna allegedly

stole all this money.

Then she got a Netflix deal, and she became famous.

That's obviously a very wrong message to send.

♪♪ ♪♪

I would hate for it to, like, encourage even one person

to pursue any kind of illegal activity

just because they look at me

and they see that I made something out of it.

NIKI: Danielle didn't know who Anna Delvey was at the time.

But they ended up becoming jail buddies,

according to Danielle.

DANIELLE: She, like, heard my voice or something,

and she was like, come here. I have this bed.

You can have this bed. And it was a dummy bed.

NIKI: She's like, I could tell you're a rich girl.

JULIA: You had money.

Yeah, she could smell the money.

[laughter]

DANIELLE: So we quickly became friends--

like, really good friends.

- This is an Upper East Side girl

who has grown up knowing what Rikers was,

just a few miles from Rikers, suddenly locked inside of it.

And each time that Danielle has found herself

in a negative situation,

she doubles down on it.

QUENTIN: I know how Rikers works.

I know it's not, like, a long-term prison.

And my first thought was, she would use it to learn.

She's never not used an opportunity to learn.

- It sounds to me like being a scammer was something

she, like, aspired to be

or something that she takes pride in.

[ferry horn blares]

GABRIELLE: She was kept at Rikers through April,

when she eventually pleaded guilty.

That was her first criminal conviction.

That was her first time behind bars.

And I think it really kind of set the stage

for what was to come.

She kept launching more and more scams,

all while the net was closing in on her.

♪♪ ♪♪

[somber music]

♪♪ ♪♪

GABRIELLE: So according to Danielle,

as the pandemic started,

she fled to Miami.

[upbeat music]

♪♪ ♪♪

And once she was there, she says that Ciera Blas,

who was in Rikers with her,

decided to come join her.

EJ: You look at her Instagram, and it's all these images

of, like, luxury and sumptuousness

and this high-end lifestyle.

It was like a testament to her capacity to self-reinvent.

GABRIELLE: She spent her time living the life

of a very wealthy Instagram influencer.

She took pictures and videos with a Rolex on one hand,

driving a Mercedes.

She would film herself shopping at Bal Harbor,

picking up designer goods and Fendi purses, Gucci shoes.

Ciera and Danielle basically spent

about two months together in Florida.

And then on May 7th, Ciera and Danielle

got in a rented Jaguar,

and they drove from Miami to Sarasota.

When they went to the bank and allegedly

attempted to remove $8,000...

[suspenseful music]

Something about their approach made the teller suspicious.

At which point, the bank contacted the police.

♪♪ ♪♪

DANIELLE: Am I getting arrested?

DETECTIVE: Well, you're not technically in cuffs yet,

but you're not free to go, because you're detained.

- Okay. DETECTIVE: Does that make sense?

- Sort of. I don't really understand.

DETECTIVE: I'm detaining you

to investigate this case of a fraud...

DANIELLE: What is the case about?

DETECTIVE: That occurred at a bank, which I told you earlier.

GABRIELLE: The police collected at least three IDs

with Danielle's photo and other, uh,

people's names underneath.

DETECTIVE: You presented the name of Erika Biers.

GABRIELLE: Mm-hmm.

DETECTIVE: That is the ID, correct,

that you showed us earlier at the bank?

Like, this is what you provided them?

- Yes. DETECTIVE: Okay.

So I went through the car.

I found several IDs.

One is the name of Danielle Miller,

which I think, that's your correct ID.

The other one is [bleep].

- What are those-- DETECTIVE: [bleep]

- Are those pictures of me?

DETECTIVE: Of course, yeah, absolutely, and [bleep].

So I just need to know,

which person are you gonna be today?

So I can write my report correctly.

- I want a lawyer.

- They also found $25,000 in cash in the car,

as well as six cell phones.

CIERA: We fucking sitting there in the car,

fucking go into the bank, and you're fucking taking

our money from your account?

And you fucking arrest us? DANIELLE: Like, what the fuck?

How am I going to jail for taking out money--

for trying to take money from my own account?

I don't get it.

Can't they tell exactly who I am

from my fucking fingerprint,

that I'm fucking Erika? [laughs]

GABRIELLE: The case grew exponentially

once police were able to look

through the six cell phones

that they had confiscated from Danielle and Ciera.

Their forensic investigation revealed that

there were dozens of other victims and potential victims

whose identity information was being stored in these phones.

And I believe there's currently

more than 30, uh, individuals

who are part of a larger case that's still pending

against Danielle and Ciera.

- My head is killing me.

- I can't hear you.

- My head hurts.

- I know. And I'm hungry.

I can't wait to get out of here and eat.

Ugh.

GABRIELLE: Danielle was initially charged

with seven counts of fraud,

while Ciera was just one charge

related to a fraudulent ID.

CIERA: Don't cry.

DANIELLE: Okay. CIERA: I got you.

DANIELLE: You too.

I love you.

You heard me? CIERA: Huh?

DANIELLE: I said I love you.

- I love you too.

♪♪ ♪♪

GABRIELLE: They pleaded not guilty and then bailed out.

And actually, no one's really been

face-to-face with Ciera since.

According to court records, she is currently on the run.

[upbeat music]

While she was out on bail, Danielle spent

a little bit of time laying low.

But by August-September, she had begun to live that

kind of conspicuous consumption lifestyle again.

- There was an Instagram post sent to me with the caption,

"She's back."

And I laughed.

It's like she's mocking us.

Like, it's wild.

DILLON: To me, there's two types of scammers, right?

There are scammers that want to lurk in the shadows

because they're doing bad things,

and they know they're doing bad things.

The other type of scammer is somebody

who wants to be seen and famous and in front of you.

REPORTER 1: Infamous socialite grifter Anna Delvey is back--

REPORTER 2: Out on the town,

back on the streets of New York City.

[suspenseful music]

ANNA: After serving my time for my criminal conviction,

I got on social media pretty much, like, two,

three hours after my release.

♪♪ ♪♪

On Instagram, I had, like,

a bit over one million followers.

NIKI: I see so many similarities

between Anna and Danielle.

Danielle really wanted to, like,

you know, associate with Anna Delvey.

ANNA: Danielle Miller DMed me on Instagram.

I would not say she was my best friend, um,

but, um, she was, like, mentioning me in stories.

DANIELLE: We talked almost, like, every day,

and then all of the sudden, she's gone,

and I was like, wait, what the fuck happened?

ANNA: I went to check in with ICE officials,

and they decided to detain me.

So my freedom was a very short-lived.

- Do I think Danielle thinks she's an influencer?

I think she is an influencer.

There's no other way around it.

I mean, Anna Delvey taught her

what she knows, right, in Rikers?

ANNA: So many people feel like,

oh, any attention is better than none,

like, even if it's negative.

It's easy to look back and say, oh, well,

it all worked out great.

But you just never know what's going to happen to you.

GABRIELLE: She basically was just on social media,

living this high-roller lifestyle

with no apparent job, no apparent source of money.

Her family had cut her off.

- Her legal status at the time was that she was, like,

I guess out on bail, pending trial.

I asked her, I'm like, I don't understand how you

could afford this lifestyle.

I know a lot of people that own production companies

and produce music videos in LA, and none of them

can afford a Birkin and a Rolls Royce

and like, half the things that you own.

DANIELLE: I also have rich boyfriends.

NIKI: Um--right, right.

I'm sure there is some truth to that,

but I wouldn't be surprised

if she got the money fraudulently somehow.

I'd seen the screenshots, you know,

just her, like, living lavishly,

you know, showing off her outfits and her BBL and...

- A BBL is a Brazilian butt lift.

DANIELLE: You guys, look at my ass. [laughs]

NIKI: Very popular, trending procedure these days.

They just liposuction fat from other parts of your body

and re-injects it into your butt.

So it's kind of a great way to lose weight and get a fat ass.

After you get a BBL, you're supposed

to wear this garment--

I think it's called a faja--

and it's kind of like this compression garment

that kind of sucks in all the fat and blood and stuff

that's been transferred.

And they're supposed to wear them 24/7 for a month.

- People on pre-trial release are usually

relatively well behaved.

But for some, their nature is simply to push the boundaries.

It seems clear that Danielle Miller had a lot of cash

after she had been arrested.

She's putting that money to use in the most extravagant way

and telling the world about it.

When you're a criminal defendant,

sometimes there is such a thing as bad publicity.

[waves crashing]

[upbeat music]

♪♪ ♪♪

GABRIELLE: So Danielle was in her luxury Miami apartment,

recovering from her BBL,

when she got a call from the front desk

of her apartment building,

telling her that she needed to come downstairs

to pick up a package.

When she opened the door...

[music winds down]

OFFICER: Police!

[suspenseful music]

GABRIELLE: She realized that it was a ruse.

Federal agents poured out of the hallway...

Arrested her for fraud...

And began searching her apartment.

Because of the nature of the surgery,

when they transferred her to prison,

she was unable to kind of sit directly down.

So the way she described it to me was,

she had to be transported in a starfish position.

And she was taken into custody on federal charges.

[siren wailing] [indistinct radio chatter]

♪♪ ♪♪

NATHANIEL: I'm not sure that we'll know why

Danielle Miller did what she did

or thinks the way she thinks.

But we do know that until she stops,

it's just gonna be a long trail of victims.

- My name is Nathaniel Mendell,

and I was the acting U.S. attorney

when the District of Massachusetts

brought an indictment against Danielle Miller.

[suspenseful music]

♪♪ ♪♪

Very early in the pandemic,

the government started pushing out huge amounts of relief

to small businesses and individuals.

And almost as soon as the money started going out,

federal investigators were investigating fraud

related to those benefits.

- The American people deserve to know that their tax dollars

are being spent as intended.

NATHANIEL: There were a number of complaints that came

to our office regarding fraud related to pandemic assistance.

The Abington Police Department,

just outside of Boston,

had a couple of victims who were particularly compelling.

The government started an initial investigation.

We were able to determine that the IP address linked

to the first victim had been used also

to access 27 other identities

just in the Massachusetts RMV system.

We worked back from that to see other activity,

and that led us to Danielle Miller.

GABRIELLE: She was able to effectuate

a very sophisticated scheme

that involved fake passports

and impersonating multiple people.

- Danielle Miller would use someone's stolen identity

to go into the My RMV site, change information there,

use that information to apply for a bank account,

and then use that bank account information

to apply for a loan,

and received hundreds of thousands

of dollars in loans just days later.

♪♪ ♪♪

Social media has afforded her the opportunity

to showcase just exactly what she was doing,

the peak of the alleged criminal conduct...

When most of the world was just trying to stay safe.

It's interesting-- when I look at these posts,

I put myself in the mind of the victims,

right, who are having loans taken out

almost as this is happening

for hundreds of thousands of dollars in their name,

being spent in this way.

It's really a serious, serious injury that they suffered

and an injustice.

GABRIELLE: This is a girl whose identity

was stolen from her at such a young age

and who has now grown up to become

an identity thief herself.

NIKI: So the federal government

is charging Danielle

with the mountain of crimes

that she is alleged to be a part of.

But she ultimately did get out.

But she was on house arrest, pending trial.

It's funny 'cause she actually DMed me.

I posted a picture of my nails, and I--

that I hadn't gotten done in over a month.

And she responded, being like, oh, my God, same.

I didn't respond. I hearted it.

GABRIELLE: I think I spent about 20 hours talking to her.

Some of that time was while she was still

in prison in Florida, and then some of it

was while she was out on house arrest in New York,

under an ankle monitoring bracelet.

Danielle said,

I moreso consider myself

a con artist than anything.

She was so open and so willing to talk about things

that, like, multiple times, I reminded her,

you know, we're on the record.

Everything you're saying I can use.

And it didn't seem to bother her at the time.

- She told us on our podcast that she...

kind of felt betrayed by the article.

DANIELLE: I mean, I'm innocent until proven guilty.

And I have not guilty plea on all of my cases.

- But I don't think she's concerned--

or she didn't come off that way, at least--

about her pending court cases.

You know, she's facing a lot of time,

and she's facing some very serious allegations,

but I think that's part of how her brain works.

It's like she is just maybe somewhat in denial

about the whole thing and maybe just

kind of pretending it's not happening.

REPORTER: Danielle, is there anything you wanna say

on your side? - No comment.

[suspenseful music]

♪♪ ♪♪

JUDGE: It's an open plea for the court to decide sentence

to one count of fraudulent use

of personal identification information.

GABRIELLE: The first case that proceeded against her

was just one count related to a fraudulent ID.

And she hammered out a deal

in which she pleaded nolo contendere,

which is essentially pleading guilty

without, um, admitting guilt.

She was very confident that she was going to get no jail time.

DANIELLE: Good afternoon, Your Honor.

Um, when I was 13 years old,

I went through a traumatic experience

as a victim of child pornography

that scarred me for the rest of my life.

Um, it left a mark on my psyche,

and I never really confronted or dealt with that

and the pain it caused,

and it inevitably led me down a path

of regrettable decisions.

One of those regrets...

- Should she be punished for her alleged actions?

Yes.

Should we try to understand them

within the framework of the events

that happened in her life? Also yes.

She was like the patient zero of revenge porn,

and she had to deal with the aftermath of that

the rest of her life.

DANIELLE: Um, I just wanna say I'm truly sorry

for what I did in this case, and I apologize.

And I would never let this happen ever, ever, ever again.

- Well, how do you say this when it's your second time

or maybe third?

Here we are again.

DANIELLE: I know. It doesn't look good.

- I think the appropriate sentence is,

I am going to adjudicate you guilty.

I'm gonna sentence you to five years

in the Florida State Prison.

♪♪ ♪♪

GABRIELLE: The judge sentenced her to the maximum

on that charge, which was, I think,

surprising not only to Danielle,

but to people watching the case.

DANIELLE: I just need to, like, pack up my apartment and stuff.

JUDGE: No, you're gonna go into custody today, Ms. Miller.

And here's the reason why.

I mean, today was the sentencing day.

This was something that should have been contemplated.

[Danielle sobs]

- There's currently, like, a larger case

that's still pending against Danielle

and the federal case that's currently pending against her.

NATHANIEL: Her lawyer asked for the court to make time

for her to come in and plead guilty.

In the federal case, it will be very interesting to see

what sentence the court imposes

and also what charges Danielle Miller pleads guilty to.

If she pleads guilty to aggravated identity theft,

she must serve at least two years in prison.

If she pleads only to the wire fraud,

however, the court will be free to sentence her to anything

from 0 to 20 years in prison.

♪♪ ♪♪

QUENTIN: I don't know what would have prevented

what has happened with Danielle.

Social media itself has allowed for this to snowball.

As someone who is a survivor of sexual trauma,

it's incredibly tragic.

But I think that there were a lot of places along the way

to stop and realign and perhaps prevent her

from what, essentially, will have

taken away her own freedom.

[pensive music]

EJ: In the age of the influencer,

there is this narrative of being self-made.

DANIELLE: I don't wanna be pretty.

I wanna be iconic.

- Like, with a little gumption and, like, a phone,

and you can, like, totally reinvent yourself.

And we celebrate that as if that's a good thing.

NIKI: I really think that she was enjoying the attention,

you know, whether it was negative or positive.

She was just kind of capitalizing off her moment,

the same way Anna Delvey was.

ANNA: Here is one of my more famous sketches.

It's called "Trial Is the New Sex Tape,"

and it's a play on what sex tapes used to be,

like, 10, 20 years ago.

Pretty much how a negative experience

can be turned into something positive.

[suspenseful music]

REPORTER: Anna's first solo art show

with the tongue-in-cheek title "Allegedly" is live--

20 pieces all sketched and colored

while in ICE custody.

- We sold a couple thousand dollars of prints

in the first three minutes.

EJ: She had an art show that I attended,

and it was a very surreal experience.

There was a very, like, tongue-in-cheek "yes, queen,

slay, girlboss" vibe at this event

that was extremely disconcerting.

- Anna, we love you so much.

The show looks amazing.

- I think that the veneration of the "female con artist"

is, like, really silly.

I don't think that speaks well of our culture.

Like, this is a woman who is a convicted criminal.

ANNA: I feel like for better or for worse,

everybody can't wait to see what I'm going to do next.

DANIELLE: At heart, like, I'm a researcher, and like,

things are interesting to me, and I, like, get really

in-depth of, like, certain topics.

- I'm still trying to figure out what's possible,

but I'm working on a podcast

where I will have different guests.

DANIELLE: I'm working on a limited series.

I'm working on, um, a podcast.

I'm working on a doc.

- At the end of the day, it's like they just kind of, like,

need some sort of attention to cope or to feel something,

and it's really sad.

What is next for Danielle?

I mean, probably a lot of jail time.

DANIELLE: I'm hopeful about my cases.

I mean, the way that I've literally

gotten through every single trauma that's happened to me

is just by always having a positive outlook in it.

And that made people even at Rikers really upset

because I was just always so, like, happy.

It's like how I've also gotten through everything,

except for, apparently, Swiffer Girl.

Swiffer Girl is never ending ever.

NIKI: Right, right, yeah.

JULIA: Yeah. What a fucking story, babe.

[door slams]

♪♪ ♪♪