Prep School Perpetrator
36:18 Share

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or Apple Podcasts.

Haggy, are there any people you remember from like the heyday of viral internet culture who were never able to escape what made them famous in the first place? Yeah, I feel like there are a few people who went viral when we were teenagers. Like, for example, the shoes guy who made the shoes video. If I saw him, I would feel compelled to be like, let's get some shoes. Let's get some shoes. Let's get some shoes.

Let's get some shits. I mean, I think about it a lot because I feel like these days there's someone going viral every week. But like 15 years ago, you were the internet's main character for months. Yeah, it used to take a very long time to escape that specific type of internet infamy, huh? Yeah. And for some people, they never really recover their reputations. And things just get so much worse from there.

It's May 2021 in Miami, Florida. Danielle Miller is a 31-year-old brunette with a big smile and an even bigger personality. She takes stock of her high-rise beachfront apartment, whitewashed walls and marble countertops. Her walk-in closet is filled with Dior, Louis Vuitton, and her coveted Rolex. ♪

But now, after a whole lot of hustling and grinding, Danielle is taking some much-needed time off to rest. Mostly, she's recovering from a Brazilian butt lift. It's left her sore and swollen. But on this day, Danielle's rest and relaxation is promptly interrupted when she gets a call from the front desk. She's needed down in the lobby. It's urgent. So Danielle, wearing only a compression bodysuit, stands up and slowly makes her way to the front door. ♪

She pulls it open and is greeted by a team of agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Danielle barely gets a glimpse at their bulky vests and federal badges before they push past her into the apartment.

Danielle winces and screams. Um, they better not pop her BBL. I don't know how that works, but... Well, it's worse because the feds tell her that she's under arrest for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. She's cuffed and the agents ransack her immaculate apartment. They pull out fake IDs and tens of thousands of dollars in cash and money orders. Her privilege, her family connections, her generational wealth, none of it can help her anymore. ♪

Danielle is no longer a private school socialite. She's a common criminal. From Wondery, I'm Saatchi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And this is Scamfluencers.

Most scammers are hunting for wealth, influence, and notoriety. But today's scammer had all three, long before she started scamming. And she gained online infamy in the early days of the internet, but not by choice. Danielle became the victim of a brand new kind of exploitation and an unfair reputation that she couldn't shake. We're going to explore one woman's turn from a promising private school student into a cunning criminal.

So I'm calling this episode Prep School Perpetrator. This story really starts in 2004. Danielle Miller is an eighth grader at Horace Mann, an ultra prestigious private school in the Bronx. Danielle's parents are a really big deal New York power couple.

Her father is a prominent attorney who heads up the New York County Lawyers Association. Oh, and her mom is a former Rockette. Okay, that is kind of like New York City royalty. Yeah, she's got them gams, man. One evening after school, Danielle is in her family's apartment building just outside of Central Park, near the Ritz-Carlton and the Plaza Hotel. Isn't that how you grew up? Yeah, that's exactly how I grew up. And I can already really relate to this story. Yeah.

Well, Danielle is surfing the internet when her AOL instant messenger pings. It's a message from a boy she has a huge crush on. My heart's racing. My stomach hurts. I am Danielle. Well, this guy has a proposition for her. He thinks that she's a prude. Can she prove that she's not?

Danielle's heart starts racing. Here's how she describes her mindset years later on the Forbidden Fruit podcast. I just, like, didn't want him to judge me. Like, I didn't want him to think I was too sexually conservative. I didn't want him to think I wasn't any fun. Like, that's what my, like, 13-year-old mind thought. So Danielle weighs her options. If she doesn't do it, her crush might never talk to her again. And if she does do it, it might be a little uncomfortable, but she also might have a shot with him.

The gamble seems worth it. So Danielle gets up her nerve, she takes off her clothes, she hits play on the Britney Spears song, Toxic, and then she grabs a Swiffer mop and starts recording it all on her laptop. Danielle ends up sending a series of these videos to her crush. What more proof could he need that she's not a prude?

But he's gone silent on instant messenger and the whole night passes and nothing comes. Okay, this is already so depressing. I feel so bad for Danielle. Yeah, it's definitely going to get worse because the next day Danielle's running late to school. And I want to give you a better sense of the school because it actually inspired one of the TV writers on the show Gossip Girl.

Graduates from the school include Bill Barr, who would later go on to become the U.S. Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, who would go on to become New York governor, and James Murdoch, the son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Danielle finally reaches campus. She's sweating and panting, and she hustles towards the morning assembly. It's held in a brick building with huge windows, home to all the middle school classrooms. All of her peers are gathered in the open atrium, waiting for classes to start. And she feels like everyone is staring at her. And then she hears someone mumble something about making a video together. Oh, no. Yeah, everything crystallizes for Danielle in sudden, blinding horror.

Everyone is staring at her because they have seen the videos. And thanks to the lawlessness of the early internet, this is just the beginning of Danielle's humiliation.

So obviously, the video spread like wildfire. It turns out Danielle's crush sent the videos to Danielle's best friend. He tried to persuade her to make a similar video, but she didn't. And here's what Danielle told the Forbidden Fruit podcast about what her best friend did instead. She decided to like send it to the whole eighth grade, who sent it to the whole ninth grade, who sent it to the 10th, 11th, 12th, and then 11th.

of their camp friends. And somewhere along the way, the videos get uploaded onto Friendster, one of the world's first social media platforms, and to the file-sharing site LimeWire. They go viral before going viral is even a thing.

Before long, reporters are posted outside of Horace Mann and in front of Danielle's parents' apartment building. New York Magazine runs an article about Danielle. It's called The Paris Hilton Effect. And Sarah, this article does not age well. Can you read an excerpt?

In the latest instance of a teenager attempting to convey her hotness factor, a horrid man, eighth grader, emailed the gawkily explicit video, which resembles an audition for a pedophilic porn film, to a male classmate she had a crush on. I mean, the funny thing about these sorts of stories, especially at the time, you know, 20 years ago, everybody was ascribing...

these really intense, complicated motives to girls who are making these videos. And it's like, it's not complicated at all. A guy she had a crush on asked her to do something and she did it. It's his fault. But of course, nobody's writing an article about the boy. They're writing it about the girl who did it, right? This is very upsetting.

So this article comes out around the same time as Paris Hilton's leaked sex tape is exploding across the internet. But I want to be really clear, Danielle's videos are not a sex tape. Danielle is a child. This is child pornography.

But the backlash against her is swift. Danielle becomes both infamous and a social outcast. Parents forbid their kids from hanging out with Danielle, who is now known by another name, Swiffer Girl. Danielle's parents put her in therapy, but they okay her dropping out after just two sessions.

Desperate to exert any power over Swiffergate, as it's now being called, Danielle decides to embrace the persona of Swiffer Girl, a wild, reckless party girl who doesn't feel inhibition or shame. Yeah, I mean, this is all kind of dark, but I don't blame Danielle for embracing something she can't shake. Yeah. These people are going to hate her no matter what and call her a certain thing like...

I could just see that mentality forming in order to kind of like take control of the narrative, you know? Well, again, she's just a child, right? Yeah. So this is a child's response to trauma. But Danielle also starts lying.

Initially, it's just about simple, dumb stuff. Like, she claims that her family owns the whole building they live in. They don't. And then, for her Sweet 16 party, Danielle invites 600 kids. That's basically every private school kid in New York City, all of whom have probably seen her videos. At the party, a Rod Stewart impersonator reportedly performs a passionate rendition of the song Hot Legs, and Danielle reportedly claims that he's actually Rod Stewart.

Now, Danielle explicitly denies ever lying about the Rod Stewart impersonator or even booking him at her party, but she does admit to telling lies as a teenager. And her lies are only going to get bigger. In August of 2008, Danielle Miller moves west to attend Arizona State University. And finally, she's mostly anonymous, just another freshman with a fresh start, or at least in the beginning. ♪

One day, she's in class when her professor assigns a book, Ariel Levy's Female Chauvinist Pigs. It's a book about gender theory, and it largely critiques raunch culture. When Danielle gets to chapter five, Pigs in Training, there's a section about, well, her. It's about Swiffer Girl, framing the most humiliating event of her life in an academic way. Sarah, can you read a bit of this section out loud, like we're in class with Danielle? Okay.

People started calling the school Ho-Man. As for the eighth grader, the dissemination of her amateur porn swiftly resulted in a major uptick in her level of popularity and celebrity. Regardless of the context, it must be so jarring when you're trying to run away from this thing that happened to you to read it like for the class you're taking. Yeah, I mean, it's probably one of the most jarring experiences of her life. And Danielle is shaken.

One day, she comes back to her dorm room and finds a note slipped under her door. She unfolds it and her heart nearly stops. It says, I know who you are, Swiffer Girl. And then her identity is revealed much more publicly. She's outed as Swiffer Girl in a fraternity listserv.

And around this time, Danielle's relationship with her parents becomes strained. Separated on opposite ends of the country, they stop talking for months at a time. After college in 2012, Danielle decides to move even further west to a place where everyone reinvents themselves, Los Angeles. ♪

Danielle is trying to distance herself from the past, but a lot of her new friends in Los Angeles also went to private schools in New York, like Paris Hilton's little brother, Barron, and Esme Brown, whose father helped develop the Hamptons. Esme has long, dark hair, much like Danielle, and a dainty ribbon of cursive text tattooed across her right arm.

She's the kind of it girl whose party photos, taken at places like Nobu and the Chateau Marmont, frequently appear on nightlife blogs. I could see the exact type of girl Esme is in my head. Like, I remember seeing these photos on, like, blogs and MySpace and all these things. I just want to say, we are aging ourselves right now. There are people listening to this who were not around for this, and they are listening to us be old. But at this point, Danielle could almost pass for a socialite herself.

She lives lavishly. She's holing up at these swanky hotels and wearing all the latest designer clothing, which also just keep in mind the time when this is happening, all those clothes were so ugly, Sarah. ♪

But it seems like Danielle is trying really hard to impress her new friends, who are actual socialites. She often picks up expensive dinner tabs, and it's kind of unclear how she's paying for any of this. Danielle claims it's with money she saved while tutoring at ASU and working as director of events and marketing for the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce. Yeah, something tells me that's not how she made this money. No, probably not.

At work, Danielle's helping to throw a charity event, and she's under pressure to sell tables to wealthy donors. So she approaches Esme, knowing that she comes from generational wealth. But a $4,000 table is not in the budget, even for Esme. Danielle's bummed, but she shakes it off. And then she tells Esme that she bought the table herself. She invites Esme to join her at the gala and party for free.

But a few weeks later, Danielle hears from her father. And he's furious. Esme's mother had apparently called him after discovering some suspicious charges in Esme's account. Five different cash checks written out to Danielle Miller from Esme. They're checks that Esme definitely did not write. And one is for exactly $4,000. Now, I'm going to add Danielle denied to New York Magazine that any of this happened.

But Danielle's father reportedly tells Danielle that she will pay every penny back to Esme. And on top of that, she will have no further financial assistance from him. She's cut off.

Danielle's parents, by the way, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. We also reached out to Danielle and we didn't hear back. So Danielle reportedly starts hustling. And for her, this means doing freelance PR for a series of high-profile clients and brands. She names her business D Mills PR. And it seems like this business funds all of her partying. But one night in 2015, Danielle's out clubbing with friends wearing sky-high heels when she decides to slide down a handrail. ♪

She slips and she lands really hard. Oof. Danielle breaks her back and it's a serious wake-up call. Now she's at a crossroads. Danielle has to decide. Is she going to clean up her act or double down on a life of deception?

Summer should be fun, not financially stressful. So if you're looking to build your credit with everyday purchases this summer, do it with the Chime Secured Credit Builder Visa credit card. Yep. With no annual fees or interest, Chime is a great tool to help build credit using your own money. And they have features like fee-free overdraft up to $200 with SpotMe.

When you set up a qualifying direct deposit and sign up for SpotMe, Chime will spot you up to your limit when you make a credit card purchase or cash withdrawal that exceeds your balance. That is a game changer, especially since there's no fee to use SpotMe. With Chime's secure credit card, you can improve your credit scores all summer long. Get started today at Chime.com slash Scampod. That's Chime.com slash Scampod.

Chime feels like progress. The Chime Credit Builder Visa credit card is issued by the Bancorp Bank, N.A. or Stride Bank. N.A. spot me eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Out-of-network ATM withdrawal and OTC advance fees may apply. Terms and conditions apply. Go to Chime.com slash disclosures for details.

Hormones can be a real roller coaster. One minute you're feeling energized and balanced, and the next you're dealing with pesky PMS symptoms. It doesn't feel good. And it doesn't help that there are over a thousand common environmental factors that can disrupt your delicate hormone balance, from the food you eat to the skincare products you use. But the good news is there's a way to get your hormones back on track.

Happy Mammoth's Hormone Harmony is a science-backed supplement that's specifically formulated to support women through all the hormone changes you face, from menstrual cycles to menopause. It uses powerful adaptogenic herbs that can help your body adapt to these chaotic hormonal shifts. Yeah, the results speak for themselves. Their supplements have over 17,000 glowing reviews, with customers raving about feeling like themselves again. And for a limited time, you can get 15% off your entire first order at HappyMammoth.com.

Just use the code SCAMPOD. That's happymammoth.com, M-A-M-M-O-T-H, with the code SCAMPOD to get 15% off your entire first order. Danielle's injury is super serious, but there is a silver lining. It allows her to reconnect with her parents after about two years of not talking. And by the time she's recovered, she decides to take her life in a new direction.

In 2016, she enrolls in law school, following in her father's footsteps. Her parents are, frankly, skeptical. And Danielle told New York Magazine that her father, quote, "'Thought I'd be a terrible attorney. He said my ethics were off the wall.'"

Imagine your dad being like, you would be a terrible attorney, not because you're like lazy or bad at working hard. It's because your ethics are off the wall, honey. I mean, also, I have to break it to her dad. Does he think lawyers have good ethical guidelines? Because not really. But Danielle is determined to show them that she can thrive. And she does.

In her first year at Pepperdine University, according to her LinkedIn, she's appointed vice president of its sports and entertainment law society. And she gets a prestigious summer internship with a New York judge. But the pressure of law school is a lot. And Danielle's relationship with her parents is fragile. She returns home for Thanksgiving break during her second year of law school. And to unwind after a stressful semester, Danielle books an appointment at Body Factory on the Upper West Side.

It's a fancy medical spa famous for facials and injections. But when Danielle checks in, police are waiting for her. I'm sorry, what?

Yeah, so she's arrested and charged with identity theft and grand larceny for nearly $5,000 in services purchased with stolen credit card information. The spa reportedly noticed that she'd paid for previous visits using credit cards that were eventually flagged as fraudulent. Thanks to her father's high-profile connections, Danielle lawyers up right away.

She hires Barry Kamens, who goes on to represent Harvey Weinstein and Rudy Giuliani. Thanks to Barry, Danielle is allowed to return to California to continue law school.

But there's a catch. She has to return to New York for all of her future court dates. And after this, it seems like all contact between Danielle and her parents basically stops. Again, we reach out to Danielle's parents for comment, and we didn't hear back. That is extremely rough. I mean, families are complicated. Sometimes people are at the end of their rope, and they make very harsh decisions. Well, I don't know.

Once again, Danielle's cut off financially and emotionally. She's on her own. And that's when she meets a man who fills that void, who seemingly makes her forget all of her troubles and her pending court date. Enter Mackenzie Day. He's a multi-hyphenate.

a model/personal trainer/videographer/marine veteran. He's got a killer jawline and 42,000 Instagram followers. Mackenzie's recently moved to LA to fulfill his dream of being a content creator. And he actually posted a video on Instagram of his mindset around the time he moved. Everyone has a time in their life when they have to ask themselves like, "Yo, is this it? Is this what we're doing? Is this how things are going to go?" And you have to make a decision.

It's a very serious looking video. You know, he's sitting by a beach. He's not really looking at the camera. He's staring off into the distance. And this is someone who's clearly kind of going through it. Yeah, it does sort of seem like he's seeking purpose.

Not long after he arrives in L.A., McKenzie founds a media company called New Day. And I'm going to tell you, it's spelled N-U-D-A-E. That's great. That is how he chose to spell it. So McKenzie is looking for L.A. business connections. Everything falls into place when a wealthy friend introduces him to a rising talent in the PR world, Danielle Miller.

Now, by this time, Danielle has founded a new PR firm, The Epic Advisory, and she's already got a roster of music supervisors that she's doing PR for. Mackenzie could use someone like Danielle, so he asks her if she wants to join their two companies together and become business partners. To his delight, she agrees, and it turns out they have more than just business chemistry. It seems like they have romantic chemistry, too.

In the beginning, things go really well. Their relationship is blossoming and so is their business.

Sarah, I think this photo of Danielle and Mackenzie perfectly illustrates their relationship. Want to take a look? Yeah, it's like one of those photos people post when they're like, I'm a hustler and that's how I get to where I am. And they're on a private jet, surrounded by phones and there's a laptop and, you know, they're working together and she's really just kind of looking at him with these adoring eyes. Yeah, well, pretty soon they begin to rack up a lot of business expenses.

Mackenzie asks Danielle how they're affording all of this. She reportedly tells him that her father is financing it. Danielle loops Mackenzie into emails that she says are with her father, and Mackenzie seems to be satisfied.

But what looks on the outside like a smooth partnership is apparently much more complicated. The couple seems to have a lot of disagreements. And after one particular argument, Mackenzie randomly gets an email from Danielle's father's secretary. Sarah, can you read it? Yeah, it says, Hey, I'm really worried about Danielle. Have you talked to her?

I have to imagine that Mackenzie doesn't know how to answer. He probably feels like Danielle's dad's secretary is trying to make him feel bad for his fight with Danielle. And he feels manipulated. As wild as it sounds, he starts to suspect that Danielle herself might have been behind all the emails.

that she's been pretending all along to be her dad and her dad's secretary. Yeah, because wasn't her dad no longer speaking to her? Like, didn't her mom say, like, we're cutting you off, we can't have contact with you anymore? Yeah, I mean, it's all quite fishy. And it's also all too much for Mackenzie. And after only a few months, he asks to end their partnership. In response, Danielle sends him an email saying that she's suicidal. He calls the cops, who send Danielle for a psych evaluation.

Danielle denies this to New York Mag. She says that Mackenzie faked the messages. After their split, Mackenzie wants answers. So he guesses the password to Danielle's email account, and he finds emails about credit cards and loans, all taken out in his name to the tune of almost $200,000. Danielle denies all of this. She says that they took out credit cards together for their business. There were no loans. Danielle denies this to New York Mag.

Mackenzie did not respond to our requests for comment. In the end, Mackenzie doesn't press charges, and Danielle comes out of this partnership relatively unscathed. Danielle's kept her scamming under the radar, but a simple mistake is about to land her in some serious trouble.

A few months after her split from Mackenzie, Danielle is driving back from Mexico, where she celebrated her 29th birthday with some friends. She's in the car, wearing an Herve Leger bathing suit with a Missoni cover-up and Valentino heels. As she approaches the checkpoint to pass into San Diego, Danielle hands over her passport to the border agent. And that is when her birthday celebration turns into a total nightmare.

Because, Sarah, she's told that there's a warrant out for her arrest. Remember that court date that Danielle had for the fraudulent spa charges? Yeah, something's telling me she did not go to court in New York. Yeah, correct. She completely missed it. And without funding from her parents, Danielle has to get a public defender. She's denied bail and deemed a flight risk thanks to her little trip to Mexico. But she's not going to be able to get a public defender.

So she awaits trial at Rikers. And Sarah, I don't know how much you know about Rikers, but it's one of the largest prisons in the world. And it's located on an island between Queens and the Bronx. It's only about 10 miles south of Danielle's old prep school, Horace Mann. But it's a world away from it. But in a lot of ways, prep school prepared Danielle for the cutthroat social hierarchy of prison.

She knows she needs friends and fast. And she has some creative ideas on how to make friends. Here's what she said on the Forbidden Fruit podcast.

So I made them braid my hair in like this ghetto way so that I could like fit in more. Oh, brother. Yeah. After she gets the braids, Danielle enters the prison's dorm-style lodging, which has four rows of 10 beds. And from a dark corner of the room, a woman calls out in a strange accent, who braided your hair? She offers Danielle the bed next to her and asks Danielle if she'd like to read a news article about her.

It's Anna Delvey. Shut up. You're lying. Sarah, I know, I know it sounds like I'm making this up, but the two New York scammers become best friends. Anna shows Danielle how to stay safe, how to barter for goods, and how to make their uniforms more fashionable by rolling up the waistbands of their pants. ♪

Danielle soaks up this intel and she learns everything she can during the eight months she's at Rikers. She's released in the summer of 2019 after pleading guilty to her charges. And she's about to put her prison skill set to good use. In early 2020, Danielle's out at a high-end Upper East Side restaurant when she runs into one of her pals from Rikers, Sierra Blas. Sierra Blas.

Ciara is five years younger than Danielle. She's a pretty brunette with big eyes who was in prison for violating her parole. Three years earlier, she'd been arrested at Bergdorf Goodman after skimming credit cards to fund a $22,000 shopping spree.

So now that Sierra and Danielle are both out in the world again, they want to have some fun, make some money. So they decide to team up. Sierra already has a scam in motion, but she needs somebody to help her by impersonating the people whose identities they're stealing. Sierra promises it's easy money. Danielle's in. And pretty soon, the cash starts rolling in.

This seems so risky in so many ways. I understand there's like a high reward, but the risks seem so high considering her record. Like she's never successfully accomplished a scam. Yeah. Well, when COVID hits, it essentially shuts down all their favorite places to spend money. So Sierra and Danielle decide to relocate.

They wind up in Miami, Florida, where it seems like they have nothing to do but go on designer shopping sprees. And, of course, to post about them on Instagram. Danielle posts shaky videos of her and Sierra in a baby blue Porsche Boxster, driving around Miami, singing along to Noah Cyrus. Oh my gosh, these girls. Yeah.

Well, Danielle and Sierra's joyride ends a few months later at a Chase Bank in Sarasota, Florida. At the drive-thru window, Danielle allegedly hands over a U.S. passport under the name Erica Beers and attempts to take out eight grand.

But while she's at the drive-through, sheriffs pull up and conduct a traffic stop. They've been tipped off by a branch manager that her passport looked fake. And once they confirm with the real Erica Bierce that she did not authorize the withdrawal, they arrest Danielle and Sierra. Danielle is charged with seven counts of fraud, and Sierra is charged with just one count. They both plead not guilty.

The sheriffs find fake driver's licenses with Danielle's face on them, three credit cards, six cell phones, and 25 grand in cash. But Danielle isn't deterred. After Sierra gets released and then bails her out, Danielle decides to take on her biggest mark yet, the U.S. government. ♪

Shifting your wardrobe from summer to fall can be challenging, but luckily, Quince offers timeless and high-quality items for any season. Yep, with Quince, your wardrobe stays fresh and in budget. They have items like cashmere sweaters from $50, pants for every occasion, washable silk tops, and so much more. Quince items are priced 50-80% less than regular brands because they partner directly with the factories to cut out the cost of the middleman.

I just ordered the super soft fleece cropped wide leg pants and the fleece crew. I got it for my mom. She loves them. She's been living in them. They're so comfortable and they're so affordable for how soft the material is. Make switching seasons a breeze with Quince's high quality closet essentials.

Go to quince.com slash scampod for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash scampod for free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash scampod. In early 2021, Special Agent Jacqueline Cunningham is assigned to investigate a big case of identity theft.

Jacqueline has been with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for more than a decade, and she knows how to follow the money, especially when that money happens to be stolen. Jacqueline zeroes in on a victim that we'll call Laura. Laura lives in Massachusetts, and it appears that she's taken out a small business administration loan for more than $102,000. But there's just one problem. Laura says that she never applied for a loan.

Jacqueline examines the bank account opened in Laura's name and analyzes its debit charges. When she finds a charge to a private airline company, she calls up the airline. And that's what leads to a break in the case. The airline says that a private flight was booked a few months earlier to Southern California from outside of Miami. The airline sends over a copy of the passenger's ID. On the ID is a white woman with brown hair and long eyelashes.

It's the same face that Jacqueline discovers photos of on an Instagram account with the handle Killa DaMilla, as in Danielle Miller. And at least one post there really catches her eye.

Sarah, can you describe it? Oh, yeah. So it's Danielle and she's in front of a Rolls Royce in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel where people get dropped off. And, you know, like she's showing off her fit, her car and the fact that she's in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel all at once. Right. And the caption says she's back and she's not for everyone. Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Jacqueline knows that right around this time this image was posted, a charge for dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel showed up on the bank account opened in Laura's name. It's not the only giveaway. Danielle Miller also posted a photo of herself in a hotel room at Petit Hermitage, a boutique hotel in West Hollywood.

She's looking really smug in a Gucci sweater while holding a Birkin bag. And the date on the Instagram post corresponds to a $5,500 transaction made to the hotel under Laura's bank account. So Jacqueline has her culprit. And Danielle's life of carefree crime is about to hit a new low. A few weeks later, Danielle is at home in her luxury high-rise apartment in Miami. She's supposed to be recovering from surgery, but...

You know what happens next. And it's anything but restful. Federal agents burst into her home and arrest her. The government alleges that Danielle used stolen identities, like Laura's, to apply for more than $900,000 in economic injury disaster loans.

Those were the loans meant for people hit hardest by the pandemic. Oh my God, is that how she paid for her BBL? I mean, maybe. But while awaiting trial, Danielle's court-appointed attorney tells her that a reporter would like to interview her. The reporter is a former Horace Mann classmate named Gabrielle Bluestone.

Now, Gabrielle's made a name for herself covering fraudsters. She was on the Fyre Festival beat, and she served as a producer on the Netflix documentary about it. She even wrote a book called Hype, all about internet scam artists. So when she sees the Justice Department's announcement about Danielle's arrest, she immediately remembers her from their prep school days.

It's Swiffer Girl. Wow, full circle moment. So Gabrielle and Danielle weren't really friends in high school, but Gabrielle, like almost everyone at the school, knows all about the scandal. And she feels horrible about how it unfolded. So she tells Danielle that she wants to tell her side of the story. And Danielle decides that this is a good opportunity, a chance to finally come clean about the middle school incident that's haunted her ever since. So Danielle decides to open up.

Over the course of the next few months, she sits for interviews with Gabrielle. Yeah, I mean, she's finally telling her, quote, side of the story, I guess, to someone who had a similar upbringing. I could see why she would trust Gabrielle. I don't know that I would trust anybody who had gone to my school if that had happened to me, but I can understand why it felt comfortable. Yeah. And the article drops on New York Magazine's website in February 2022. Here's the headline.

I more so consider myself a con artist than anything. What Daniel Miller learned at Horace Mann and Rikers. And there's a picture of Danielle at the top of the article. Sarah, can you take a look at it and describe it? She's in this very styled outfit, this like pale blue suit. She's sitting on a couch, her feet are up on a table and there's like a plume of vape smoke coming out of her face. And it is like her onlookers

Her honestly kind of looking like a mob boss. It's not a great photo to have accompanying your redemptive arc. Nearly 20 years after Swiffergate, Danielle goes viral for a second time. And it's not exactly the sympathetic portrayal she probably hoped for. Danielle knows she has two outstanding court cases. So she goes on the defensive. Or more specifically, she goes on the Forbidden Fruit podcast.

My voice is not heard in that. That is not my narrative. That is not my story. I do not support the story that she wrote. In the episode, Danielle denies ever scamming, even if the government's evidence against her is pretty damning. She's been charged with three counts of wire fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft. She's under house arrest and has to wear an ankle monitor, which draws comparisons to Paris Hilton yet again. If Danielle is convicted, she faces more than 20 years in prison.

All right, Sarah. I mean, this is obviously a really complicated scam story because it starts with such an awful traumatic event that isn't the fault of our scammer.

But it seems like all the decisions she made after were so ill-advised. I mean, I know she has to deal with what happened to her probably every single day. Like there's no way that can happen to you and it doesn't shape how you view the world and how you interact with people. Yeah. That being said, it's still not an excuse for anything. Yeah, I have a tremendous amount of empathy for her as a child, but it stops once she's grown. Like the entirety of the Swiffer girl stuff is ludicrous because she didn't hurt anybody, but people went after her.

But what she did as an adult, there are real consequences to that. There's real people that she fucked with. She had so many opportunities to turn it around. But, you know, she's never really faced any real consequences for anything she did. And she, again, could have been caught once and been like, OK, maybe I won't do that. And at the end of the day, she believes she deserves to be rich and famous. And instead of

doing what normal girls like her do, which is, you know, just become like an Instagram baddie. She defrauded people, allegedly. I mean, the scams were not about the stuff. It wasn't about what she could buy or what she could possess. She was already wealthy. We know that. The scams were very much about getting people to see her as powerful and important and valuable. And

And when you really think about it, that's when it gets really sad because that comes from not getting that as a 15 year old because of this one stupid thing that people completely blew up on you. Not to be like move on, but if this is something that is affecting you so badly, then do the work to move on from it because anyone who remembers Swiffer Girl has probably moved on. Like the only reason why I know who Swiffer Girl is is because of her actions now.

But also, if she doesn't get sent to jail, she's going to scam again. Yep. And she's probably going to scam from jail. Those are just my predictions. Yeah, I do think you're right. Have you learned any lessons today? No. Other than like ban high school and ban rich high schools and ban rich kids. Yeah. We have the OC. We can just watch that over and over again. Yeah. Two versions of Gossip Girl. Yeah. Laguna Beach. The Hills. I'm tired. I don't need more. Tired of them. All right. Well, high school's over.

This is Prep School Perpetrator. I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were I more so consider myself a con artist than anything. What Danielle Miller learned at Horace Mann and Rikers by Gabrielle Bluestone for New York Magazine and Danielle Miller's interview with the podcast Forbidden Fruit.

Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freeze On Sync.

Our executive producers are Janine Cornelow, Stephanie Jens, and Marshall Louis. For Wondery. If you like Scamfluencers, you can listen to every episode early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.