Fake Saudi Princess Gets Jail for Insurance, Credit Fraud

A judge striving to be the fairest of them all on Tuesday sentenced to a year in jail a woman who pretended to be a Saudi Arabian princess as she fleeced insurance and credit card companies.

It was not a storybook ending for Antoinette Millard, 43, who admitted to criminal charges brought after she stole hundreds of thousands of dollars by failing to pay for items she had charged on her American Express Centurion black card. She also admitted she had tried to collect a $262,000 insurance payout by saying that jewels she had sold had been stolen.

Prosecutors have said she had told jewelry store clerks that she was a Saudi Arabian princess.

The plea came after Assistant District Attorney Diana Florence warned that a probe of Millard’s conduct over the last three years was continuing and that there might be additional charges.

Millard’s lawyer, John Arlia, said outside court that his client had been offered another plea bargain deal that might have forced her to spend as much as another year behind bars but would have spared her the threat of additional charges. He said she would be out of jail by the end of the year.

“I’m not so sure they’ll come forward with another indictment,” he said.

Millard, wearing a gray sweat suit, spoke softly in court, answering most questions posed by state Supreme Court Justice Renee White by saying simply, “Yes.”

The plea by Millard on Tuesday came after she withdrew a guilty plea made last year to the same charges that called for her to receive a year of inpatient psychiatric care rather than a jail sentence.

The judge had ordered Millard to check into a suitable facility for at least a year but learned Millard spent less than three months at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

In April, Millard was undergoing psychiatric treatment at a center for women in Florida when she was arrested on a fugitive warrant while shopping at the St. Johns Town Center Mall in Jacksonville, Florida.

Arlia said at the time that his client was on an excursion to the mall to confront her shopping demons as part of her therapy when she was picked up. Authorities said security officials became suspicious because she was buying and returning expensive jewelry.

Arlia said Tuesday that Millard was receiving medical treatment while housed at New York City jails and that the sentencing would ensure the care was not interrupted.