Fugitive N.Y. Insurance Fraud ‘Princess’ Arrested

A Manhattan woman who posed as a Saudi Arabian princess in an insurance scam plans to return to New York following her arrest at a Florida shopping mall on a fugitive from justice warrant, authorities said.

Antoinette Millard, 42, was arrested on a fugitive from justice warrant while shopping at Jacksonville mall after security officials became suspicious and claimed she was buying and returning expensive jewelry.

She left the Duval County jail after an extradition hearing Monday.

Last year, Millard pleaded guilty in Manhattan to second-degree insurance fraud and second-degree grand larceny stemming from an attempt to steal $262,000 from an insurance company by falsely reporting that her jewelry had been stolen.

Prosecutors said Millard pretended to be a Saudi princess, sold the jewelry and tried to collect insurance on it. She was sentenced to a year of inpatient psychiatric confinement and was serving a portion of it in Florida.

Millard’s attorney, Gregory Reid, said his client has done nothing wrong and will cooperate fully with law enforcement. “She intends to return to New York and straighten out the situation,” Reid told The Florida Times-Union.

Reid said Millard’s purchases were legitimate and blamed the arrest on an “overzealous” employee. He believes the New York warrant was wrongfully sought based on an assumption that Millard had violated the conditions of her prior case.

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office told the newspaper that authorities expect Millard back in New York by the week’s end.

Millard, a native of Buffalo and a former vice president at the Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. investment bank, was arrested last May at her Upper East Side home. Her defense said last year that she had suffered a mental breakdown after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Topics Florida Fraud New York