Bride scams $10,000 from wedding site — then tries it again, California officials say

A Southern California bride’s multi-thousand-dollar wedding scam has landed her five years in jail, according to state officials.

Vermyttya Miller, a 37-year-old from Santa Clarita, booked a reception using wedding planning website The Knot in October 2016, planning to hold the event at the Galleria Ballroom in Glendale, authorities said in a news release Monday.

That reception came with a $10,000 insurance policy in case her event had to be canceled or postponed — and soon after booking the venue, “Miller claimed she tripped on her wedding dress and was injured so severely that she had to cancel the wedding reception,” according to the California Department of Insurance.

The Knot offered the wedding planning insurance to couples through Tokio Marine at the time. Miller filed a claim and sent the insurer medical records detailing her injuries, and then the insurer sent her a check for $10,000 at the end of October, state authorities said.

That’s when things got strange: Miller emailed Tokio Marine in December writing that the check had been stolen and sharing what appeared to be a police report documenting the incident from the Vallejo Police Department in Northern California, according to state authorities.

But evidence showed that “Miller actually doctored a previously submitted police report for a different incident that occurred years earlier,” the insurance department said.

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Tokio Marine then alerted the California Department of Insurance, whose detective found evidence that the police report wasn’t the only fraudulent document in the scheme — Miller had also falsified medical records that she filed in making her initial insurance claim, authorities said.

In addition to five years in a county jail, Miller is required to pay $22,500 in restitution after pleading no contest to felony insurance fraud, according to state officials.

“Miller’s trail of fraudulent claims led straight to a five-year jail sentence after department detectives unraveled her scheme,” Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said in a statement. “Insurance fraud is a felony with serious penalties and consequences. We are committed to uncovering fraud and working with prosecutors to bring criminals to justice.”

Miller is serving the five-year sentence at the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, authorities said.

An actress and small business owner, Miller wrote in a Facebook post Dec. 3 that it was her last day of freedom, the Los Angeles Times reports.

“My plan in place will be to show my life through film to motivate others, and show the timeline from making mistakes to changing my life, yet a previous record will always haunt you no matter what you do,” Miller said in the post, according to the Times.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office prosecuted Miller, according to state officials.