West Palm police arrest diners in alleged 'rock in salad' scam: ‘We turned the tables on them’

The arugula salad might have been the first clue. Why would anyone order a basic salad at Avocado Grill, the West Palm Beach hot-spot restaurant known for its eclectic plates?

But it was a salad that set off a chain of events leading to the arrests of three South Florida women by West Palm Beach police on charges that include fraud, impersonation, grand theft and forgery.

The case reads like a mystery series one might catch on Acorn TV. A police detective poses as a restaurant owner. A restaurant owner plays investigator. A police sting hits the al fresco patio. Puns ensue.

It started on the afternoon of Sept. 22, when one diner complained that a “rock” in her arugula salad caused her a severe tooth injury.

That customer, identified as 45-year-old Ann Sherry Miller of Aventura, covered her mouth with a napkin and winced in pain when restaurant manager Daniel Van Tonder approached her table, according to a police report.

Her dining companions showed the manager a small rock at the edge of the salad. Police believe one of them, identified as 36-year-old Sheila Angelina Miller of Hollywood, helped stage an attempted scam that day.

Van Tonder called Avocado Grill owner Julien Gremaud, who told him to offer the customer medical attention and to ask her to fill out an incident report for insurance purposes.

“I called the lady the next day, and she said, ‘I’m very hurt and I need dental care,’” Gremaud told The Post. “I said, ‘Of course, ma’am. We’ll take care of your dental bill.’”

That was a Saturday, he says. Two days later, the customer presented the restaurant with a $8,775 bill from a dentist in Coral Springs, police say.

Gremaud says he wondered how the diner was able to get a dental appointment so quickly, especially during a weekend. But he forwarded the invoice to his insurance agent so he could open a claim.

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The agent suspected the invoice was part of an insurance scam, said Gremaud, who then stopped talking to the diner and dropped the claim effort. The restaurant owner then decided to dig further: He called the Coral Springs dentist.

Gremaud recounted the "rock in the salad" story to the dental office manager, but says he could not confirm the patient information on the invoice due to confidentiality policies. So he sent a copy of the bill to the dental office, expecting they might confirm they had issued the invoice.

“They told me, ‘This is a really fake invoice. This is not our bill,’ ” Gremaud said.

He contacted West Palm Beach police, and the agency dispatched two detectives to the restaurant.

Court records show a detective took sworn statements from Gremaud and Von Tonder on Sept. 27. The detective also analyzed the restaurant’s incident report and the dental invoice, which detailed the treatment plan costs for the supposedly injured “tooth #10”, a lateral incisor located on the upper left-central part of the mouth: $650 for an extraction, $1,875 for a bone grafting and $6,250 for an implant.

While the detectives were at Avocado Grill, the restaurant got a call from the supposedly aggrieved diner. As the call was put on speaker mode, the lead detective turned on his body-worn camera. He introduced himself as Gremaud, the restaurant owner, according to documents.

After some back and forth, the caller agreed to receive $6,000 in cash without filing an insurance claim in return for a “liability waiver” signature, and agreed to go to the restaurant for the transaction that evening, according to the documents.

The lead detective hit the road to Coral Springs, where he took a sworn statement from the dentist. After viewing the invoice, the dentist “immediately recognized it as fraudulent” and told the detective his office never saw or treated the patient, according to court documents.

That same evening, West Palm Beach police conducted a surveillance operation at Avocado Grill, where manager Van Tonder watched for the arrival of the rock-in-the-salad diner. When the manager recognized the woman, who arrived with a companion, he seated them at an outdoor table, within view of a police camera. He told police he was “120% sure” the woman was the same diner from the salad incident.

Police arrested Ann Miller on charges of forgery and grand theft. She pleaded not guilty on both counts and is free on bond. A court hearing in her case is set for May.

“We are not commenting on details of the case at the time,” said Miller’s attorney James Stewart Lewis Jr. of Fort Lauderdale. “I understand the novelness of the issue. In this case, nobody lost any money. There are allegations, and we’ll see where the evidence takes us and see who bears the responsibility for the incidents.”

On the day of Miller’s arrest, police also detained the two women they say orchestrated the fraud.

Identified as Sheila Miller and 51-year-old Mary Steimberg, both of Hollywood, they were later arrested separately, in December and January, respectively, on charges of fraud and impersonation. The women, identified by police as mother and daughter, pleaded not guilty. Their attorneys were not available for comment.

“Evidence shows they were leaders of the scam and used their relative (Ann Miller) as the mule,” police said in a court document.

Details of the scam were revealed once police seized evidence in the case, West Palm Beach police spokesperson Mike Jachles said.

“This was not these women’s first rodeo. They had detailed journals outlining prompts, a playbook, everything down to fabricating where the mouth injury occurred,” he said. “They are professional scammers.”

This was not a victimless crime, Jachles said.

“The restaurant is a victim. The dental practice is a victim. We as customers also are victims because scams like this result in higher insurance premiums and, in turn, higher costs for the consumer,” he said.

Restaurant owner Gremaud said he was impressed at how quickly the West Palm Beach police team mobilized.

“It was amazing police work,” he said. “There are so many people doing this kind of fraud these days. I was glad I was able to help with this case.”

The restaurant setting provided more than an unexpected backdrop for a police operation. It inspired related puns, even on the West Palm Beach police news release about the case. Headline: “Restaurant doesn’t bite on diner dental drama. Operation Open-Mouthed extracts salad scammers.”

In an interview, Jachles doubled down on that inspiration:

“They thought they were coming to the restaurant for a 6,000-dollar payout for a fake injury. But what they got was that we turned the tables on them.”

Liz Balmaseda is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network. She covers the local food and dining beat. Follow her on Instagram and Post on Food Facebook. She can be reached by email at lbalmaseda@pbpost.com. 

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Diners arrested in alleged scam at West Palm's Avocado Grill restaurant