California Bride Serving 5-Year Jail Sentence In Wedding Insurance Scam

A bride is serving a five-year jail sentence and must pay $22,500 after filing a false insurance claim saying she was too injured to attend her wedding reception, authorities said. 

Vermyttya Miller, 38, booked her wedding at the Galleria Ballroom in Glendale, California, through the popular website The Knot in Oct. 2016, but when her wedding day arrived, she claimed she tripped on her wedding dress and could not attend her reception, the California Department of Insurance said in a press release. 

The venue offered a $10,000 cancellation/postponement insurance policy and Miller filed for it, providing medical records backing up her claims that also turned out to be fraudulent, authorities said. 

On Oct. 31, 2016, Miller was issued a check for $10,000 by the Knot’s insurance company, Tokio Marine. But just a few weeks later, on Dec. 4, 2016, she emailed Tokio Marine to say that the check had been stolen and that she had filed a police report with the Vallejo Police Department in Northern California, authorities said. 

The police report she provided to the insurance company turned out to be a report filed years earlier that she had doctored, according to authorities.

Miller pleaded no contest to one felony count of insurance fraud, and has now also been ordered to pay $22,500 in restitution: the original $10,000 she received plus $12,500 for investigative costs. 

Before going to jail, Miller, an actress and producer, wrote on Facebook, "sad I have to go but I will knock it out and come out better and start from where I left off with filming, music and the businesses I was starting." 

"Don’t be sad for me. God got a bigger plan for me. 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," she added. 

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