Former “Dance Moms” star Abby Lee Miller was sentenced to one year and one day in prison by a federal judge in Pittsburgh after she pled guilty to bankruptcy fraud, reports Deadline.
According to the site, Miller blamed perils of fame and its harsh spotlight for the situation she found herself in.
“’Dance Moms’ became a hit and I became the laughing stock of reality TV,” Miller told the judge before her sentencing, promising she would not find herself in a court room again if given leniency.
In 2015, Miller was indicted on 20 counts of fraud for hiding $755,000 in earnings from the government. The 50-year-old dance teacher, who gained notoriety thanks to Lifetime’s reality series, left the show in March of this year.
In an interview with People magazine in April, she blamed her lack of business acumen and ability to trust the wrong people for her predicament.
“I went from being a dance teacher from Pittsburgh who never ran a family business, who never did the books, who never wrote the checks out [because] my dad was there, he had my back,” she told People. “When he died, I had these temporary people in there, now we’re finding out that money was going right and left — and I didn’t know that.”
She added, “I made mistakes and I trusted people, but ultimately I have to take responsibility.”
In addition to prison time, Miller was sentenced to two years of supervised release and will have to pay $160,000 in fines.
