Dance instructor Abby Lee Miller of Dance Moms fame has been sentenced to a year in prison and must pay a fine of $40,000 as well as a $120,000 judgment, TV Guide reports.
Miller was convicted of bankruptcy fraud, having been indicted back in October 2015 on the charges of fraud, false bankruptcy declarations (after the discovery of her concealment of $755,000 in earnings), and concealment of bankruptcy assets. She later pled guilty in July of 2016 when it was uncovered that she hid income from 2012 and 2013 as well.
A federal judge in Miller’s hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania issued the sentence. The judge, Chief Judge Joy Flowers Conti, had a message of strict condemnation for the dance coach. “You weren’t even truthful, even when you knew you were supposed to tell everything, you still weren’t truthful,” Chief Judge Conti reportedly told Miller at her sentencing. “Somehow you got caught up in the world of fame and you lost your moral compass.”
Miller founded her Abby Lee Dance Company back in 1980. Lifetime created the reality show Dance Moms in 2011, a series revolving around some choice dancers in Miller’s company (including the now famous Maddie Ziegler), the dancers’ mothers, and the dance competition scene. Miller was infamous on the show for her extreme tough-love approach, often causing drama within the group of mothers as a result of how Miller treated her dancers.
Although rumors swirled around the series’ seventh season (which aired at the beginning of this year) as being the last, Lifetime is supposedly moving on with an eight season despite Miller’s legal issues. Miller herself also claimed back in March that she had quit the show for good and would not return due to creative differences with the producers.
The air date for Dance Moms Season 8 is undetermined at the time.