Shannade Clermont, a onetime reality star and former Yeezy Season model, was sentenced to a year in federal prison plus three years probation for using a dead man’s debit card for personal purchases, Geoffrey S. Berman, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced Thursday (April 4).
Clermont, 25, pleaded guilty to a single count of wire fraud last November. She was facing 20 years in prison, The Blast reports.
“As Shannade Clermont has now learned, her real-life bad behavior has real-life consequences, and has now landed her in federal prison,” said Bermann.
According to the New York Daily News, Clermont’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, said that the former reality star — who appeared on The Bad Girls Club with her identical twin sister, Shannon — was “reduced to trolling the internet for prostitution dates.”
Clermont, whose Instagram account with her sister boasts more than 1 million followers, reportedly told authorities that a need to keep up a public image on social media, contributed to her actions.
The man whose credit card that she stole was an apparent trick, James Alesi, who overdosed on Jan. 31, 2017. The two were at Alesi’s apartment for a “prostitution date” when he took a fatal mixture of cocaine and fentanyl and collapsed. Clermont left without calling 911.
Alesi’s body was found in his apartment a day later.
Clermont swiped the dead man’s card information and spent $20,000 of his money, which she used to pay her rent and phone bill, along with splurging on designer clothes and other expensive items. She also created a fake email account in Alesi’s name in order to process a Western Union wire transfer. Alesi’s family found about the stolen money two months after his death.
Clermont apologized to the court, as well as Alesi’s family, and took full responsibility for her “shameful actions.” In addition to prison time, she is ordered to pay nearly $5,000 in restitution and a $100 fine.