The pretend princess should have used some commoner sense.
Antoinette Millard, who posed as Saudi royalty for an insurance scam, took the witness stand in Manhat tan civil court yesterday, and complained that she’d been duped into overpaying for jewelry by a sales man who told her she was getting a discount.
“I thought I was getting a deal,” the ex-con, 46, said.
When she had the pieces “ap praised” at a Garment Dis trict pawn shop, she said they told her “the pieces were overva lued” — so now she’s suing Michael Eigen Jewelers for $1.1 million.
“I trusted them,” the con woman testified as the trial for her fraud suit against the now-defunct jewelry store got under way, six years after she first filed it.
Store owner Michael Eigen said he doesn’t understand what the case is doing in court.
“She came and bought things and that was it,” he said.
The former investment banker turned swindler maintains there was plenty of palace intrigue, and she was the dupe.
The Buffalo divorcée who made her way onto the gossip pages in 2003 when she’d show up at society events in a tiara, claiming to be a Saudi princess said she first went to Eigen’s store in May of 2002.
Her first purchase was a sapphire diamond stack ring — and over the course of the next year, she returned to the store 25 times and spent $271,000.
She said she stopped going in July 2003, when she discovered three of the pieces she’d taken for appraisal — a belly chain ring and two sets of earrings — “were significantly overvalued.”
Millard said she called up the store and demanded an explanation, and was blown off — so she sent them a copy of her claimed damages in the mail, along with the three pieces of jewelry.
Millard at first said she’d “mailed” the jewelry, but then told the judge hearing the case, Arlene Bluth, that she dropped it off in an envelope.
The judge asked her if she got a receipt for the return, which the store says she never made.
“No. I trusted them,” she said.
The judge then asked if she’d gotten receipts other times she’d returned jewelry to the store.
“Yes,” Millard said.
Asked why she wouldn’t get one when she was in the middle of a dispute with the store, Millard said, “I don’t know.”
She likely had other things on her mind at the time. That same year, Millard claimed she was mugged and the robber stole more than $200,000 worth of jewelry, the day after she’d had it insured.
She was also busy charging up $1 million of jewelry at places around the city on her no-limit American Express Centurion card, although she knew she had no way to pay.
She was sentenced to a year in jail after a plea deal.
Store lawyer Lloyd Weinstein said the store’s appraisals matched up with what she paid.