A South Florida village commissioner and former beauty queen was sentenced to one year of probation and 50 hours of community service for posing as a paralegal in order to gain access to a federal immigration detention facility to visit her boyfriend.
Federal prosecutors punished Julianna Clare Strout, 36, on Wednesday in Miami federal court after she pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of attempting to enter and entering a federal prison using deception and false pretenses.
2018 saw Strout’s election to the North Bay Village Commission. Her term expires next month, and she will not seek re-election. North Bay Village encompasses two small islands in the bay between Miami and Miami Beach’s northernmost points.
Due of the COVID-19 epidemic, the Krome Service Processing Center in Miami briefly banned social visits in October 2021. Authorized visits were permitted.
Prosecutors claimed Strout entered Krome three times that month by convincing Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities that she worked as a paralegal for a law company and required a client to sign legal documents, who was actually her love partner.
Strout gave officials a letter written on the letterhead of a legitimate law company.
In actuality, the legal firm never authorized Strout to use its letterhead or visit Krome on its behalf, according to documents written by prosecutors. “Strout had never previously worked for the firm. Instead, she was entangled romantically with the detainee.”
Once, after initially being denied admission, Strout presented cops at Krome with her North Bay Village Commissioner badge, claimed that she was a public official, and requested entry on that basis, according to investigators.
Strout was crowned Miss Rhode Island in 2009 and competed for the Miss America crown in 2010.