Abby Lee Miller was expected to be released from prison late last month, but the former Dance Moms matriarch received an unpleasant surprise on the day of her scheduled release thanks to a bureaucratic budget crackdown.
Abby’s release was scheduled for February 20, at which point she was supposed to be transferred to a halfway house to serve out the remainder of her 366-day sentence for a fraud conviction. But, her release was delayed due to overbooking — and Abby doesn’t think it was a random thing.
“Basically, the prisons pay for the inmates to go to halfway houses,” prison consultant and coach Jennifer Myers explained to Entertainment Tonight. “In the past, let’s say each warden had a budget for eight halfway house beds per month, they were often releasing 20 women to beds instead, because they wanted to help get them out. But the director of Federal Bureau of Prisons, Mark Inch, started a crackdown on the budgets, and is making sure they don’t go over budget anymore.”
Abby received an official notice of her release scheduled for February 20 and had no idea that it was not a sure thing right up until it didn’t happen. “Abby just didn’t get out, that’s how she found out about it,” Jennifer said. “It was a pretty upsetting thing for her over the weekend to not be able to talk to anybody and find out what was happening. It didn’t make any sense. She had her halfway house plan and they just weren’t communicating with her that it wasn’t happening anymore.”
Star magazine spoke with a source who confirmed that Abby was none-too-happy about the surprise. “Abby is furious!” the source revealed. “Abby had a nuclear meltdown over this. She had her bags packed, so to speak. She was ready to go.” The source then said that Abby felt like the whole thing was not random at all. “She feels like she is being targeted.”
Essentially, this all sounds exactly like the scene from Love After Lockup in which Scott drives five hours to pick up Lizzie from prison on her release date, and he is informed by the security guard at the gate that she is not on the list of prisoners being released that day. Neither Scott nor Lizzie were told anything about the release date being changed — which seems a bit like cruel and unusual punishment if you ask me.
It would later be revealed that Lizzie’s release was delayed after she got caught with a cell phone and heroin. She’s currently still behind bars, as we reported back in December.
Actually, since Dance Moms has been officially canceled, and since Abby Lee Miller is still single (as far as I know), perhaps she might consider expanding her reality show resume by appearing on Love After Lockup Season 2?
So when will Abby Lee Miller be released from prison? That is still unclear. “It’s a waiting game right now for Abby,” Jennifer Myers said. “At this point they are trying to figure it out. They are submitting to get her a new out date and get her another bed, but it has to go through many different places in the Bureau of Prisons to even get that new out date.”
I tried to check for information online, but they don’t provide much info for federal prisoners. all it says is that Abby’s release date is June 21, 2018.
