Bad deal

You find the strangest things in Google News. A Deal or No Deal contestant named Tanika Miller is under arrest for a reverse mortgage scam in San Mateo County, California.

I'm happy to report that the show was completely uninvolved (and unknowing) in the scam. This isn't some kind of rigging scandal for the new millennium.

Prosecutors allege that Miller and an actor named Justin Hall scammed a 66-year-old Redwood City woman out of her house by promising her a half-million dollar reverse mortgage. The woman then signed the deed to her house away to Miller and Hall, who sold the house to somebody else for nearly a million dollars. The 66-year-old lady got nothing but two $1,000 payments.

Fortunately, an employee in the county recorder's office and a real estate agent became suspicious and notified the district attorney's office. The cops busted Miller and Hall over the summer. Hall is out on bond while Miller is still in jail because she couldn't make bail. Both will appear in court on November 22.

District Attorney Steve Wagstaff sounded surprised (to put it mildly) that Miller would appear on Deal or No Deal while under investigation for the scam. She knew the cops were looking for her. It's kind of ballsy to hop on a game show.

You might call it ballsy. You might also call it dumb. After she won $400,000 on Deal or No Deal Miller made a crazily ironic remark to CNBC. She said that she would use some of her winnings "to create a nonprofit that provides low-cost housing for homeless veterans and the elderly." Those elderly people must not have included the 66-year-old lady who got scammed.

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