Fashion Influencer Shannade Clermont Pleads Guilty to Fraud, Faces Federal Prison Time
Shannade Clermont had barely become something of a front row and VIP section regular, alongside her twin sister, Shannon, when she was arrested on charges related to allegations that she had stolen and used the debit card of a deceased man. According to the latest update on the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Clermont has plead guilty to a felony wire charge and now awaits sentencing that could include time in federal prison. (That sentencing is scheduled for February.) But despite numerous headlines that accompanied Clermont’s arrest in July, her career as an influencer and fashion event attendee hasn’t quite dried up. Clermont attended multiple events during the last New York Fashion Week, in September, and just this week appeared in a composite image on the cover of WWD for a story that had nothing to do with her arrest.
Clermont, 24, first came to prominence, along with her sister, as a cast member of Oxygen’s Bad Girls Club. While the show isn’t known as a springboard to mainstream fame, the sisters turned their joint Instagram account into a showcase for their personal style, with a distinct emphasis on younger and up-and-coming designers (their following now totals more than 900,000). An appearance in the campaign for Kanye West’s Yeezy season six shot them to fashion respectability, and by the February 2018 edition of NYFW, the pair were seemingly everywhere.
“We are very picky about what we post that we barely post every day,” Clermont told W about her Instagram habits at the time. “I think it depends on what kind of page you have. We care more about quality than quantity.”
Though many of their followers wondered how the twins were able to fund their lifestyle, the news of Clermont’s arrest in July still came as a shock. As per the details from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, back in January 2017, Clermont met up with an unidentified man “for a prostitution date in his Manhattan apartment.” During the encounter, he died of an overdose, and Clermont allegedly swiped his debit card information and put tens of thousands of dollars worth of charges on it to pay for everything from rent to plane tickets.
According to The Blast, Clermont will not be prosecuted on two additional charges, but could face up to 20 years in prison in addition to being forced to repay the money she swindled to the man’s estate.
“I stand on my toes,” read a text-only update on the girls’ Instagram Stories from yesterday. “Any bitch in my situation would have been fold.”
Somewhat amazingly, there’s no guarantee these legal troubles are necessarily the end of Clermont’s influencer career. That WWD cover dropped just this past Monday.
While Clermont and her sister weren’t quite as omnipresent during the most recent NYFW, they weren’t completely unwelcome in certain circles, either. They sat front row at LaQuan Smith’s show and attended the Tumblr NYFW Creator Dinner, among other events. Earlier this month, the pair appeared at Hypefest hosted by Diesel in Brooklyn. To be fair, Clermont certainly wouldn’t be the first figure to remain in fashion’s good graces despite legal troubles. The twins have also continued to promote some fashion brands on their page through tagging, but those promotions have not been marked as sponsored content.
Whatever the case, even in the midst of all this, Clermont probably won’t be sued anytime soon for “failure to influence” like fellow influencer Luka Sabbat was this week by Snap. Her hustle remains intact despite the drama.
