Another beauty queen bites the dust. Shaletta Porterfield, a top contender for next month’s Miss USA title, has dropped out of the pageant after being charged with identity theft, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Porterfield, who was set to appear as Miss Wisconsin USA, resigned from the beauty contest on Friday after being charged with three counts of stealing someone’s identity for financial gain.
The pageant contestant admitted to investigators she forged signatures of business owners on advertising contracts while working for a marketing company last year, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Her scheme was discovered after business owners were asked to proof ads they never agreed to buy.
Porterfield’s lawyer, Robert Nagel, said the fallen beauty queen was under immense pressure from the company to hit her commission goals, so she came up with the plan.
“It’s unfortunate, but she has a lot going for her, and she’s ready to move on,” Nagel said.
Nagel hopes Porterfield can resolve the charges with fines or another agreement which would not include jail time.
First runner-up Jordan Morkin, of Green Bay, will represent Wisconsinn at the Miss USA pageant in Las Vegas in June.
Porterfield’s troubles are only the most recent black spot for the annual pageant, which is owned by Donald Trump.
The 2010 winner, Rima Fakih, embarrassed pageant officials after a local radio station in her hometown in Michigan reveled her pole-dancing past.
Fakih, the first-ever Arab-American Miss USA, had won the radio station’s “Stripper 101” contest by sexing it up on a stripper pole at a Detroit gentleman’s club in 2007.
