She had claimed to be 21 when she was really 18, and she was also married and a mother of two children.Ħ.
Almost immediately after her crowning, judges discovered that Leona had lied about various details of her background, including her age. This scandal dates all the way back to 1957, when Leona Gage of Maryland was named Miss USA - and then dethroned in less than a day. There was Leona Gage, who lost her Miss USA crown after only 24 hours. The rumors only got worse when sources told news outlets that Nia actually never moved to Nevada, but only set up the “minimum paper trail” to allow her to compete.ĥ. She appeared on a morning radio program called The Todd Show and was asked to name the capital of Nevada.aaaaand she couldn’t do it. In 2014, Nia Sanchez was fighting rumors that she wasn’t actually from Nevada, the state for which she was competing in the Miss USA pageant (which she won, BTW). When Nia Sanchez forgot the capital to her home state.
She was eventually released after a judge found no evidence to prove that she was involved in criminal activity, but her crown was taken away all the same.Ĥ. At the time of her arrest, she was held with her boyfriend and six other people when the police found 9 mm pistols, semiautomatic rifles, and $53,000 in cash in their car. Laura Zuniga was arrested in 2008 with charges of racketeering, drug trafficking, guns and money laundering.
