Miss USA 2014 controversy: Nia Sanchez accused of cheating

This is no longer the final round of Miss USA 2014 and yet newly crowned Miss USA Nia Sanchez is feeling the heat.

A controversy has embroiled the beauty amid allegations that she's not actually connected to her home state of Nevada.

A source told Fox411 the 24-year-old martial artist is allegedly not from the state, which she represented at the 63rd annual Miss USA pageant in Baton Rouge, La., on June 9.

It is being reported that Nia faked her residency there in order to avoid stiffer competition in her home state of California.

"She never actually moved to Nevada, but continued to work at Disney and live in California, setting up some minimum paper trail to appear like she was in Nevada and allow her to compete," the source tells Fox News.

Sanchez competed three times for the Miss California USA crown – in 2010, 2011 and 2012 – never winning before entering the Nevada pageant, which she won in January.

But she says it was a legitimate switch that met the competition's six-month residency requirement.

Sanchez told FOX411 in a one-on-one interview that there is "no truth" to the allegation, and said she had lived in the state almost 18 months before she won the title – much longer than the minimum six months required.

“[Las Vegas] is my home,” she fold FOX411 Thursday. “I have a house there with a friend.”

"I actually had an agent that was working me in Nevada a lot so I figured why not work in that state, and then I looked into the pageant program because I had done pageants before," she explained.

"So I figured why not look into the one in Nevada? I really liked the way that it was run, the director that ran it, it seemed like a really healthy, well-run state program. So I decided to go there since I was living there anyway."

The Miss Nevada USA official competition page states that contestants must provide two documents “showing that you have resided in the state in which you wish to compete for at least 6 months prior to the State pageant,” emphasizing that these must be dated at least six months ahead of the pageant and be issued in the contestant’s name.

Acceptable forms of documentation must be two of the following: voter ID or registration card, tax return, school records, employment documents, telephone bill, utility bill, bank statement, credit card statement or lease/deed.

Sanchez listed her job on her Miss USA application as a model with the AC Model Agency, which has branches in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. However, Sanchez’s modeling profile lists her as being based in L.A., not Vegas.

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