Ex-Priest Pleads Guilty to Molesting Altar Boy in 1988
California Catholic Daily
December 4, 2008
http://calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=2aafd96f-6775-45f9-8c05-0b9bcf21914a
A former priest of the Los Angeles archdiocese pleaded guilty on Dec. 2 to molesting a 12-year-old altar boy 20 years ago while assigned to Guardian Angel Church in Pacoima, the district attorney's office announced in a statement to the press.
Defrocked priest George Miller, 70, also admitted to having three other victims whose cases cannot be charged because of statute of limitation problems, said the announcement. Miller's admission to the cases barred from prosecution by the statue of limitations means the three victims in those cases will be allowed to address the court when Miller is sentenced on Jan. 30 in San Fernando Superior Court, said Deputy District Attorney Ann Marie Wise of the Sex Crimes Division.
 |
Miller, who has been free on bail since just after his arrest in July 2007, faces a three-year prison term, said Wise. He must serve at least 85 percent of that term before being eligible for parole consideration.
Miller was charged on July 24, 2007, with molesting a boy that he met while assigned to the Guardian Angel Church in Pacoima. Authorities said Miller befriended the victim's mother and became a frequent guest at the family home. He was charged with molesting the boy between March 1988 and March 1991, when the victim was 12 years old, according to the district attorney's statement.
In 2002, the district attorney said, Miller was charged with molesting the victim's older brother and two other boys. Those charges were dismissed in 2003 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that California's statute of limitations on child molestation cases was unconstitutional. As a result of the Supreme Court decision, the district attorney's office was forced to dismiss the earlier charges against Miller, along with more than a dozen other cases against priests or former priests accused of child molestation, the DA's statement said.
"The new case against Miller was filed after the current victim came forward," said the district attorney's statement. "The defendant was charged with six counts – three of lewd act against a child and three of sodomy of a person under the age of 14. He pleaded guilty to Count 1, which alleged lewd act on a child under the age of 14 between March 1988 and March 1989. The remaining counts will be dismissed after Miller is formally sentenced."
Four Miller victims were among the more than 500 who settled their claims with the Los Angeles archdiocese in a $660 million settlement reached in 2007. Miller's personnel files were among those Cardinal Roger Mahony fought to withhold from the Los Angeles County Grand Jury, but the cardinal was finally forced to surrender them when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal in 2006.
In 2005, at Mahony's request, the pope laicized Miller.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.