More Charges for Father Michael Miller

By Robert Mayer
The Patch
June 21, 2012

http://berlin.patch.com/articles/more-charges-for-father-michael-miller


The Berlin Police Department arrested Father Michael Miller of St. Paul's Church on three additional counts to the ones he is already facing. Miller was charged and arrested for obscenity, possession of child pornography and risk of injury to a minor.

Miller's case has been continued 11 times since he was originally charged on five felony counts of risk of injury to a minor and a misdemeanor obscenity charge. One of the reasons the court case may have been continued was that the Berlin Police Dept. was working on forensics from cell phones and computers, which according to police takes time.

These forensic clues provide more evidence in the case against Miller, who was very popular in his tenure at St. Paul's.

As part of the ongoing investigation, police served a warrant on Miller, 41, pastor of Saint Paul’s Catholic Church in Kensington.

His case was originally ordered sealed by the court but was unsealed with lurid details of Miller's relationship with a young boy.

Miller was hospitalized on July 4 when he was taken by Life Star helicopter to St. Francis Hospital in Hartford. Mystery surrounded the circumstances of his illness or injuries, though the Hartford Archdiocese acknowledged that Miller was under investigation and that the Franciscan Friars and Archdiocese were cooperating with the investigation.

According to the warrant, the Berlin Police Department received a complaint from the mother of a 13-year-old boy whose family members are parishioners of the church, which is located in Kensington. The woman told police that her son had become uncomfortable with the correspondence on Facebook and text messages from Father Michael Miller.

Police confiscated two computers from Miller, but before they could arrest him, he was flown to St. Francis Hospital on July 4 by Life Star after suffering a still-unspecified medical condition.

According to the original arrest warrant, the conversations started innocently enough but escalated into sexual comments quickly.

The original warrant states that Miller, who uses an alias on Facebook, asked the boy about his sexual preference. Miller told the boy he was bi-sexual in high school and was addicted to pornography.

When police confiscated Miller's computers, the priest admitted to texting and talking to the boy on Facebook but said that there was no actual contact.

Miller, according to the warrant, also told the boy on more than one occasion that he would like to perform sex acts on him and asked him to meet him, but the boy declined. The request to meet seems to have led to the boy to talk to his mother.

Attorney William St. John represents Miller, who is currently suspended from his church duties. Miller is due back in court July 9.