The Mennonite pastor who was convicted of helping an “ex-gay” mom escape America to keep her from having to relinquish child custody to her ex-wife is scheduled to be sentenced in March. Lisa Miller (pictured right) lost custody after she refused to allow Vermont resident Janet Jenkins (pictured left) visitation on the grounds that she did not want her daughter around an out lesbian. Having, moved to Virginia, Miller joined an anti-gay Christian sect tied to the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University.
According to the Associated Press, Kenneth Miller of Stuarts Draft, Va., faces up to three years in prison when he is sentenced in federal court in Burlington on March 4. According to the AP report:
Kenneth Miller was convicted last summer for helping Lisa Miller and her daughter Isabella flee the country in 2009, several days before the girl was scheduled for a weekend visit with Lisa Miller’s former partner, Janet Jenkins of Fair Haven. It was also two months ahead of an anticipated order from a Vermont judge transferring custody of the girl from Lisa Miller to Jenkins. The Millers are not related.
During Kenneth Miller’s August trial, prosecutors used cellphone records and sometimes-reluctant witnesses to lay out a broad network he oversaw that helped Lisa Miller and Isabella travel first to Canada and then Nicaragua.
A civil lawsuit by Jenkins at the conclusion of Kenneth Miller’s criminal trial is also pending. A number of the defendants, including Kenneth Miller, Liberty University and the Thomas Road Baptist Church, both in Lynchburg, Va., filed documents in court late Friday asking a judge to dismiss the civil case filed by Jenkins. They argued, in part, that the case should not have been brought in Vermont.
Miller’s attorneys continued to fight a subpoena from federal prosecutors that he testify before a grand jury, presumably about other people involved in helping the Lisa Miller and her daughter travel from Virginia to Canada and then on to Nicaragua where they are still believed to be living.
Kenneth Miller had been scheduled to testify last week before the grand jury, but a federal appeals court in New York pushed that back.
As a Vermont resident, it is my hope that Kenneth Miller (pictured) is sentenced to all three years in prison, preferably in solitary confinement until he testifies in front of a grand jury and spills the beans about who else was involved in the kidnapping and cover-up of this crime. If he squeals, we may learn the full extent of Liberty University’s role in this crime. Then police can swoop down in Lynchburg and cuff the criminals and bring them to justice.
Felons like Kenneth Miller and his cheerleaders (co-conspirators?) at Liberty University like to play martyr. However, the key to being a true martyr is suffering the consequences of your actions. Thus, the crime syndicate involved in denying Janet Jenkins the joy of watching Isabella grow up, should rejoice in having the opportunity to serve time in the joint for Jesus. Even fundamentalist Christians need to learn that they are not above the law.