Trial’s On for Amish-Mennonite Pastor Accused of Aiding International Child Abduction of Isabella Miller-Jenkins
Videos after the jump.
“Whatever is decided … the basic facts are these: a daughter has been separated from one of her parents and is living with her other parent on the run, all in the name of preserving traditional family units.”
— Chris Graham
“Gay marriage debate hits close to home”
Augusta Free Press, August 7, 2012
We don’t normally pay attention to the Amish or the Mennonites — or the Amish-Mennonites* — because they don’t normally force anyone else to adhere to their religious beliefs.
This is the exception to the rule, as a band of Amish-Mennonites** have taken it upon themselves to intervene in a domestic situation, upend the life of one good mother, and flout federal law in the process.
We’ve known about this case for years. We’ve been disgusted by this case for years. Until now, we didn’t know, within the scope of ConBab, what to say about it. Now we do — and we’re hoping against hope that this may be the beginning of the end of a long nightmare for one woman whose child was ripped from her, by her ex-wife and a group of ultra-fundamental religionists who apparently have no respect whatsoever for the law.
In 2000, Janet Jenkins and Lisa Miller were joined in a civil union in Vermont (before there was marriage equality in the state). In 2002, They decided to have a child by artifical insemination. Miller was impregnated, and gave birth to Isabella Ruth Jenkins-Miller in 2002. The following year, the couple separated and dissolved their civil union. Lisa won primary custody of Isabella, and Jenkins was granted visitation rights.
When Ms. Miller decided to get pregnant through in vitro fertilization, they picked a donor with Ms. Jenkins’s green eyes. Isabella Ruth Miller-Jenkins was born in Virginia on April 16, 2002. Ms. Jenkins cut the umbilical cord as her own mother, Ruth, stood in the room.
Preferring to raise a family in a state that endorsed same-sex relationships, the couple moved to southern Vermont. They bought a two-story house within walking distance of a grade school in Fair Haven, a small town known for Victorian houses and summer music on the village green.
Isabella learned to call Ms. Jenkins “Mama” and Ms. Miller “Mommy.” In these apparently happier days, Ms. Miller made an Easter card for Ms. Jenkins with Isabella’s handprints and the words, “Mamma I love you.”
Ms. Miller later said in interviews that even before the move, she was rediscovering Christianity and questioning her lesbianism. During her difficult pregnancy with Isabella, “I promised God that if he would save my baby, I would leave the homosexual lifestyle,” she said in notes she left for one of her lawyers, Rena M. Lindevaldsen, associate dean of the Liberty University Law School. Ms. Lindevaldsen describes the notes in “Only One Mommy,” New Revolution Publishers, her 2011 book on Ms. Miller and what she calls the threat of “the homosexual lifestyle.”
But such doubts were not apparent to Ms. Jenkins, who said they lived as Unitarians at the time, nor to Ms. Jenkins’s parents in Virginia, Roman Catholics who said they had warm relations with Ms. Miller and doted over their new grandchild.
— Erik Eckholm
“Which Mother for Isabella?
Civil Union Ends in an
Abduction and Questions”
New York Times, July 28, 2012
Miller suddenly decided she was a born-again Christian and “ex-lesbian.” She moved Isabella to Virginia, which does not recognize civil unions (or any legally-binding contract between any two unmarried people, for that matter), and refused to let Janet see their daughter.
Worse yet, Miller obtained a court order in Virginia declaring her Isabella’s sole parent. (In fact, Miller filed for sole custody “on July 1, 2004,” reports The Daily Beast, “the very day Virginia enacted a new statute [the Marriage Affirmation Act] prohibiting any legal recognition of same-sex marriages or civil unions,” and “using funds from the Center for American Cultural Renewal — a group working to repeal Vermont’s civil union legislation — to support her legal efforts,” notes GLAD.) Jenkins filed suit challenging the order, and — astonishingly — the Supreme Court of Virginia did the right thing and ordered that Jenkins be granted visitation rights.
“Under federal law,” the ACLU explains, “once the courts in one state properly take jurisdiction over a child custody or visitation case, a court in another state cannot assume jurisdiction. The law is meant to prevent parents who are unhappy with a custody ruling from moving to another state to try to get a different result. The court held that Vermont had sole jurisdiction, and that Virginia must give full force and effect to the Vermont Court’s orders. Lisa attempted to appeal this decision to the Virginia Supreme Court, but in May 2007 the appeal was dismissed for procedural reasons.”
“In this case,” notes Lambda Legal, “the Virginia Court of Appeals rightly recognized that federal law protects parents against the very thing Lisa Miller did — shopping around for a court to give them sole custody. … Congress passed a law” — the Parental Kidnapping Protection Act (PKPA) — “to protect children and discourage child-snatching and forum-shopping by requiring sister states to respect the custody rulings of a child’s home state. Lambda Legal established that this law has no ‘LGBT exception,’ and that children of LGBT parents deserve the same protections Congress provided all children.”
Miller still refused to allow Jenkins to see Isabella, skipping out on visitation dates for the next three years. Miller was “repeatedly held in contempt of court in Vermont and Virginia for failing to allow court-ordered visitation,” recounts the ACLU.
In her effort to keep Isabella from Jenkins, Miller accused Jenkins of sexually molesting their daughter, who, Miller said, displayed such behavior as masturbating in public and acting out mock suicide (e.g., pretending to slit her own throat with a comb) after seeing Jenkins. It’s worth noting that, according to The Daily Beast, Miller’s parents divorced when she was 7, and she was left to live with her mother, whom Miller claims was a paranoid-schizophrenic. She says her mother sexually and physically abused her as a child and later, forbade her to date, telling her ‘men were evil.’” Married to a man at 22, “Miller recalls she first began drinking with her husband, and after the couple split two years into the marriage, she began to drink more heavily. Miller became so depressed, she said, she tried to kill herself by slitting her wrists, and ended up in intensive care, where she was referred to a psychology ward.” After a failed two-year relationship with a woman and following her mother’s death, Miller met Jenkins. “Jenkins and Miller do agree on one thing — they were both on the rebound when they met that day in a Falls Church AA meeting.”
By the time of their breakup, “Miller says Jenkins had become verbally and physically abusive, and wouldn’t allow her to leave the house, while Jenkins says Miller became mentally unstable and reclusive, and refused to seek professional help. Both women deny the charges, and even disagree on what happened after the IVF treatments” when they were trying for their second child. “Jenkins says Miller miscarried in the first trimester, while Miller insists she never was pregnant. Regardless, the two amicably split in 2003 after their failed attempt at a second child. Until that point, Miller says, she begged Jenkins to file adoption papers, because she didn’t want Isabella to end up as a ward of the state if something happened to her. ‘I was told we didn’t need to because we had the civil union,’ says Jenkins. ‘God, if I had only known.’”
In 2009, after Miller was held in contempt repeatedly for refusing to allow Jenkins visitation, Vermont ordered that Jenkins (who had been paying child support) be given sole custody. Miller appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which declined to review the case, letting the Vermont decision stand (in what — in a ironic stroke of unintended consequences for Miller’s anti-gay activist attorneys — was a “states’ rights” issue to begin with).
Isabella was to be transferred to Jenkins by January 1, 2010. Miller responded to the court’s order by taking Isabella and fleeing the U.S. (leaving a family of hamsters to starve to death). They landed in Nicaragua by way of Toronto and Mexico City, apparently aided in her flight and abduction by a group of Mennonites (and, possibly, a few Baptists) who spirited them away after carrying out a plan replete with secret codes, plane-switching and new identities. (Regarding the last bit, Miller changed her name to “Sarah” and Isabella’s name to “Lydia.”)
On April 27, 2010, a warrant was issued for Lisa Miller’s arrest. She is also wanted for kidnapping by Interpol.
Before fleeing, MIller was represented pro bono by anti-gay activist Mat Staver‘s virulently homophobic (and ostentibly non-profit) law group Liberty Counsel (which in 2005 alone was “contesting some 30 same-sex-marriage cases across the country,” and attempting to shut down New York’s Harvey Milk High School, which Staver called a “school dedicated solely to those engaged in abnormal sexual practices”). Liberty Counsel is inextricably conjoined with Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, where the group is headquartered on-campus, and where its theocratic lawyers often teach.
That Liberty Counsel would take on Miller’s case is no surprise, but we expect that Miller’s ties to the Liberty U-niverse pushed her case near the top of Liberty Counsel’s list of priorities. The church that convinced her to leave her “sinful homosexual lifestyle” was Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church; in addition, court documents note: “Bank records show that Lisa Ann Miller received multiple payroll checks from the Lynchburg Christian Academy Payroll Account.” Lynchburg Christian Academy, a.k.a. Liberty Christian Academy, which was once housed on the grounds of Thomas Road Baptist, is now headquartered next-door to Liberty University.
Miller’s lead attorney was Rena Lindevaldsen (who sees Janet Jenkins’s fight to reuinte with her child as nothing more than “efforts to destroy God’s design for family”***), then listed on the Liberty University website as “Associate Professor of Law” and “Associate Director, Liberty Center for Law and Policy,” and now dean of Liberty U’s “law school.”
And then there’s Philip Zodhiates.
ABC News reports that “Philip Zodhiates, the owner of a company specializing in source lists for Christian telemarketers and retailers” — Response Unlimited — “has a home in Nicaragua, according to court documents. Investigators allege that Lisa Miller and Isabella [were] staying at the home.”
According to FBI special agent Dana Kaegel, Janet Jenkins’s attorney, Sarah Star, reported that “she received a call on or about June 21, 2010. The caller provided the following information:
“a. Philip Zodhiates is a wealthy man and a ‘Liberty Leader’ who has a beach house in Nicaragua. Lisa Miller and Isabella Miller have been staying at the home of Zodhiates.
“b. Victoria Hyden is the daughter of Zodhiates. Zodhiates asked Hyden to disseminate a request to get Lisa Miller supplies.
“The ‘Faculty/Staff Directory’ listed within the Liberty School of Law website lists “Victoria Hyden” as an “Administrative Assistant” within the “Admissions and Financial Aid” section.”
“Upon the news of the arrest breaking, Hyden’s bio was taken down from the Liberty website,” notes The Advocate (which has a screencap of the bio at the link).
(“Star,” Agent Kaegel adds, “has told me that she determined through Internet research that Zodhiates has six adopted children. Three of the children are from Nicaragua and three children are from Guatemala.”)
Despite the connection through Victoria Hyden, Mat Staver has said that “Zodhiates has no affiliation with Liberty University.”
Zodhiates has denied that Miller and Isabella were at his home. Email messages obtained by the FBI suggest otherwise.
One exchange, dated November 12-13, 2009, “between ‘Philip Zodhiates’ and ‘John Collmus,’ according to Agent Kaegel, bore the subject line, “bag for Nicaragua”:
From “Philip Zodhiates [mailto:philipz@responseunlimited.com]” to “John Collmus” (“labeled as ‘High’ within the Importance field”): “John: The bags for Nicaragua have not arrived yet, but one is on its way to our home as I write. I will send it with Josiah in the morning. If I find out the other is ready I will have to go to Lynchburg to pick it up tomorrow or have someone else get it Saturday. Would that work? Can you give me your home & cell numbers just in case. . .. Thanks so much for doing this. They are just personal belongings of someone who recently moved to Managua doing missions work and a few things they can’t buy there readily like peanut butter. So it is nothing you need to declare on the customs forms. …”
From “John Collmus [jcollmus@covenantschool.org]” to “Philip Zodhiates”: “I have 2 in my room. Do you think they may open them up, break the tape, or is that not a problem. Who will my contact be? John H. Collmus”.
From “‘Philip Zodhiates’ [philipz@responseunlimited.com]” to “‘John Collmus’ [jcollrnus@covenantschool.org]”: “… Yes they will probably examine the bags when you check in, but that is not a problem. I am not sure why they taped them (I did not pack them, one of the elders of the local church did here). Timo Miller will meet you at the airport and hold up a sign with your name. He is a pastor of an Arnish-Mennonite church in Managua who is with Christian Aid Ministries (Ohio) …. The suitcases are for a lady that works with them there in Managua named Sarah. .. . Thank you for taking these. Sarah will greatly appreciate it, I am sure …. “
Students at Liberty Law School tell RD that in the required Foundations of Law class in the fall of 2008, taught by Miller’s attorneys Mat Staver and Rena Lindevaldsen, they were repeatedly instructed that when faced with a conflict between “God’s law” and “man’s law,” they should resolve that conflict through “civil disobedience.” One student said, “the idea was when you are confronted with a particular situation, for instance, if you have a court order against you that is in violation of what you see as God’s law, essentially… civil disobedience was the answer.” …
That semester’s midterm exam, obtained by RD [see excerpts of the actual exam here], included a question based on Miller’s case asking students to describe what advice they would give her “as a friend who is a Christian lawyer.” After laying out a slanted history of the protracted legal battle, the exam asked, “Lisa needs your counsel on how to think through her legal situation and how to respond as a Christian to this difficult problem. Relying only on what we have learned thus far in class, how would you counsel Lisa?”
Students who wrote that Miller should comply with court orders received bad grades while those who wrote she should engage in civil disobedience received an A, the three students said. “People were appalled,” said one of the students, adding, “especially as lawyers-to-be, who are trained and licensed to practice the law — to disobey that law, that seemed completely counterintuitive to all of us.”
Still, some knew what they needed to “regurgitate,” in order to get a good grade. “It was obvious by the substance of the class during the semester the answer that they wanted,” said one of the students. “The majority of people that I am acquainted with who did get As wrote that because it was expected of them.”
One of the students who got an A said, “I told them she needed to engage in civil disobedience and seriously consider leaving the country,” adding, “I knew what I needed to write.” …
Did Liberty Counsel Know Miller had Fled to Nicaragua?
Neither Staver nor Lindevaldsen responded to RD’s requests for comment, but Staver told the New York Times last month that they had not had contact with Miller since 2009 and had always advised her to obey the law. Staver and Lindevaldsen did, however, teach their students that “civil disobedience” was a proper response, and persisted in their efforts to reverse court orders with relentless appeals claiming that court orders were in contravention of Miller’s Christian beliefs.
In August 2009, just one month before the FBI believes Miller fled to Nicaragua, Liberty Counsel attached a 20-page affidavit signed by Miller to a brief it filed in court in opposition to Jenkins’ request to transfer custody of Isabella to her. Miller claimed, among other things, that the case was “about having Vermont courts choose between two diametrically opposed worldviews on parentage and family,” that the Bible deems homosexuality a sin, and that gay parenting “is not consistent with the truth in the Bible.”
— Sarah Posner
“Who is Mat Staver, Counsel for Anti-Gay Activist Against Suit from Uganda?”
Religion Dispatches, March 26, 2012
Which brings us to Timothy “Timo” Miller.
In April, 2011, the FBI arrested Beachy Amish-Mennonite pastor (and Christian Aid Ministries missionary to Nicaragua) Timothy David “Timo” Miller (no relation to Lisa Miller), then 34, who was indicted the following month on one count of aiding in international parental kidnapping.
For one thing, the airfares for Miller and Isabella had been purchased with a credit card reportedly in the name of Timo Miller’s mother-in-law; for another, Miller’s own parents, Alvin and Edna Miller, were all too eager to chat about the case in emails (obtained with court-ordered search warrants) exchanged with their son and others.
In the criminal complaint against Timo Miller (courtesy of The Advocate), FBI special agent Dana L. Kaegel recounted the contents of numerous emails dated between September 22 and 23, 2009:
From “‘Alvin & Edna Miller’ [millersofwaslala@gmail.com]” to multiple e-mail accounts, one of which includes “‘Timo & Joanna’ [timjomiller@gmail.com]”: “… So what is this about Lisa Miller? Do you have any more information? Where will she be going? This sounds a little like Joy Coats how they ruled to give the Grandparents custody. People can be so unfeeling for the children included. I will be praying about this …. MOM”.
From “‘Bilmer’ [thescoto7@gmail.com]” to “‘Alvin & Edna Miller’ [millersofwaslala@gmail.com]”: “What for Lisa Miller??? We haven’t heard anything about it.”
From “‘Alvin & Edna Miller’ [millersofwaslala@gmail.com]” to “‘Bilmer’ [thescoto7@gmail.com]”: “Google it. Lisa Miller child custody. She is getting picked up in the airport by Timo. Mim”.
From “‘Bilmer’ [thescoto7@gmail.com]” to “‘Alvin & Edna Miller’ [millersofwaslala@gmail.com]”: “Is she bringing her daughter with her or is she escaping by herself? Is she planning on staying at Timos?????”.
From “‘Alvin & Edna Miller’ [millersofwaslala@gmail.com]” to “‘Bilmer’ [thescoto7@gmail.com]”: “Yes she is bringing her daughter with her, but we still don’t know where she will stay. I think it kinda depends on the situation.”
From “‘Timo & Joanna’ [timjomiller@gmail.com]” which “appears to be a reply to the e-mail accounts contained within the e-mail from ‘”Alvin & Edna Miller” [millersofwaslala@gmail.com]'”: “Sorry, folks, the Lisa subject should currently not be a topic of discussion or emailing. It might soon, or it just might be more of a secret. Please advise folks about this. Pray. Definitely, pray. Thanks, Timo”.
From “‘Sierra Madre Mission’ [mexicomission@hughes.net]” to “‘Alvin & Edna Miller’ [millersofwaslala@gmail.com]”: “… What Lisa, and what does it mean? It will be kept top secret!!! … Don’t tell Timo I asked!!”.
From “‘Alvin & Edna Miller’ [millersofwaslala@gmail.com]” to “‘Sierra Madre Mission’ [mexicomission@hughes.net]”: “We don’t know where she will be going or what just that she is coming. I can send you the story from the internet tomorrow ifyou want it. Love you, Mim”.
From “‘Sierra Madre Mission’ [mexicomission@hughes.net]” to “‘Alvin & Edna Miller’ [millersofwaslala@gmail.com]”: “… Yes, do! Thanks, Leona”.
From “‘Alvin & Edna Miller’ [millersofwaslala@gmail.com]” to “‘Adonay and Leona’ [mexicomission@hughes.net]” “contains what appears to be a copy of the text from an article. The text ofthe e-mail includes, ‘Lisa’s age is 40 Isabella’s age is 6 (she turns 7 in April 2009). They reside in Bedford County, Va., but formerly resided in Frederick County, Va …. Lisa was joined in a civil union with Janet Jenkins (both women were Virginia residents) in December 2000 in Vermont during a briefvacation trip (civil unions had become legal in Vermont in July 2000) …. She became pregnant and gave birth to Isabella in April2002. Janet Jenkins did not adopt the child …. Lisa filed to dissolve the civil union in 2003, and moved with Isabella, who was then 17 months old, to the Winchester area ofVirginia. She renounced her former lesbian life. Lisa returned to her Christian faith in 2003. She and Isabella attend Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va …. Lisa is represented in her child custody/visitation legal dispute with Janet Jenkins by Liberty Counsel, with offices in Florida and Virginia. Their Web site is http://www .lc.org.’”
Furthermore, records subpoenaed from TACA Airlines regarding Miller and Isbaella’s one-way plane tickets (with a contact email of timjomiller@gmail.com) “provided the following verbatim customer service notes including that, ‘… Timo Miller called from Nicaragua: They have to leave Can. tomorrow and … Cant go thro U.S ….’” and “itinerary was approved by Timothy … cardholder is Elaine R Cooper …”. Elaine R. Cooper “is the adoptive mother of Joanna Miller” — Timo Miller’s wife.
The tickets were purchased through Golden Rule Travel, whose website states: “We specialize in international adoption, humanitarian, and missionary travel. We have the years of experience, the technology, the contacts, the contracts, and the dedication to customer service to give you the least expensive, most hassle-free travel possible. A brief overview of what goes into optimizing your travel experience… Our Christian travel agents will be honest with you … Most of our advertising comes by way of recommendations from satisfied clients. Large missionary and humanitarian organizations; churches; evangelism ministries; NGOs; adoption agencies, forums, and blogs; and adoptive parents highly recommend Golden Rule as the best choice for value and service.”
Jenkins … doesn’t believe that her ex-partner has rediscovered the faith, or that she’s a reformed homosexual. She feels that Miller is using the church to help her case, and to get back at Jenkins for “whatever she’s still mad about.” The toll of the struggle is obvious when Jenkins talks about the countless court dates, and the charges by Miller and her legal team that she is somehow using Isabella as a homosexual advocate trophy. “That couldn’t be further from the truth,” says Jenkins, blowing a few short, wispy hairs off her forehead. “I would rather not see my name out there and not see my child exposed to any of this. I just want time with my kid. She is the love of my life, and I’m involved in this because I won’t abandon her.” …
“Isabella has done nothing to deserve this,” says Jenkins. “If she was 12 years old and said, ‘You’re a homosexual and I don’t want you in my life,’ I would let it go. I would say I will always be there for you when you need me. But today, it’s not Lisa’s choice to make for a little 6-year-old.” …
The molestation charges, says Jenkins, are ridiculous. Her time with Isabella has not revealed any deep disturbances, just a few uncomfortable questions about a judge’s ruling or where she’ll spend the next holiday. Otherwise, she says, Isabella acts like any other kid her age, whether they’re attending a pumpkin patch fair near her grandparents’ home in Virginia or simply checking out books at the local library. “She doesn’t look at me and go screaming the other way,” says Jenkins, laughing. “She hugs me, calls me Mommy, and we have fun.”
— Lorraine Ali
“The Strange, Sad Case of
Miller-Jenkins v. Miller-Jenkins”
Daily Beast, December 30, 2009 9:16AM
(“A printout of the ‘Contact Us’ page” on the Golden Rule Travel site, writes Agent Kaegel, “lists ‘Linda Rose Miller’ as an Agent of the Hutchinson, Kansas Office,” but a “biological relationship between Linda Rose Miller and Lisa Miller has not been established.”)
Agent Kaegel reminds us that Lisa Miller is using the name “Sarah,” and Isabella is being called “Lydia,” before turning to a December 13, 2009, email from timjomiller@gmail.com to “‘Carl & June’ [cajun@cogui.net]”: “… Sarah has worked for some time with counciling, mentoring, she’s kept young people and children in her home who were with some real trama related problems, mental problems, schizophrenic, {as sher mother was} … She has taught from kindergarden to highschool and special edd for more then 20 years ….”
A March 1, 2010, email from timjomiller@gmail.com to cajun@cogui.net account read: “… Another big thing right now is CAM higher ups say she may not even go to CAM any more for the protection of the organization. That’s pretty sick. The isolation is driving her and little Lydia crazy …. Please keep this e-mail to yourselves about Sarah and CAM ….”
Noting Isabella’s birthdate is April 16, 2002, Agent Kaegel cites another email, dated March 25, 2010, from timjomiller@gmail.com to “‘Alvin and Edna Miller’ [millersofwaslala@gmail.com]”: “Mother Dear, … We were planning to have a special birthday party for Lydia as her birthday is the 16th …. The more children the better. Sarah every year has gotten a pinata for Lydia, so she has been planning on that … I feel dearly for these 2 dear people. And I can see it would mean a lot to them in this rough first year of there stay in Nica. I would love for Lydia’s birthday to be very special and remembered long. She is going through a lot, and her future looms greatly in front ofher right now ….”
On April 12, 2010, an email was sent from timjomiller@gmail.com to “‘Pablo Yoder’ [pabloeuni@gmail.com]” and “‘Alvin and Edna Miller’ [millersofwaslala@gmail.com]”: “… We are not sure yet if we will be coming into Waslala Thurs. evening or Friday mom. but we think the BD get together would be best Friday evening because I will need to make the cake and such…. We were thinking maybe just getting together for cake and ice cream and pinata and maybe singing. Lydia LOVES to sing …. PS … She is grateful for this for her daughters sake …”.
According to the New York Times, Lisa MIller and Isabella were indeed “met at the Managua airport” by Timo Miller, “who drove them straight to the interior town of Jinotega, in the coffee-growing hills of northern Nicaragua, he said in an interview, where they lived for two months on a farm.”
After living for a while near Timo Miller’s Mennonite mission, “personal relations” between Timo Miller and Lisa Miller, “who tends to see things ‘in black and white,’ Timo Miller said, were getting strained,” reports the Times. Lisa Miller moved Isabella again, this time to a $150-a-month, one-bedroom rental.
On April 18, 2011, Timo Miller and his family flew into the U.S. for a wedding, and Timo Miller was promptly arrested at Dulles Airport. Lisa Miller and Isabella, reports the Times, “quickly disappeared from their house in Jinotega, and there have been no reported sightings since, but federal agents believe the pair remain in Nicaragua.”
But in late 2011, U.S. Attorney Tristram J. Coffin suddenly announced that the charges against Timothy Miller were being dropped. On his website (see this page for his endless condemnation of homosexuality as “abnormal” and “immoral,” and ridiculous claims that Isabella is in “imminent danger” from “a very strong homosexual lobby”), Timo Miller claimed ignorance of the reason the charges against him were dropped.
However, U.S. Attorney Coffin’s announcement, while lacking in specifics, is quite clear:
“In light of Timothy Miller’s role in the international parental [kidnapping], and his agreement to cooperate with the investigation of the United States government, including an agreement to return to the United States and to provide truthful testimony as requested in any proceedings in this matter, further prosecution is not in the interests of the United States at this time.”
The New York Times states it more plainly: “In December 2011, federal prosecutors dropped the charges against Timo Miller in return for his testimony and filed charges against Kenneth Miller for what they allege was his more central role in the flight from the United States.”
Kenneth L. Miller (no relation to either Lisa Miller or Timothy Miller) is the 46-year-old pastor of the Pilgrim Church in Stuarts Draft, Virginia. And, as far as the FBI is concerned at the moment, he orchestrated Lisa Miller’s flight from the law. Upon his arrest in December, 2011, the FBI announced:
“The Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Vermont stated that Kenneth L. Miller, 46, of Stuarts Draft, Virginia, surrendered today to face charges stemming from his role in the international parental kidnapping by Lisa Miller of a child who has been the subject of a dispute of parental rights in Rutland, Vermont family court since 2004.
“According to the complaint unsealed today, Kenneth L. Miller contacted associates in Nicaragua and Canada to request their support for Lisa Miller as she fled the United States with the daughter she shared with her civil union partner in 2009.
“The complaint alleges that at Kenneth Miller’s direction, the individuals purchased plane tickets for Lisa Miller and her child to fly from Canada to Nicaragua, and transported Miller and her child from a hotel in Canada to the airport for her flights. The complaint further indicates that Kenneth Miller maintained contact with two cellular telephones that appeared to travel from Virginia to Canada in advance of Lisa Miller’s departure from Canada. A grand jury has previously returned an indictment charging Lisa Miller with international parental kidnapping.
“The United States Attorney emphasizes that the charges contained in the complaint are merely accusations and that the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until he is proven guilty.
“If he is convicted, Kenneth Miller faces a maximum possible sentence of up to three years in prison; however, the actual sentence in the event of a conviction will be determined in accordance with the federal sentencing guidelines and the sentencing factors of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). Mr. Miller is represented by Dennis Boyle of Boyle, Autry, and Murphy, Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, and local counsel Brooks G. McArthur of Jarvis, McArthur and Williams.
“The United States Attorney commended the U.S. Marshals Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for their hard work on this matter.”
And now, this week, Kenneth L. Miller’s trial, which is expected to last six days, has begun in Burlington, Vermont.
“How Kenneth Miller met Lisa Miller and who drove the pair to the Canadian border so they could fly from Toronto remain mysteries,” notes the New York Times, but it is accepted that “Mr. Miller contacted a fellow pastor in Nicaragua” — who we assume was Timo Miller — “to ask if he would buy one-way airplane tickets for Ms. Miller and her daughter, meet them at the Managua airport and arrange a place to stay, according to recovered e-mails, telephone records and the deposition of the missionary in Nicaragua. …
“Mr. Miller has not disputed the extensive evidence of his role in arranging the flight to Nicaragua, but in preliminary motions, his lawyers have argued that Mr. Miller did not knowingly commit a crime. They note that Ms. Miller was still free to make a flight at the time and that a warrant for her arrest was not issued until months later.
“But the Vermont judge had already mandated a visit with Ms. Jenkins for late September 2009 — just after the international flight —and had made his ultimate intention to transfer custody if Ms. Miller continued to defy orders quite clear. From evidence in the indictment, it appears that prosecutors will describe a pattern of deliberate deception on Mr. Miller’s part, suggesting he knew that Ms. Miller was violating the law.”
We figure: If the feds dropped charges against Timo Miller after all that potentially damning evidence against him, the case against Kenneth Miller must be absolutely unimpeachable.
Meanwhile, down in Nicaragua, some of Timo Miller’s Mennonite flock have also claimed ignorance of the law, and expressed surprise at how serious the charges really are.
That’s not surprising, as Anabaptists are generally loath to get mixed up with secular society, or, heaven forbid, find themselves in legal trouble. They generally keep to themselves — which, again, is the reason we don’t pay much attention to them.
But ignorantia legis neminem excusat — and now that they’ve decided to trump man’s law with their idea of “God’s law” — and force their beliefs on others — we’re going to pay plenty of attention to them.
The New York Times also notes that some of the Niacargua-based Mennonites “are afraid to return to American soil.”
That would suit us just fine… as long as Isabella is returned to her legal mother, Janet Jenkins.
More reading:
• Lisa Miller-Jenkins v. Janet Miller-Jenkins, Vermont Supreme Court, August 4, 2006
• “A Vermont Mother’s Heartbreaking Search Continues,” Lee Swislow, GLAD, January 28, 2010
• “Ex-Gay Fugitive’s Friend Compares Herself to Harriet Tubman,” Evan Hurst, Truth Wins Out, March 8, 2010
• “Liberty Counsel Would Rather Give a Child To A Kidnapper Than a Gay Parent,” Evan Hurst, Truth Wins Out, June 24, 2010
• “Initial Appearance Held on Aiding and Abetting International Parental Kidnapping,” FBI, April 25, 2011
• “Law School Asks Students To Choose ‘God’s Law’ Over Man’s Law,” Islamophobia Today, May 17, 2011 (“Just imagine if a Muslim school taught this in the United States. …”)
• “Missionary wants parental-kidnap trial moved,” Lisa Rathke, AP, September 13, 2011
• “The Tragedy of the Isabella Miller-Jenkins Abduction,” Evan Hurst, Truth Wins Out, July 30, 2012
• “Minister on trial in international ex-lesbian child kidnap case,” Miranda Leitsinger, NBC News, August 7, 2012
* …a.k.a. Anabaptists — in a nutshell, an offshoot Amish sect that uses electricity, cars and cell phones, but prohibits television and the Internet — but don’t ask us why they have websites.
** Ditto Jehovah’s Witnesses, who don’t even vote… for which we are truly grateful.
*** This Rena Lindevaldsen is a real piece of work, all right. A January 27, 2011, blog post attributed to her reads in part:
… I’ve been heartbroken over the efforts to destroy God’s design for family.
That’s a coincidence — we’re heartbroken over the efforts to destroy all families that do not fit into the tight, tunnel-visioned definition of families as Christian, opposite-genital pairings with 2.5 biological offspring.
I’ve been in the courtroom when attorneys argued that marriage as the union of one man and one woman is based on old-fashioned (heterosexist) beliefs that women should be barefoot and pregnant in the home.
Yes, that’s pretty much what that archaic, heterosexist belief is based on.
I’ve read court documents where Lisa’s former partner suggested that Lisa was unfit during the course of the litigation because Lisa believed God had a plan and a purpose for Isabella’s life.
By all accounts, if Lisa Miller is unfit as a parent, there are many other potential reasons to choose from (such as violating federal law, for starters). And we sincerely doubt opposing council’s case rested on: “Lisa Miller is an unfit mother because Lisa believed God had a plan and a purpose for Isabella’s life.”
I read the transcript where Lisa’s former partner said that she considered it hateful and bigoted to teach that homosexuality is sinful.
It is hateful and bigoted, especially when one uses such drivel to teach one’s daughter that her other parent is a hellbound sinner (especially while running halfway across the world with the kid).
And I was forced to respond to a motion filed by opposing counsel in Lisa’s case who argued that my quoting the Declaration of Independence in a court document made me unfit to practice law before the court. You see, according to her attorneys, I showed disrespect for the court’s authority when I reminded the court that according to the Declaration of Independence, courts have an obligation to protect a person’s fundamental rights (not strip them of their rights) and that people have an obligation to overthrow government that becomes abusive of our fundamental rights.
Back that truck up. You “reminded the court” that “people have an obligation to overthrow government that becomes abusive of our fundamental rights,” and you wonder why anybody might think you’re unfit to practice law? Lady, if you said what you said you said, it sounds (to our untrained, unqualified, but still wide-open ears) like you got off easy with a motion from opposing counsel, instead of getting thrown in the pokey for what could easily be perceived as a threat of violent revolution against the United States of America.
As far as the courts having “an obligation to protect a person’s fundamental rights (not strip them of their rights),” that’s hilarious, coming from somebody who works for a group whose sole purpose is little more than stripping people of their fundamental rights, especially the right to marry.
…I believe too few Christians truly understand what’s at stake if we don’t fight to preserve God’s design for marriage and family.
Whose God? What design? Yours, or, say, the Mormons’? The Mormons expect their men to become demigod rulers of their own planets, and their wives to pop out spirit babies for eternity, with each spirit baby inhabiting a new body on Planet Earth, until there is no longer a Planet Earth. You mean that God, and that design?
Significantly, when courts believe that they have authority to declare what by nature is impossible (that a child has two moms or two dads or two moms and a dad)
In 1991 Sally Fields [sic] starred in Not Without My Daughter, the story of a woman whose Muslim husband fled with their daughter to a Iran in order to have sole custody and control over the child. He believed that he should have sole decision making authority and his religion taught him that he wasn’t subject to the American judicial system.
Rena Lindevaldsen has now stood that story on it’s head. No longer the sole territory of Islamist states and radical Muslim extremists, Christians are now justifying kidnapping in the name of their faith. …
And now Rena has penned her version of the story. Written from the perspective of the fugitive, Lindevaldsen justifies parental kidnapping and flouting the American judicial system. Because, as Rena teachers her laws students, Christians are subject to God’s laws and not Man’s laws.
This book should be seen as a warning. In the United States we tell ourselves that we believe in freedom, that we respect differing faiths, that religion does not dictate to those who don’t believe their doctrines. But there is a growing movement — one that mirrors the Islamists in the Middle East — of people who believe that their religious faith entitles them to ‘dominion’ over non-believers, over the government, over society, and over you. …
— Timothy Kincaid
“A book review: Only One Mommy”
Box Turtle Bulletin, August 18, 2011
If the reader is looking for insight into the heartrending emotions surrounding the unraveling of Lisa and Janet’s relationship and the effects on their young child, don’t bother to read Only One Mommy. Despite traveling 600 miles to enter into a civil union, despite the decision to have and rear a child together, and despite giving the child both their last names, Lindevaldsen maintains that Lisa was only superficially committed to a relationship that she did not fully understand.If the reader is looking for a dispassionate discussion of the intricate legal issues that arise when couples enter into same-sex unions in a state that recognizes them but then move to state that bans them, don’t bother on that front. There is only a cursory, one-sided view of the legal proceedings.
On the other hand, if the reader is looking for a simplistic, lockstep regurgitation of the sham doctrine that all gay men and lesbians are evil and sick but can be rescued by religion, this book is just the ticket. …
A central theme of the book is that the legal system has failed Lisa, but Lindevaldsen talks out of both sides of her mouth, and neither one is convincing. She excoriates “activist judges” for making laws from the bench that benefit gay men and lesbians, while averring that judges “are not bound to follow laws that violate the higher law — God’s law.” In other words, judges should be strict constructionists unless God directs them not to be. …
— Kent Willis
“Read This Review, Not the Book”
ACLU of Virginia, September 1, 2011
Never heard of parthenogenesis, have you, girl?
Seriously, Miss Rena, would you then agree that a man who had his tender bits blown off in an accident and could no longer sire offspring have his parental rights revoked to any future children his wife may have down the line via IVF?
We think you need to re-read the Vermont decision, specifically:
“Lisa contends that because the legislature used the word ‘natural’…it must have intended the presumption of parentage to apply only to a person who is biologically connected to the child. She argues, therefore, that because she is IMJ’s biological mother, and Janet is not, Janet cannot be a parent of IMJ. If Janet is not IMJ’s parent, Lisa continues, then the family court erred in awarding Janet visitation.
“The Vermont court responded to Lisa’s argument by holding that, because Lisa gave birth through artificial insemination, the presumption of parentage… applied to Janet, just as it would have applied to Lisa’s husband if she had had one at the time of the birth. …
“There is also a longer answer to Lisa’s argument that biology must control the parentage issue. We find that Janet has status as a parent, even beyond her stepparent status… If we were to accept Lisa’s opposing position and conclude biology controlled, a child born from artificial insemination would have no second parent-whether that status is sought by a man married to the child’s mother or by a woman or man in a civil union with the child’s biological parent-unless the putative second parent adopted the child. In fact, the logical extension of Lisa’s position that a biological connection is necessary for parentage is that the husband of a wife who bears an artificially inseminated child cannot be the father of that child, just like a civil union spouse cannot be a parent to the child. Such a holding would cause tremendous disruption and uncertainty to some existing families who have conceived via artificial insemination or other means of reproductive technology, and we must tread carefully so that we incur such a consequence only if necessary. As a result, we reach the broader and longer answer to Lisa’s argument and conclude that such a holding would be wrong.”
You also need to review the Parental Kidnapping Protection Act (PKPA), “which was designed for the very purpose of eliminating jurisdictional battles between states with conflicting jurisdictional provisions in child custody disputes.” If you don’t like the way the law works in Vermont — where
in the name of what a judge thinks is in the child’s best interests,
That’s all it’s about: what’s in the child’s best interests. And any rational person should be able to see that placing a child in a stable home with a loving mother is far more suitable than allowing a depressed, suicidal, self-loathing bigot to kidnap the kid and keep her “bouncing around the barrios” of some war-torn, poverty-stricken, crime-ridden South American country frought with malaria, dengue fever and Hep-A, where democracy is just a bad joke.
then courts will exercise that same illegitimate authority
U.S. courts are an “illegitimate authority”?! And you don’t understand how you “showed disrespect for the court’s authority” when you pulled your little Declaration of Independence stunt?
to tell you that you can’t pray with your child,
When or where has a court in the United States ever told a parent “you can’t pray with your child”?
can’t homeschool your child,
You can homeschool your child anywhere you want in this country. What most fundy homeschoolers don’t like is that the homeschooler and the curriculum must meet certain basic state education standards.
must vaccinate your child against sexually transmitted diseases at the age of 10,
Where, exactly, is this the law? In any case, if you want to increase the odds your daughter will get cervical cancer, then, by all means, don’t even consider Gardisil. (Tell us, are you an antivaxer, too?)
and have no right to opt your child out of school curriculum that tells children that it is safe and normal to engage in early sexual conduct (same-sex and opposite-sex). …
Uh, it is “normal to engage in early sexual conduct.” Whether or not it’s safe depends on how much information (correct information) a young person receives in order to make well-informed decisions when he or she becomes sexually active (and if you think “abstinence-only” “education” — keeping kids stupid and telling them “Don’t do it” — works, you’re tragically mistaken).
And, anyway, in what state are you prevented from pulling your kid out of sex ed? (On the other hand, if you want to keep your kids ignorant, then Bible-based homeschooling is the answer.) But, really, we have to wonder why any parent wouldn’t want a child armed with facts.
There are many ways to get involved in this battle (and it truly is a spiritual and physical battle),
A “physical battle”? Please tell us you’re not talking about overthrowing the government again.
starting with sincere prayer for the hearts and souls of those struggling with same-sex attractions.
The only people “struggling” with homosexuality are anti-gay straights, and self-loathing gays brainwashed by anti-gay straights — and by self-loathing gays pretending to be straight. But you wouldn’t know anything about that… would you, Rena?
You also can get involved with organizations that seek to get the truth out about the fact that people aren’t born “gay” and can choose to resist their same-sex attractions.
Now, really, Miss Lindevaldsen, how do you expect anyone to take you seriously when you spout this nonsense?
Of course, we’re willing to play along — as soon as you admit that “people aren’t born ‘straight’ and can choose to resist their opposite-sex attractions.” If you can choose to be gay, you can choose to be straight — right, Rena?
Of course, we realize that you think men “turn” gay because of “two key factors … (i) the lack of a strong father-son bond, and (ii) same-sex abuse as a child,” while women “turn” because of “(i) the lack of a healthy relationship between mom and dad and (ii) sexual abuse (primarily opposite-sex) as a child” — and to Katy Perry singing “I Kissed a Girl.”
(If we were the praying sort, we’d be praying right now for the strength to resist 1) asking you when you decided to become “straight,” and 2) mentioning how every single photo of you we’ve ever seen just screams “Closet case!” and sends our finely-tuned gaydar into the red. That’s what we’d pray for right now, if we were the praying sort. Which is too bad, because, if you weren’t so uptight and off da hook, you’d be pretty cute, like a cross between Laura Innes and Jane Lynch, albeit in desperate need of a big, gay makeover.)
As for the rest of the blog, it’s a neverending echo chamber of anti-gay talking points you’ve heard a million times before.
Yes, that Rena Lindevaldsen is quite a piece of work.
If you really want to know what Miss Lindevaldsen is all about, Right Wing Watch and Box Turtle Bulletin are among many sites that have been following her increasingly unbelievable antics for a long time.
Also worth reading:
• “Lawsuit Taking Aim at New York Marriage Equality ‘Is Without Merit,’ Cuomo Spokesman Says,” Chris Geidner, Metro Weekly, July 25, 2011
• “Rena Lindevaldsen: Child Sexual Abuse, Satan Leads To Lesbianism,” Bridgette P. LaVictoire, LezGetReal, November 22, 2011
Repost This Article
Related posts (automatically generated):
- Tom Gene Daniels: Anti-Gay Baptist Pastor & Accused Child Molester Connected to Sadistic Child “Therapy”
- In the Running for Hypocrite of the Year: Tom Daniels, Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church of Rio Linda, California, Anti-Gay Donor & Accused Child Molester
- Jesse Ruhl: Proposition 8-Pushing Church Associate Pastor Charged With Child Molestation (Plus: Hyles-Anderson Pastor-Daddy Dogged By Sex-Abuse Lawsuit)
- Cedric Miller: Evangelical Hypocrite of the Year
- C.L. Jackson: Black Republican, Baptist Pastor, Glenn Beck & Rick Perry Stooge, Accused of Stiffing Accountants
