[Vision2020] Sect Pastor Is Convicted of Assisting in Abduction

[Scott Dredge]

Dale Courtney's buddy Bryan Fischer is now urging this un-pastor to flee the country to avoid incarceration because after all 'he was just obeying God’s law'.

It seems to me at this point the blithering idiots like Bryan Fischer, Fred Phelps, and the rest of their ilk are actually assisting the gay rights movement because even socially conservative folks don't want to be lumped in with insane lunatics.

-Scott

Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2012 11:46:41 -0700
From: art.deco.studios at gmail.com
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] Sect Pastor Is Convicted of Assisting in Abduction




   
   


   
   





   


August 14, 2012

Sect Pastor Is Convicted of Assisting in Abduction

By 

ERIK ECKHOLM

 


 

    
After only four hours of deliberation, a federal jury in Burlington, 
Vt., found an Amish-Mennonite pastor guilty of abetting international 
parental kidnapping in a widely publicized case involving a same-sex 
union and religious opponents of homosexuality.        

The pastor, Kenneth L. Miller of Stuarts Draft, Va., could face up to 
three years in prison. He was convicted of helping Lisa A. Miller flee 
to Nicaragua with her daughter, Isabella Miller-Jenkins, in 2009 to 
evade court-ordered visits with Ms. Miller’s former partner in a civil 
union in Vermont.        

After the verdict, more than 100 of Mr. Miller’s supporters from the 
Beachy Amish-Mennonite sect, the women in traditional long dresses and 
head scarves, men with trimmed beards, gathered outside the courthouse 
to sing “Amazing Grace” and other hymns.        

Mr. Miller, 46, joined the group and said, “We are of course 
disappointed, but with the grace of God and by his help, we will bear 
the consequences.”        

After splitting up with her former partner, Janet Jenkins, in 2003, Ms. 
Miller, who is not related to Mr. Miller, moved to Virginia, declared 
herself a born-again Christian, tried in court to strip Ms. Jenkins of 
her parental rights and interfered with mandated visits. In 2009, as a 
frustrated Family Court judge in Vermont threatened to transfer custody 
of the girl, Ms. Miller disappeared with her daughter.        

The Beachy Amish-Mennonites regard homosexual behavior as a sin.        

In the trial, Mr. Miller’s lawyer, Joshua M. Autry, did not dispute the 
evidence that Mr. Miller had helped arrange for Ms. Miller and her 
daughter to fly from Canada to Nicaragua and obtain shelter from 
missionaries. But Mr. Miller, his lawyer argued, did not realize that 
Ms. Miller was defying any court orders at the time.        

The prosecutors cited evidence that Mr. Miller tried to hide what Ms. 
Miller was doing, including by specifying that the flights should not 
touch down on American soil and giving the pair Mennonite garb to wear 
as a disguise. His case was also undermined by the reluctant testimony 
of a fellow pastor in Canada, who said he had refused to transport Ms. 
Miller and Isabella across the United States-Canada border because he 
feared they were breaking the law.        

“The evidence shows the defendant helped Lisa Miller because he believed
 in her cause,” Paul Van de Graaf, an assistant United States attorney, 
told the jury.        

Mr. Miller had to give up his passport but remains free for now. Mr. 
Autry said the defense might appeal, arguing that the trial should have 
been held in Virginia, where Mr. Miller’s actions took place.        

The prosecutors presented evidence that others had worked with Mr. 
Miller to help Ms. Miller flee. Chief among those alleged to have taken 
part was a businessman in Virginia, Philip Zodhiates. Telephone records 
suggest that Mr. Zodhiates was in touch with Ms. Miller for months and 
drove her and her daughter to the Canadian border for their escape.     
   

Mr. Zodhiates has not been indicted, and declined to comment.        

Telephone records also indicated that as he drove home from the border, 
Mr. Zodhiates tried to call a cellphone number registered to Liberty 
Counsel, an evangelical legal group.        

That cellphone number has sometimes been used by Mathew D. Staver, the 
founder of Liberty Counsel, dean of the Liberty University Law School in
 Lynchburg, Va., and a leader of Ms. Miller’s defense team.        

In an e-mail Tuesday, Mr. Staver said that the phone number in question 
had been widely circulated as a contact number for Liberty Counsel’s 
public relations office and that he had no knowledge of Ms. Miller’s 
flight and had never discussed her case with Mr. Zodhiates.        

Federal agents believe that Ms. Miller and Isabella, now 10,  are still hiding in Nicaragua.        


	
Jason McLure contributed reporting from Burlington, Vt.	


	















			
		
		
		
	
		
        
        
        
   








    
-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com






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