CHARLOTTE (NC)
Charlotte Observer
KYTJA WEIR AND KEN GARFIELD
Staff Writers
A former Myers Park Presbyterian Church youth volunteer was sentenced Monday to spend more than 11 years in prison on child pornography charges and the rest of his life under supervision.
Russell Earl Miller also was ordered to pay a total of $17,500 to two girls whose pictures and names were sent over the Web.
Monday's hearing in the federal courthouse in uptown Charlotte marked the final stage of a more than yearlong waiting game for both his family and those of the two girls who will receive the money for therapy.
U.S. District Judge Robert Conrad spoke of the eloquent letters he received from the destroyed families.
On one side, he heard about a religious man who volunteered his time for senior citizens, not just children.
On the other, he heard from a father who said his daughter was taken away. And a mother who worries whenever she walks with her daughter in a mall that someone might recognize the girl from the Internet images.