"Investigations Are Ongoing", California Catholic Daily, August 3, 2007

"Investigations Are Ongoing"
Ex-Priest Arrested on Charges of Molesting Youngster

California Catholic Daily
August 3, 2007

http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=ee5cb47c-c0a1-430e-a969-726ba63bc834

California — "Based on new evidence," defrocked priest George Miller was arrested on July 24 for allegedly molesting a boy between 1988 and 1991, said a spokeswoman for Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley. Police took Miller into custody at his home in Oxnard. He is being held on $600,000 bail.

"As promised, investigations are ongoing into alleged sexual abuse of minors by priests," said Cooley, according to the July 25 Los Angeles Times. "As evidence is developed to sustain criminal filings, we will do so."

Following the archdiocese's $660 million settlement with clergy sexual abuse victims, Cooley said his office has done all it could under California law to investigate molestation cases. Investigations will continue, said Cooley, depending on what he can obtain from priests' confidential personnel files.

George Miller is not a new name in the Church's molestation crisis. In 2002 Miller faced criminal charges of molesting two boys in the 1970s and '80s, but the case was dismissed when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a California law removing the statute of limitations in criminal cases involving sexual molestation. Four alleged Miller victims, however, were among the over 500 who recently settled their claims with the Los Angeles archdiocese.

In the most recent case against him, prosecutors say Miller met the 5-year-old boy at Guardian Angel parish in Pacoima, where Miller was administrator and then pastor from 1977-84. Miller, prosecutors charge, molested the boy before he was 14 on several overnight trips.

Miller's personnel files were among those Cardinal Mahony fought to withhold from the Los Angeles County Grand Jury. Mahony was finally forced to surrender the files when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal last year.

Archdiocesan spokesman Tod Tamberg told the Times that the archdiocese had received complaints about Miller in 1977 and 1989; both times Miller had denied the accusations made against him.

According to the archdiocese's "Addendum to the Report to the People of God," in 1977, a mother complained that Miller had molested her son during a fishing trip. The "Addendum" indicates that Miller was sent to a therapist, that the mother and son "had met with Fr. Miller and the therapist," and that the archdiocese "had discussed the matter with the therapist."

Miller, however, remained in ministry. In 1989 (Mahony was then archbishop), a Santa Clara pastor reported "boundary violations" against Miller, according to the "Addendum." He was placed on inactive leave after an adult male claimed Miller had molested him and his brother at the Pacoima parish and that a female cousin had seen Miller with a minor at a family beach house. Miller was placed in a residential treatment program (which sent reports about him to the archdiocese) and retired from ministry in 1998. In 2005, at Mahony's request, the pope laicized Miller.

The "Addendum" indicates the archdiocese did not report Miller to the police until 2002 when a man called the archdiocese's sexual abuse assistance ministry claiming abuse by Miller when he was in Pacoima.