Catholic Priest Pleads Guilty to Molestations

By Patricia Leboeuf
EMC News
June 13, 2013

http://www.emcwestcarleton.ca/20130613/news/Catholic+priest+pleads+guilty+to+molestations

An Arnprior Catholic priest has pleaded guilty to five counts of sexually molesting young boys in incidents that occurred about 40 years ago.

Father Daniel Miller made the plea during a court appearance in Pembroke on June 3. The retired priest was accompanied by Msgr. Douglas Bridge of the Pembroke Diocese.

The victims, who ranged from 9 to 13 years old, were from the Arnprior, Deep River and Eganville areas.

Court heard that Miller treated the boys with outings to the movies and the Renfrew Fair, bought them gifts such as clothing and treated them to meals at restaurants and fast food outlets.

Most of the indecent incidents, which occurred between 1969 and 1978, happened in Miller's mother's home in Renfrew during overnight stays.

After being confronted in the late 1990s by a mother whose son told her about the abuse after he had become an adult, Miller wrote a letter of apology and was reassigned duties, the court was told.

A police investigation was begun some 10 years later and Miller was charged in February 2012 with gross indecency and indecent assault. He originally faced 12 charges in relation to six victims.

One June 3, he pleaded guilty to five counts of indecent assault against five victims, who are now in their late forties and early fifties. In statement of facts, the court was told details of the abuse and how the victims were traumatized by the incidents.

The victims' names are protected by a publication ban.

Father Miller worked out of the Saint John Chrysostom Church in Arnprior from 1976 to the late 1990s, but has been residing recently in the Pembroke area. As well as serving in Arnprior, he had duties at Catholic churches in Eganville and Deep River.

Miller's sentencing hearing will be held at the Pembroke Courthouse on Sept. 17 and is open to the public. He remains free until the hearing.