Federal authorities in Vermont arrested a Tennesse-based pastor and charged him with assisting in international kidnapping of a girl at the center of a custody dispute that has been missing for two years.
The custody case, between a lesbian couple that married and lived in Vermont. The girl's biological mother sought divorce and joined a conservative Christian church. The mother ultimately lost custody for failure to grant court ordered visitation rights. When her custody was revoked, the mother fled to a beach house in Nicaragua owned by a prominent Conservative Christian.
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In a warrant unsealed Thursday, Pastor Timothy David Miller of Crossville, Tenn. assisted the mother, Lisa Miller - no relation according to the FBI - buy plane tickets to Nicaragua for herself and the child, Isabella.
According to the FBI, in Sept. 2009 Pastor Miller, using the cover of his position with Christian Ministries, arranged for Ms. Miller and Isabella to fly from Canada to Mexico and onto Nicaragua.
Ms. Miller and Isabella stayed in a beach house in Nicaragua that is owned by a conservative businessman with close ties to Liberty University, an evangelical school in Lynchburg, Va., and whose daughter works at the university’s law school, according to the affidavit.
Lawyers from Liberty, including the dean of the law school, Mathew D. Staver, represented Ms. Miller in court appeals on the custody issues. They argued without success that Ms. Jenkins had no parental rights and that laws in Virginia, which ban same-sex unions, should prevail over those in Vermont.
On Friday, Mr. Staver said the legal team has had no contact with Ms. Miller since the fall of 2009 and had always advised her to obey the law. He said he knew nothing about the accusations involving a law school office assistant, Victoria Hyden, and her father Philip Zodhiates, the beach house’s owner.
In turns out that Zohiates runs something called Response Unlimited, which is a Christian direct mail company. He declined to talk to a NY Times reporter except to call the allegation "absurd."
A little background on the case, courtesy Erik Eckholm:
Ms. Miller and Ms. Jenkins were joined in a civil union in Vermont in 2000 and planned to raise a child together. Isabella was conceived by artificial insemination and born to Ms. Miller in 2002, with Ms. Jenkins present at the birth. But the parents’ relations soured over the following year. Ms. Miller moved with Isabella to Virginia, became deeply involved with a Baptist church and renounced homosexuality. A Vermont court dissolved the civil union but treated Ms. Jenkins as a full parent with visitation rights.
Over time, Ms. Miller began refusing to allow the required visits, among other things objecting that Ms. Jenkins’s “homosexual lifestyle” would offend Isabella’s religious beliefs. At one point, a court in Virginia, which does not recognize same-sex unions, agreed with Ms. Miller’s claim to be the sole legal parent, but the Virginia Supreme Court eventually confirmed that the Vermont rulings should prevail.
So even conservative Virginia, run by Ol Helmet Head and his hackish AG, the Cooch, had courts which ruled that even though gay sodom aka Vermont permits gay marriage, the custody ruling is valid and Virginia must recognize the marriages of other states.
The case was cold for two years until an anonymous tipster came forward:
Last June, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation affidavit, an unnamed person called one of Ms. Jenkins’s lawyers, Sarah Star, and told Ms. Star that the mother and daughter were hiding in Mr. Zodhiates’s Nicaraguan house. Much of the evidence in support of the criminal charges and other accusations, the affidavit said, was obtained through court-approved, covert searches of e-mail accounts, uncovering messages from Mr. Miller that appear to arrange the mother and daughter’s 2009 flight to Nicaragua and from Mr. Zodhiates arranging to send them supplies.
Jenkins still has not regained custody of Isabella, and that may still take years, issued a statement through Gay and Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, a Boston based civil rights group that took up her case.
“I know very little at this point, but I really hope that this means that Isabella is safe and well,” it said. “I am looking forward to having my daughter home safe with me very soon.”
I wonder what the Bible says about kidnapping:
According to the April 1 affidavit by FBI Special Agent Dana Kaegel:
• Using search warrants that gave them access to email and Facebook accounts, authorities found their way to Timothy Miller, who is described as pastor of an Amish-Mennonite church in Managua, Nicaragua, and associate of Christian Aid Ministries, which is based in Berlin, Ohio.
• On Sept. 22, 2009, Lisa Miller and the girl flew from Toronto to Mexico City and then on to El Salvador. A day later, they flew to Managua.
• In customer service notes obtained from TACA Airlines and dated the day before, someone wrote that Timothy Miller called from Nicaragua and said Lisa Miller and the girl had to leave Canada the following day and couldn’t be routed through the United States. According to the airline, “Timothy” approved the itinerary.
Miller attempted coded e-mails to conceal his doings, the FBI said.
Investigators believe that references to “Sarah” and “Lydia” in emails sent from Timothy Miller’s account are code names for Lisa Miller and her daughter. In an email dated March 25, 2010, a birthday party for the girl is discussed, with the writer saying: “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 of her right now.”
• Emails make reference to Lisa Miller. One written by Timothy Miller said: “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.”
Miss Miller has been represented by lawyers from the Falwell, er Liberty University, who took up her case as some kind of cause celebre against Marriage equality and parental rights.
The Liberty Counsel had represented Miller, but the organization last heard from her in fall 2009, Staver said. The group sought to withdraw from the Vermont case “because our client had abandoned us with no information about where she was,” but the judge denied the motion, he said.
“From our perspective, she just dropped off the face of the Earth,” Staver said. “We haven’t heard from her or from anyone who said they’ve heard from her.”
The United States attorney for Vermont, Tristram Coffin, told the Rutland Herald newspaper that Mr. Miller had been arrested on Monday night in Virginia and was scheduled to appear in Federal District Court in Burlington on Monday. Officials declined to say whether others may be arrested or what measures they are taking to find Ms. Miller, who faces criminal charges, and Isabella, who under current rulings should be in the primary custody of Ms. Jenkins, with visitation rights for Ms. Miller.
Attorney Star called Timothy Miller's arrest the biggest development in the case.
“Hopefully, it’s a step in the right direction towards bringing Isabella home,” Star said. “That’s the only thing Janet cares about. Hopefully, it also means that Isabella is safe.”