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Pastor Who Helped Lesbian-Turned-Evangelical Christian ‘Kidnap’ Her Daughter & Flee the U.S. May Be Headed to Jail

Aug. 15, 2012 5:39pm Billy Hallowell

Rev. Kenneth Miller Convicted in Lisa Miller Lesbian Kidnap Case

Lisa Miller (left) and Janet Jenkins (right) (FILE)

MONTPELIER, Vt. (TheBlaze/AP) – A pastor from Virginia was convicted Tuesday of helping a woman flee the country three years ago, when she was on the brink of having to turn custody of her young daughter over to the woman who was once her lover and partner in a Vermont civil union. The complicated case was first covered by TheBlaze back in June 2011.

The jury issued its verdict against the Rev. Kenneth Miller after several hours of deliberations in the case, which has drawn broad attention because of the legal and religious questions it raised about same-sex unions and child custody, and because the whereabouts of mother and daughter remain unknown.

Miller, 46, a Mennonite from Stuarts Draft, Va., was charged with aiding in international kidnapping for helping Lisa Miller and her daughter, Isabella, leave the country in September 2009, a month after a judge indicated he would turn custody of the girl over to Janet Jenkins, of Fair Haven, Vt., if she continued to defy a series of visitation orders.

Kenneth and Lisa Miller are not related. Lisa and Isabella, now 10 years old, were last known to be in Nicaragua.

As the jury was deliberating, Jenkins filed a lawsuit against both Millers and other people associated with the case, seeking unspecified monetary damages.

Supporters of Rev. Kenneth Miller stand outside federal court in Burlington, Vt., Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012. (AP Photo/Wilson Ring)

Kenneth Miller showed no emotion as the verdict was read and will remain free pending sentencing, although he was ordered to surrender his passport. After the verdict, his supporters walked out of the Burlington courthouse, lined up across the street and began singing hymns.

“I am willing to accept the consequences of my actions,” said Miller, who could spend three years in prison. “I am at peace with God. I am peace with my conscience and I give it over to God, and at the same time I respect the decision of the court.”

He said an appeal would be up to his attorneys, who left the courthouse shortly after the verdict was read.

Jenkins was not in court at the time, but her attorney said she is pleased that Kenneth Miller was being held accountable.

“She hopes that the verdict will send a message to those who continue to aid and abet Lisa Miller in Nicaragua,” said attorney Sarah Star. “Her greatest hope is that the government’s efforts will lead to Isabella’s safe return to Vermont.”

During three days of testimony, prosecutors used cellphone records and sometimes-reluctant witnesses to lay out a broad network overseen by Kenneth Miller that helped Lisa and Isabella travel first to Canada and then Nicaragua.

Prosecutors said Kenneth Miller arranged for another person to drive the two from Virginia to Buffalo, N.Y., where they crossed into Canada and were picked up by an Ontario Mennonite who took them to an airport. After they arrived in Nicaragua, prosecutors said, the two were cared for by American Mennonites who felt they needed to protect Isabella from what they considered a sinful lesbian lifestyle.

The U.S. does not have an extradition treaty with Nicaragua. The country is not a signer of the 1980 Hague convention on international child abductions, which is designed to return children illegally taken from member countries.

Lisa Miller and Jenkins entered into a civil union in Vermont in 2000, shortly after the state became the first to legally recognize same-sex relationships. Miller conceived the child through artificial insemination, and both acted as parents.

Lisa Miller later became an evangelical Christian and renounced her homosexuality. A child-custody case went to Vermont family court in 2004, after the couple dissolved the civil union. Lisa Miller, who moved to Lynchburg, Va., was given primary custody of Isabella, with Jenkins given visitation rights.

Lisa Miller appealed the case for years, but ultimately the courts in Virginia and Vermont determined the case would be bound by the Vermont family court order. After defying visitation orders, Miller became a fugitive in 2009 when she disappeared with Isabella.

Charges were dropped in October against an American Mennonite missionary living in Nicaragua, Timothy Miller, who is not related to the other Millers. Prosecutors said he helped Lisa Miller reach Central America; he cooperated in the case against Kenneth Miller.

Timothy Miller said in videotaped testimony that he knew Lisa Miller was fleeing the U.S. because of the custody battle but believed at the time that she had full custody of Isabella. He said he picked the mother and child up when they arrived in Managua and arranged a place for them to live in Nicaragua.

“I did not believe it was a crime I had committed,” said Timothy Miller, who is not related to the other Millers.

Janet Jenkins, left, leaves federal court in Burlington, Vt., on Friday, Aug. 10, 2012. Prosecutors in the trial of Kenneth Miller called Jenkins to the stand on Friday. The 46-year-old Miller is charged with helping Lisa Miller and her daughter Isabella flee the country in September 2009 after a years-long custody dispute. (AP Photo/Wilson Ring)

A lawyer for a group that promotes the rights of gays and lesbians says a pastor’s conviction in Vermont reinforces the rights of same-sex parents.

Gregory Nevins of Lambda Legal says an acquittal could have been a “green light” for people fighting same-sex custody battles to move to states that would support their positions.

But Mathew Staver of the Liberty Counsel, which represented Lisa Miller until her disappearance, says he thinks the case was too narrowly focused to have broader implications.

In brief but emotional testimony, Jenkins gave an overview of her relationship with Lisa Miller and a history of some of her visits with Isabella between the time the two split up in 2003 and Lisa Miller and the girl left the country Sept. 22, 2009.

Jenkins last saw Isabella in January 2009 and was looking forward to a late September visit.

“I was going to go to Lynchburg and pick my daughter up for the weekend,” said Jenkins, who runs a day-care business. But when she arrived to pick up Isabella, no one was home.

–

RELATED:

Former Lesbian-Turned-Evangelical Christian ‘Kidnaps’ Daughter, Vanishes Amid Custody Battle

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Comments (118)

hades3
Posted on August 16, 2012 at 8:50pm
Allow me to guess why the shooter had chicken sandwiches. In his twisted mind he was planning to force employees to eat the sandwichws , then shoot them one by one.

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addie
Posted on August 16, 2012 at 2:53pm
Why doesnt the non bioligical parent just go have a child of her own instead of trying to steal someone elses child! Because of the selfishness of the VT woman, she has ruined the life of a little girl. Hey jenkins, she is not yours…never will be. Just because you played second fiddle mom for a couple of years doesnt make her blood! You have no more right to her than i have to my former step daughter! Stop being so selfish!

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blackbean
Posted on August 16, 2012 at 1:01pm
Miller did the right thing and was obviously aware of the potential consequences from a liberal, progressive, and compliant judicial system. He has my admiration and prayer for justice. He sure isn’t getting fair treatment!

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- encinom
  Posted on August 16, 2012 at 2:48pm
  How is kidnapping the right think. Christians like yourself are a disgrace to your religion and a danger to the secular republic the Founders left.
  
  Report this comment
- Git-R-Done
  Posted on August 16, 2012 at 4:46pm
  Encinom – If anybody is kidnapping, that would be Jenkins and the Vermont courts. And sickos like you supporting the kidnapping of a child from her biological mother. Jenkins isn’t the girl’s biological mother nor did she adopt her, so she has no legal right to that child whatsoever.
  
  Report this comment
Kevman
Posted on August 16, 2012 at 11:23am
This is a tough one. The mother went deeply into an “alternative lifestyle” in Vermont, made commitments there, then found religion and wanted to undo her previous commitments. Not sure how to address that in legally fair way. However, I think that a mother should be able to move with her child to a safer and more religiously tolerant country for the child to be raised (Vermont and Virginia would not recognize the mother’s basic religious beliefs).

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- encinom
  Posted on August 16, 2012 at 12:02pm
  Both Vermont and Virgina respect the mother religious views, the mother had custody, the ex-partner had visitation. If it was a heterosexual couple, where the parent with custody was Christian and the other an Atheist, should the good Christian be able to deny the other visitation rights because of her religious views.
  
  This unstable women is a common criminal that needs to be dragged back to the US and face justice.
  
  Report this comment
- addie
  Posted on August 16, 2012 at 2:59pm
  Encinom – you fail to see that jenkins IS NOT blood! When a couple Who procreated split, they share custody one way or another. When a couple splits that only one was the biological parent, there is n question who the child belongs with entirely! Are you saying that men who marry women who had a child with someone else should be able to steal that child from his/her biological mom when they divorce? you are crazy!
  
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sldjulius
Posted on August 16, 2012 at 10:50am
The article doesn’t say whether Janet shares any biological maternity with Lisa. That seems pretty important.

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- Git-R-Done
  Posted on August 16, 2012 at 4:49pm
  Lisa is the biological mother of that child and the only way a child can be biologically created is from a man and a woman.
  
  Report this comment
MarianF
Posted on August 16, 2012 at 9:45am
Encinom
Mennonites are Christians, not a cult. I didn’t read any thing in the article pointing to bio mom being unstable. I am at a loss as to how to view this. Precedent in the courts favors the biological parent. Most famously Anna Nicole’s daughter, she was married to and named the father as someone other than the bio dad, but bio dad won. I don’t know what is best and from your comments I don’t think you do either.

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- encinom
  Posted on August 16, 2012 at 12:03pm
  The court did favor the biological mother, until the unstable mother violated the various Court orders.
  
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- Git-R-Done
  Posted on August 16, 2012 at 4:38pm
  Encinom – If anybody is unstable, it would be you Marxists and that Jenkins lady who’s trying to rip that girl from her biological mother in order to justify her sick lifestyle.
  
  Report this comment
DiscGo
Posted on August 16, 2012 at 9:15am
At GIT-R-DONE- I know exactly what “love is”. It is the way that other will know I am a disciple of Christ.

John 13:34-35
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Christ did not say “Love those who are the same as you”, nor did he say “Only love those that sin the same way as you”. Christ certainly didn’t say “Love everyone but the gays”. He said “love one another”.

The trick in life is to overlook the flaws we see in others, and pray that God will overlook the flaws he sees in us.

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- Git-R-Done
  Posted on August 16, 2012 at 4:37pm
  You’re not a disciple of Christ b/c you’re trying to turn the truth into lies and lies into the truth. And Jenkins is trying to kidnap that little girl in order to justify her sick perverted lifestyle.
  
  Report this comment
- Git-R-Done
  Posted on August 16, 2012 at 4:43pm
  Discgo – I don’t see you preaching to the rest of us to accept people who practice incest or polygamy or other forms of sexual deviancies, hypocrite.
  
  Report this comment
- Git-R-Done
  Posted on August 16, 2012 at 10:07pm
  Love also doesn’t mean giving people what they want and in this case you want to give the anti-Christian bigots what they want.
  
  Report this comment
deadend
Posted on August 16, 2012 at 9:00am
Let me see if i have this right. A lesbian can get customity of a child if their expartner will not let them have visitation. A strait man basically get’s tolod to go get screwed by the courts. Evil and corrupt thats all I can say.

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- encinom
  Posted on August 16, 2012 at 10:38am
  Actually you have it all wrong, thanks for playing try again.
  
  This drama is all to common in custody cases involving heterosexual partners.
  
  Report this comment
- Git-R-Done
  Posted on August 16, 2012 at 4:39pm
  Encinom – Except it’s possible for heterosexual partners to biologically create a child, moron. Apparently you need to go back to grade school and take biology class.
  
  Report this comment
vaman
Posted on August 16, 2012 at 8:50am
Simple, she is nothing but a common criminal who kidnapped a child. You all should stop justifying this by using your god as protection. Disgusting, you people would justify the kidnapping of a child. The longer the jail sentence, the better. Just another in a long line of christian insanity.

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- Rosalyn
  Posted on August 16, 2012 at 9:45am
  How is it kidnapping? The child is Lisa’s child. Janet didn’t adopt the child nor does she share any biology with he child, the court had no reason to give her visitation nor custody. There was no reason to order the biological mother to turn the child over to Janet except that she was upset her ex no longer wanted to be gay. This story is about the wackiness of the LGBT movement and violating the rights of a biological parent. If Janet couldn’t even be bothered to adopt the child she has no say inher life. If she wants a kid she can go have her own but she’ll have to suck up her hate and realize that a woman needs a man for that.
  
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- encinom
  Posted on August 16, 2012 at 10:36am
  The Court was following the laws of the State of Vermont, the child was a product of the Common Law union, Jenkins was given at first visitation rights and had to pay child support. It was only after this unstable woman Miller join a fanatical Christian group and denied visitation rights did things change.
  
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- Git-R-Done
  Posted on August 16, 2012 at 4:41pm
  Encinom – Jenkins is not the biological mother nor did she legally adopt her. The child wasn’t created by two people of the same sex in case you missed it. Apparently you have no problem with ignoring biology in order to suit your leftist agenda.
  
  And if anybody is unstable, that would be you homosexual rights activists.
  
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