Teen: Emails from former Bucks theater owner were ‘uncomfortable,’ overly sexual

The jailhouse emails started out innocently enough, according to the teen who received them.

Ralph Miller, locked in federal prison for insurance fraud, asked her about her job prospects and wanted to check on her well-being after an illness, she said. Then the missives from the former owner of the Bucks County Playhouse took an "uncomfortable" turn, she said, when he started to profess his love for her and explain his desire to impregnate her, among other, sexually explicit topics.

At the end of the messages, sent nearly every day, he would sign, "Love, Ralph," or, "Your Best Friend, Ralph," the teen said.

Miller, 71, appeared Monday in Doylestown District Court for a preliminary hearing in the case. He entered a not-guilty plea on charges of endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors, and related offenses for the emails sent to the teenager, whose name the Inquirer is withholding.

He remained in custody in the county prison Monday, with bail set at $50,000. His next court appearance is set for Aug. 31.

Debra Weinman, Miller's public defender, cast doubt that the emails, though sent from a federal prison email account registered to Miller, were written by her client.

Capt. Robert Schreffler, the Federal Bureau of Prisons investigator who handled the case, testified before District Judge Maggie Snow that after the victim's mother contacted police to complain about the emails, he searched Miller's account in Trulincs, a communication system available to inmates.

Schreffler estimated that about 70 messages were exchanged between Miller and the victim, from December 2017 to January 2018.

"I felt they were inappropriate to be sending to a minor," Schreffler said. At the time of the conversations, the victim was 16 years old.

Miller was moved to a more secure branch of the Federal Correctional Institution at Schuylkill after the emails were found, Schreffler said. In response, Miller sent Schreffler a letter saying he believed someone else had accessed his account, but Schreffler said he found no evidence to support those claims.

Schreffler, upon questioning by Weinman, said that every inmate is assigned a specific number for a Trulincs account and usually accesses it with a fingerprint. But because Miller was "fingerprint exempt" as a term of his sentence, he was issued a four-digit PIN.

The teen said Miller, whom she had known before his incarceration in federal prison, had sent her an invitation to communicate through Trulincs. She accepted it but alerted her mother after the messages became more personal, with questions about her sexuality and sexual activity, the teen said in court Monday.

She said she told Miller to stop emailing her, but the emails kept coming.

When Miller was released from federal custody in April, investigators from the prison turned over the emails over to police in Solebury Township, where Miller was living, according to an affidavit filed in the case. He was arrested a month later.

Miller was sentenced to 2½ years in federal prison in 2016 after collecting about $240,000 from bogus insurance claims he made on behalf of the Bucks County Playhouse, the theater in New Hope that he had owned for 30 years. He also was charged with mail fraud for claims he made in relation to the Pocono Playhouse, another theater he owned, which was destroyed by fire in 2009.