Ex-Bucks theater director accused of sending explicit prison emails to underage girl

Ralph Miller started sending emails to the teenage girl while he was in federal prison, locked away for money laundering and insurance fraud, prosecutors say. In sexually explicit messages he told the girl that they would, among other things, "make beautiful children," according to a criminal complaint.

And just over a month after the former director of the Bucks County Playhouse was released from custody, those emails landed him back behind bars.

Miller, 71,  is charged with endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors, criminal use of a communication facility, and cyber harassment of a child. He was arrested in late May after police in Solebury Township were contacted by authorities from the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

He is held in the Bucks County Prison on $50,000 bail. On Monday, a preliminary hearing in the case was continued. John Richard Fagan, Miller's public defender, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Federal officials say they discovered the emails in December, when the girl — whose name and age authorities have not disclosed — contacted them.

They said an investigation found that Miller had sent messages to the girl through Trulincs, an email system available to inmates. In March, as Miller's time in prison was coming to a close, federal officials contacted Solebury police, notifying them of the investigation.

When Miller was released from federal custody on April 27, the emails were turned over to local police.

Excerpts from the emails, reproduced in the criminal complaint, are graphic. In one, Miller told the the girl he wanted "to share the master bedroom" with her. The messages continued, police said, even after the victim told Miller to stop contacting her.

Miller was sentenced to 2½ years in 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 owned for 30 years.

In sentencing Miller, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe called him a "charlatan" and "snake oil salesman," Assistant U.S. Attorney K.T. Newton said at the time.

Among the insurance claims was one to replace his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, valued at $27,900, which he said was damaged in a flood. He actually sold it before the flood.

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. Miller claimed that theater equipment, including $48,000 in lighting, had been stolen before the fire. Former employees, however, testified at his 2016 trial that the playhouse never had that type of lighting equipment.