JP Miller Faces Seven Years — A Prosecutor on How the Feds Build the Case

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Drake.

Tony Brueski (0:08)

All right, we're going to talk about the prosecution of JP now. Your thoughts in the comment section and SubStack in YouTube as we continue our conversation. We've talked about how JP Miller's defense might try to spin the evidence against him as we've heard, as we head towards the October federal trial. But now let's take a look at the other side. The Department of Justice does not bring federal cyber stalking. And statement charges, unless they're ready for war. The FBI says that they left no stone unturned here. And the indictment backs it up. They have the receipts, the GPS trackers, the tire deflation devices bought online, the 50 plus calls in a single day. But having the evidence and making a jury feel the absolute terror that Mica lived in are two different things. So how does the prosecution build an undeniable airtight case? We're here to break it down, former prosecutor, defense attorney Eric Faddis and Robin Drake, retired FBI special agency for the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis program.

Eric, the DOJ's indictment lays out a terrifying calculated timeline. Planning trackers, lashing tires, posting the nude photo without her consent.

As a former prosecutor, how do you take this massive pile of digital and physical evidence and present it so the jury understands this wasn't just a messy breakup and the stuff that goes along with that sometimes and kind of Icky people, but really a relentless campaign of terror?

Eric Faddis (1:43)

Yeah, right. I mean, you need to convey just how serious a stalking charge can be. That it's not just a normal quarrel between romantic partners where they're arguing about the dishes or something. This is, according to the government, a concerted, ongoing, continuous effort over the course of months, if not years, to control and manipulate and get someone to do what you want them to do, in part because you're upset with them about something of a romantic origin. And so, you talk about the tracker, that is creepy as hell. Like everyone, when you hear that, you're like, oh, that's abnormal. That's not something that happens in a normal relationship. And then, the posting too, Tony, if they can prove that this came from JP Miller, and I think the government believes they can, that's revenge porn against an ex. You want to talk about proving an intent to cause serious emotional distress, posting a scantily clad picture of someone without their consent to the entire public world.

That probably gets you there.

Robin Drake (2:47)

Yeah, I'll be really curious what they're able to bring because we were talking about this yesterday.

And that is, so he has this one photo, and I'm with you, Eric. I would be hard pressed to think the FBI or the prosecutor wouldn't be able to prove that he did that revenge porn because that's that shame part that got her to do these things. And since she was kind of stable like that even after did something porn like that, and for her to be able for her to escalate to denying herself life to that point, my conjecture is that's not the only thing he had. My conjecture is that there's more there that he was probably about to leverage to regain that control he lost. And again, with the cyber assets and things that they had, they potentially have to go up on his devices and get everything on there. It's hard to imagine that there's not more they'd be able to prove. So I guess that's it. If they have more on his devices, even more revealing things about her that could be used as a manipulation tool, even though he didn't use it that yet, could that still be used against him?

Eric Faddis (3:57)

I think that you can...

Evidence can become relevant if it's evidence of opportunity, opportunity to commit a crime. And so if you have a cache of blackmail items against a person and you use one of them and you don't use three of them, is it relevant that you had four total items that you could use at your disposal to commit this cyber stalking crime? I think it probably is. And so if there is more dirt on his phone, I think a prosecutor is going to try to enter that and argue to the jury that, hey, this shows an opportunity. He had to not only to do this, but to keep doing this. And that is more aggravating than someone who was, engages in some sort of one-off cyber or revenge porn kind of thing.

Robin Drake (4:42)

Yeah, I'm sorry, Tony, just to follow up on that too, I think it will be curious whether they are able to show, because in order for her to change her behavior to that, and no one believed that she wanted to do that to herself. So it had to be an outside stimulus to that.