Prosecutors ask judge to revoke $500K bond for East Huntingdon man accused of shooting at troopers

Westmoreland County prosecutors asked a judge to revoke the $500,000 bond posted by an East Huntingdon man accused of shooting at state troopers in January.

Meanwhile, the defense on Wednesday secured access to James R. Miller’s cellphone in an effort to see whether a Ring doorbell video exists of the incident.

Miller Jr., 61, posted $500,000 bail this week and was released from Westmoreland County Prison. He did not appear for a hearing Wednesday on an emergency motion filed by his attorney related to preserving evidence that might have been captured by Miller’s Ring camera. He is accused in a Jan. 28 incident of shooting at two state troopers who returned fire.

“The Commonwealth believes he should be held without bond,” argued Assistant District Attorney Anthony Iannamorelli. “We have no safeguards. We don’t know if he has any other firearms in the home or not.”

Judge Scott Mears said he wasn’t concerned Miller didn’t show up for Wednesday’s hearing, which was scheduled in response to the motion his attorney filed late Monday afternoon. However, if Miller fails to appear for a bond revocation hearing April 3, it might be a different story, he said.

“If the defendant appears then, that’ll certainly be an argument that the defendant will obey court orders,” Mears said, adding he didn’t want to issue a bench warrant Wednesday because of officer safety concerns. “I’d rather see the defendant come here on a voluntary basis.”

Miller is facing charges of attempted homicide, aggravated assault, discharge of a firearm into an occupied structure and related offenses.

Two troopers responded about 9:30 p.m. Jan. 28 to homes across Route 819 from West Overton Village. A neighbor who lives diagonally from Miller reported hearing five or six shots and glass breaking and found a bullet fragment in the attic, according to a criminal complaint. Police believe Miller was shooting at a vehicle on his property when the bullet hit the neighbor’s home.

When police went to Miller’s house, he came outside with an assault-style rifle.

Troopers said they retreated and ordered him to put down the weapon, but Miller fired the gun while the troopers were 7 to 15 yards away. Miller was shot in the torso by return fire from the troopers’ handguns.

Ring camera footage sought

Defense attorney Jill Devine’s motion filed Monday sought access to cellphones and a Ring camera that were taken from Miller’s home by police. She said she believed Ring only stores videos in a cloud for 60 days, which would be Thursday.

“The sole issue is what happened in front of the house,” she said. “We just want to see if there’s a video.”

Brett Creasy, president and director of digital forensics at Pittsburgh firm bit-x-bit, testified Wednesday that, while trying to access Miller’s Ring account, he was prompted to go through a multifactor authentication, which required access to Miller’s cellphone. State police have the phone in evidence.

Iannamorelli said investigators have copied everything on the phone and put the device into airplane mode while it is being stored, which is standard practice. He was concerned that if the phone were taken out of airplane mode, that it becomes vulnerable to any potential remote actions, such as being wiped clean.

Police have sent a letter to Ring to preserve any relevant videos, Iannamorelli said.

Mears ordered that someone from bit-x-bit go to the state police station Wednesday to access the phone and get into the Ring account. The defense is allowed to make its own copy of Miller’s cellphone or must acknowledge the state police copy as being accurate.

Miller spent several weeks at a Pittsburgh hospital after being shot in the torso. He was lodged in Westmoreland County jail on Feb. 22 until his recent release. He appeared at his preliminary hearing earlier this month in a wheelchair.