A former doctor from Arizona pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter on Tuesday for assisting in a woman’s suicide last year at a motel in Kingston, N.Y.
Stephen Miller, 85, was arrested earlier this year for aiding the suicide of a woman The New York Times identified as 59-year-old Doreen Brodhead. Intentionally causing or aiding someone’s suicide is illegal in New York State.
Two counts of assault were also among the original charges, the Kingston Police Department said at the time. Miller pleaded not guilty upon his arrest in February, then posted bail and returned to Arizona.
He had traveled to Kingston, about 90 miles north of New York City, in November 2023 after months of speaking with and counseling Brodhead, according to his attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman. She had reached out to the former doctor because of his work on an advisory board of Choice and Dignity, a right-to-die advocacy group.
In court on Tuesday, Lichtman said his client had never encouraged Brodhead to end her life, but had merely provided comfort and counseling as she grappled with debilitating pain that doctors couldn’t fathom.
“Technically, he violated the law,” Lichtman told reporters after Miller’s court appearance. “We accept that, but with the understanding that morally, Stephen Miller did nothing wrong.”
Miller had not officially been a doctor since losing his medical license in 2006 after a tax fraud conviction, for which he served four years in prison.
He and Brodhead checked into a Motel 8 in Kingston on Nov. 8, 2023. Miller drove her to buy a tank of nitrogen at a gas distributor, according to The New York Times. He left about an hour later for a flight back to Arizona from Albany.
Housekeeping staff discovered Brodhead unconscious and unresponsive the next day at about 11:15 a.m. Initially it looked as though she had simply committed suicide on her own, but then Kingston Police concluded that a second person had been on hand.
The plea deal enabled Miller to avoid a potential 25-year prison sentence.
“He’s an 85-year-old man who simply wanted to provide comfort and counseling to someone who couldn’t live with the pain in their life anymore,” Lichtman told The Associated Press in February. “For his life to end, dying alone in a jail cell in New York, is, frankly, disgusting.”
With News Wire Services
