An 85-year-old former doctor from Arizona pleaded guilty Tuesday to manslaughter for helping a woman commit suicide in an upstate New York motel room.
Stephen Miller was nabbed after the 59-year-old woman — identified by the New York Times as Doreen Brodhead — was found dead by housekeeping staff at the Super 8 motel in Kingston last November.
Her body was found alongside a note and a canister of nitrogen gas.
The former doctor had traveled from home in Tucson to the Hudson Valley after six months of counseling and speaking with Brodhead about the debilitating neck and back pain she’d been living with for decades, his lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, told an Ulster County Court hearing.
Miller had provided comfort and “very slight technical assistance” to the woman after she reached out to him because of his work with Choice and Dignity — a right-to-die advocacy group, the attorney added.
Brodhead’s cause of asphyxiation death was “by means of assisted suicide,” according to the Ulster County District Attorney’s Office.
“Technically, he violated the law,” Lichtman told reporters after the hearing. “We accept that, but with the understanding that morally, Stephen Miller did nothing wrong.”
During the brief court hearing, Judge Bryan Rounds had asked the ex-doctor: “Are you pleading guilty because you are, in fact, guilty of manslaughter in the second degree?”
“By your definition, yes,” Miller responded.
Under New York law, intentionally causing or aiding another person’s suicide is illegal.
Miller copped the plea deal in a bid to spare him from jail time, his lawyer said.
The ex-doctor had originally pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter count and two assault charges following his arrest in February.
The assault charges were dropped under the terms of his agreement with prosecutors.
He had been facing a potential prison term of 25 years if convicted on all counts. Instead, Miller was sentenced to five years of probation.
Miller — who worked as a doctor for decades in California, Texas and Illinois — lost his license to practice medicine after being convicted of tax fraud in Texas in 2006. He was sentenced to just under four years in prison in that case.
While Miller still supports legal assisted suicide, his attorney said he won’t provide assistance in the future.
“That part of his life is over,” Lichtman said after the hearing.
With Post wires
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, you can dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.
