A 60-year-old nurse was sentenced Friday to four years in prison for sexually assaulting three women under his care while inserting a catheter in the patients over three weeks at Providence Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo.
Paul Alden Miller was convicted Sept. 2 of three felony counts of sexual battery by fraud and three misdemeanor counts of touching an intimate part of another person. He was acquitted of a misdemeanor count of inflicting injury on an elder adult.
Miller was convicted of assaults on women aged 56, 68 and 22.
Miller’s attorney, Sharon Beth Marshall, argued for probation in the case. She said a probation official recommended probation, as well.
“Paul Miller spent 56 years of his life violation-free,” Marshall said in court papers. “Paul purposefully chose a job after Mission Hospital in a dialysis clinic to avoid any contact with female genitalia. He immediately chose a rehabilitative path, immediately after incident. There is no question but that Paul Miller will continue to lead a law-abiding life in the future.”
Marshall argued that Miller “has suffered greatly as a result of these convictions already. He has lost his career, one that he loved very much.”
Miller’s wife pleaded for mercy in a letter to Orange County Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Macias. The two have been married for 30 years and have an adult daughter and adult son.
“Paul is the person who pulls over in the rain to help a stranger on the side of the road change a tire,” his wife said. “He was a walk-the-floor, change-diapers kind of parent when the kids were babies; a relentless cheering sideline dad at our daughter’s soccer games and the one who went on campouts and hikes with our son on his journey to Eagle Scout. He taught our children to work hard, be kind, take responsibility for themselves and to respect others, which is something you can only do if you value and demonstrate those attributes yourself.”
She said he “worked extremely hard in his late 40s to become a nurse. … The thought that any patient of his would feel betrayed or hurt by him has been and continues to be a source of tremendous grief for him.”
Miller’s daughter, who is a doctor, wrote to the judge that her father has “dedicated his life to caring for others.”
She said Miller went to “therapy” after his arrest and “read numerous books on emotional intelligence and personal growth.” She said her father is a “loving role model for me, and I have been grateful to have had such a positive example of what it means to be hardworking, selfless and resilient in my life.”
Deputy District Attorney Kelcie Anne Wiemann said the 56-year-old victim came into the hospital on March 19, 2021 for dizziness.
The woman testified that she went to the emergency room because “I was having vertigo that wouldn’t go away.”
When Miller suggested an external catheter because she was going to have an MRI done, she said, “I think I agreed it was a good idea.”
Miller tugged her yoga pants off and placed the external catheter on her, she testified.
“There was a lot of fiddling to get it in place,” she testified. “It felt like there was inappropriate touching. … I felt really uncomfortable.”
Miller was “very touchy feely,” and caressed her, she testified.
“He just asked me if I felt relaxed now,” she said. How he handled the catheter “seemed more like an intimate way,” she said.
The then-22-year-old woman went into the hospital to be treated for injuries she suffered in a car crash, Wiemann said in her opening statement of the trial. She returned on March 31, 2021 with her father and said Miller sexually assaulted her with a catheter, Wiemann said.
After the experience, the prosecutor added, she came forward and filed a report with law enforcement the next day.
The 68-year-old woman came to the emergency room on April 9, 2021 with her husband to be treated for vomiting and anxiety, Wiemann said.
On that day, Miller was being “job shadowed” by a nursing student who helped place a catheter in the woman.
Later, Miller returned to the woman alone and molested her, the prosecutor said.
“When he said, ‘Does that feel good?’ it was at that point she realized she was being sexually assaulted,” Wiemann said. “She started screaming. … Everybody then runs into her room and she tells the defendant you know what you did to me.”
The woman had catheters inserted in her about 30 times over the years, but never had an experience like the one with Miller, the prosecutor said.