The South Carolina pastor whose wife, Mica Miller, shot herself dead after slapping him with divorce papers has been accused of raping a 15-year-old girl nearly 30 years ago — and using his church as a “sexual playground,” a new lawsuit claims.
Pastor John Paul Miller, 44, allegedly attacked the girl — only identified as “Jane Doe” — in 1998 while at Sunday school at his father’s church, according to the complaint filed Tuesday in Horry County Circuit Court.
Miller, then 19, allegedly took the girl into his dad’s office at the All Nations Church before forcing her outside to his truck where he sexually assaulted her, court papers alleged.
The girl was a virgin at the time, according to the suit.
She claims Miller — the controversial pastor at Solid Rock Church in Myrtle Beach — assaulted her again years later when she ran into him during a trip to the city in 2023.
The pastor leaned in to give her a hug before suddenly shoving “his hand down her pants touching her genitals without consent,” the suit alleged.
The accuser alleged that Miller later tried to use a Bible scripture to justify the attack, telling her: “No man is without sin and temptation. God understands that.”
The suit, which also names All Nations Church and Solid Rock Church as defendants, accuses him and other leaders of covering up a pattern of alleged abuse over the years.
“This church was JPM’s sexual playground,” the suit claimed.
The alleged victim said she felt “immense guilt” after learning about the death of Miller’s wife last year — and believed if she’d spoken up sooner she could have prevented more harm.
“She had heard that there were multiple other victims over the years,” her attorney Randall Hood told WBTV. “And it is her hope that in bringing light to the situation, that it will keep it from ever happening again.”
Miller has faced national scrutiny ever since his 30-year-old wife was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head in North Carolina’s Lumber River State Park on April 27, 2024 — just days after serving him with divorce papers.
Mica’s death was ruled a suicide by the Robeson County medical examiner but her family have pleaded for cops to “deeply” investigate her demise amid allegations the pastor had abused his wife.
She had contacted police several times in the lead-up to her suicide to level allegations against her husband — including that he had “groomed” her when she was a teen before they got married in 2017.
The pastor, for his part, has strenuously denied any allegations of grooming and abuse.
He has also previously said his wife suffered from mental illness, had made previous attempts to take her own life and was hospitalized on multiple occasions.
Miller’s attorney declined to comment on the rape lawsuit when reached by the local outlet.
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