Johnstown, PA (WJAC) — Authorities have confirmed to 6 News that charges in one of the two cases against former Westmont Hilltop music teacher Shawn Miller have been dismissed.
During a hearing last week, President Judge Norman Krumenacker III ordered that the charges be withdrawn after prosecutors filed a motion to have them dismissed without prejudice.
Officials with the Cambria County District Attorney's office say "an evidentiary issue arose which made it ethically and constitutionally improper to continue to proceed with the case at this time."
According to online court records, Miller was scheduled to have a non-jury trial last week on several charges including rape, statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and aggravated indecent assault of a child.
Police filed those charges against Miller last May following an investigation into allegations that he had raped one of his students in 2015.
According to the complaint, the girl described several incidents, when she was in the fourth grade, where Miller reportedly touched her inappropriately.
She explained to police that she told her parents, who informed the school, but she felt nothing was done about the incident, according to the complaint.
The following day, according to the criminal complaint, the girl said Miller told her he was going to punish her and reportedly assaulted her with a clarinet.
The girl also described an incident where Miller assaulted her in a closet and told her she would not get a solo part if she told anyone, the complaint says.
A few weeks after the initial charges were filed, a second victim came forward to report similar accusations.
That case is still pending in Cambria County court, court records show, and prosecutors have the opportunity to re-file the charges that were dismissed.
When Miller was arrested last year, 6 News reported that the criminal complaint filed against him said he had a long history of being accused of inappropriate touching and behavior with other students.
In fact, in 2011, he was investigated by the Cambria County District Attorney at the time. However, according to the 2022 criminal complaint, the DA’s office decided against criminal charges in 2011, but asked the Westmont school administration to require him to go to counseling and undergo a psychosexual evaluation.
Last year’s criminal complaint said the district failed to take those actions. The complaint went on to say an investigatory meeting was held in 2020 where Miller resigned in the face of 20 to 30 “touching” complaints filed against him in the Westmont School District.
6 News filed a Right-to-Know request asking to see Miller’s personnel file. We wanted to see who in the school administration failed to follow up on Miller’s troubling behavior detailed in the court documents.
The school district refused to provide us with a chance to examine his personnel history.
We appealed to the state office of open records. It sided with the school district in that it could not require the district to turn those records over to us.
The office of open records ruling did leave the door open for Westmont to grant our request, saying an agency, such as the district, may release part or the entire nonpublic records in the public interest. Its ruling says such openness builds trust and confidence in the agency’s process and procedure.
The Westmont district still hasn’t released any parts of how it internally handled the Miller complaints.
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