Plea deal made in elder fraud case

Miller's brother and alleged accomplice Ephriem Mario Miller, 42, rejected a prosecution plea offer and will return to court next week for trial. Jimmy Miller is expected to testify as a witness in that trial.

According to the prosecution, the brothers allegedly persuaded the 79-year-old victim to give them money to repair a perfectly intact roof. The men were arrested on Dec. 15 2004 after allegedly driving the man around for much of the day in an attempt to get cash from the man's bank account.

The victim and the defendants entered a bank that day and tried to write a check for cash, prosecutor Melissa McKowan said. A bank teller gave the victim three cashier's checks totaling $16,800, but quickly became suspicious and took the checks back.

"They spent the rest of the day going around to banks and check cashing stores," McKowan said. One bank finally issued the victim two checks totaling $12,800 - checks later found in Ephriem Miller's pockets.

A bank employee reported the suspicious activity to the victim's daughter, a signer on the account. The woman visited her father's house, discovered he was not home and called the police.

The police were waiting at the victim's home when Ephriem Miller arrived at the home with the elderly man in the passenger seat of his own car. Jimmy Miller was found walking nearby.

The victim has since claimed that he wanted to loan the men money, but the prosecution alleges that the men took advantage of the elderly man, who has short-term memory problems and had been hospitalized for three weeks with a leg infection just before he the check-writing incident.

The men allegedly asked the victim for money to re-roof the man's home. The man did not remember that his roof had already been replaced a few years earlier. Neither of the men has a contractor's license, McKowan said.

Ephriem Miller returns to court for trial on May 31 at 8:30 a.m. He remains in custody on $200,000 bail.