A former pediatrician at Crystal Run Health Care who was accused of sexually molesting his adopted daughter when she was 15 has sued the medical practice for $10 million for alleged defamation and other charges.
Michael Miller, of Middletown, claims that Crystal Run fired him without informing him of the accusations, according to a complaint filed Oct. 1 in U.S. District Court, White Plains, and when he discovered the allegations a year later, his accusers recanted their stories.
“After receiving highly defamatory and entirely false allegations … of immoral and criminal conduct,” the complaint states, Crystal Run officials fired Miller without verifying the allegations or discussing them with him or his daughter.
Manhattan attorney Robert I. Steiner, who represents Crystal Run, did not respond to an email asking for his client’s side of the story.
Crystal Run and several affiliates employ more than 400 physicians and run medical practices in Orange, Rockland and Sullivan counties.
Miller joined the organization in 2012 as a board-certified physician in pediatric and infectious disease medicine. He practiced in the Rock Hill office, and in 2014 he was promoted to partner.
Miller also served as medical director for the Tri-Valley Central School District in Sullivan County and spent two terms as chief of pediatrics at Catskill Regional Medical Center.
On Aug. 6, 2020, according to the complaint, Douglas Sansted, the chief legal officer at Crystal Run, and Mary DeFreitas, the HR director, summoned Miller to a meeting.
He says he was accused of having inappropriate romantic relations with coworkers, prescribing medicine to an adult, accessing a medical chart without the patient’s written consent and “more serious allegations” that were unspecified.
The only complaint Miller had ever received, according to the lawsuit, was a “minor medical malpractice case” that was settled out of court during his first year at Crystal Run.
He says Sansted and DeFreitas repeatedly called him an excellent physician, but they suspended him from his position.
Two days later, the complaint states, he was told that the 12-member managing board had voted unanimously to fire him.
Miller claims that he was never given any grounds for the termination, there had been no investigation and he was not allowed to defend himself.
A year later, the complaint states, his lawyer received a copy of notes by DeFreitas recounting events leading up to his termination.
The notes purportedly describe Facebook messages and phone calls in which Miller’s estranged wife and another individual he believes is a former romantic partner accused him of sexually molesting his daughter when she was 15.
Miller says that his wife and the other woman have contacted him.
“Both women apologized profusely and confessed that each of them had concocted and/or relayed the allegations to Crystal Run for the sole purpose of ‘teaching him a lesson’ and ‘get him in trouble’ out of malice and spite as a result of the acrimony and outrage they were both harboring” toward him.
He says that his daughter, now 27, is shocked “over having been used in this way by her father’s employer without even having been afforded the opportunity to discuss the allegations.”
All three women, the complaint states, are expected to testify on Miller’s behalf.
Miller does not deny romantic involvements. In eight years, he has had consensual relationships with two women, according to the complaint, and he disclosed both to the human relations department as required by protocol.
The medicine he prescribed to an adult was an asthma inhaler for one of his romantic partners, and he had violated no laws or regulations, the complaint states. The medical chart he checked was for the same woman who had asked for a second opinion about a medical condition.
Miller claims that his firing caused him to lose his position at the Tri-Valley School District and privileges at two hospitals, costing him $250,000 a year. He has since accepted a position with a pediatric practice in Poughkeepsie.
Miller is charging Crystal Run and several officials with 15 causes of action, including defamation, breaches of contract and violating due process rights.
The lawsuit was originally filed in Orange Supreme Court on Sept. 10, and moved to federal court by Crystal Run.
Miller is represented by White Plains attorney Gunilla Perez-Faringer.
