Former NFL player with reported bouts with CTE gets 90 days in jail on theft charge
A former NFL player appeared in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court on May 1 to receive his sentence after pleading guilty to third-degree felony failure to comply and petty theft misdemeanor charges.
Michael D. Miller, of East Western Reserve Road, Poland Townshp, was sentenced to a 90-day term in the Trumbull County jail which will begin his five-year term of basic probation. Common Pleas Judge Cynthia Rice noted the defendant’s lengthy theft record as the reason for the jail term.
Miller, 64, was involved in a reported shoplifting incident at the Super Walmart Center in Liberty Plaza. Liberty police then chased the suspect who ran from the scene and apprehended him.
In the sentencing hearing, Miller’s attorney Ross Smith referred to the defendant’s background report which showed him retiring from the NFL in 1987 and having recent bouts with CTE, which is a brain injury caused by repeated blows to the head, like those suffered from football contact. Smith said his client had served a prison term in the early 1990s for a federal drug offense, but had nothing as far as felonies until this latest incident.
Judge Rice ordered Miller to pay $940 restitution to the Walmart as part of his probation.
A check into Miller’s athletic career shows he is best known on the track, setting the 1982 world’s best-year performance in the men’s 200-meter race as he was an All-American athlete at the University of Tennessee. In that world’s best race, Miller clocked 20.15 at a meet in Provo, Utah, a high altitude on June 2, 1982.
His NFL career as a wide receiver began with Miller being drafted by the Green Bay Packers in the fourth round (104th overall) in 1983. However, he moved to the New York Giants later in 1983 before being acquired by the New Orleans Saints in 1985.
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