Trial Due for Pastor in Dispute on Custody

The curious involvement of an Amish-Mennonite sect in a high-profile case of international parental kidnapping will be on display — and perhaps become clearer — in a courtroom in Burlington, Vt., this week.

Jury selection is to begin Tuesday in the criminal trial of a pastor charged with helping Lisa A. Miller flee the country with her young daughter to prevent the girl from staying with Ms. Miller’s former partner in a civil union.

Kenneth L. Miller, 46, the leader of a Beachy Amish Mennonite church in Stuarts Draft, Va., is accused of helping Ms. Miller, who is no relation, violate custody orders, aiding her in her flight with her daughter, Isabella, to Nicaragua, where they were sheltered by missionaries of the sect. The pair have been missing since September 2009 and are believed to be in Central America.

The bitter and widely publicized custody battle that preceded Ms. Miller’s flight pitted conservative Christians using the slogan “Protect Isabella” against the courts and supporters of gay rights.

Ms. Miller repeatedly defied orders by a Vermont family court to allow Isabella to visit  Janet Jenkins, Isabella’s other legal parent. The Vermont civil union was officially dissolved in 2004; Ms. Miller, the birth mother, was granted custody, and Ms. Jenkins was awarded visitation rights.

Ms. Miller became a cause célèbre among evangelical opponents of same-sex marriage after she declared her newfound religious objection to homosexuality and spent years in court trying to end Ms. Jenkins’s parental rights. In September 2009, as a frustrated Vermont judge ordered one more visit and threatened to transfer custody of the girl to Ms. Jenkins, Ms. Miller and Isabella, then 7, disappeared from their home in Lynchburg, Va.

Federal agents eventually learned that the pair had flown to Nicaragua, where they were sheltered by missionaries of the Beachy Amish Mennonites, sect members have acknowledged. The group believes that same-sex marriage is a sin.

Mr. Miller contacted a fellow pastor in Nicaragua to ask if he would buy one-way airplane tickets for Ms. Miller and her daughter, meet them at the Managua airport and arrange a place to stay, according to recovered e-mails, telephone records and the deposition of the missionary in Nicaragua.

Ms. Miller and Isabella remain missing, but federal agents believe they remain in hiding somewhere in Nicaragua, possibly with covert help from conservative Christians.

How Kenneth Miller met Lisa Miller and who drove the pair to the Canadian border so they could fly from Toronto remain mysteries.

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