DRUG ARREST TESTS THE CHARMED LIFE OF EX-PROSECUTOR

Tips lead to police raid on home

Will Miller, a former prosecutor who put bad guys away in New York and
Seattle, now faces five felony drug charges and the possibility of spending
10 years in prison.

After officers battered down his front door Tuesday night, they found
syringes in an upstairs office, a small amount of methamphetamine
downstairs and Miller hiding in his attic.

It was a stunning reversal for a man who seemed to have lived a charmed
life inside and outside a courtroom. He prosecuted crooks in New York City,
and then Seattle, winning promotions along the way.

Luck seemed on his side. Eight years ago, muggers shot Miller in the head,
but he was barely scratched. Last year, Miller walked into the King County
Courthouse only to have security officers discover a drug pipe and a small
amount of methamphetamine in his briefcase.

Prosecutors never charged Miller, although the incident did force him to
resign as a deputy prosecutor in King County and go into private practice.

But two months after the state Attorney General's Office decided that it
couldn't make a case against Miller, he allegedly began selling
methamphetamine to an undercover detective.

Court documents filed yesterday say he sold an ounce of suspected
methamphetamine three times this year for $1,000 each time to the
undercover detective. Subsequent tests on the suspected drugs showed that
they contained amphetamine.

The investigation culminated Tuesday night, when the detective arranged to
buy 3 ounces of methamphetamine.

Officers with the King County Sheriff's Office battered down the front door
of Miller's home in Seattle's Crown Hill neighborhood. Officers arrested
Miller in his attic and searched the house. They found a scale, several
syringes and a small amount of methamphetamine, according to court documents.

A 28-year-old man who court papers say was Miller's source for the drugs
also was arrested. The man has yet to be charged. But court documents say
he had gone to his car to get the drugs after the uncover officer paid
$2,400 for them.

Miller was being held in a special unit of the King County Jail last night.
Prosecutors have asked that bail of $50,000 be set, arguing that Miller is
a flight risk and a threat to the community based on his drug trafficking.

What proved to be Miller's undoing was a former roommate who had been his
alibi in the courthouse incident. A King County detective who investigated
the incident left a business card with the roommate, identified in court
documents as Jeff Vinson.

Vinson later called the detective with information about Miller, sparking
the investigation, said Jerrell Wills, a spokesman for the King County
Sheriff's Office. "He felt somehow betrayed," Wills said.

The alleged drug buys and arrest took place inSeattle, but sheriff's
officers rather than Seattle police handled the investigation because the
sheriff's officers had worked with Vinson last year when they investigated
the courthouse incident, Wills said.

The Attorney General's Office, which took several months to decide not to
prosecute Miller last year, acted swiftly this week. The office, which is
handling the case to avoid any conflict of interest involving local
prosecutors, filed three charges of delivering amphetamine to the
undercover detective, one charge of trying to deliver amphetamine and one
charge of possession of methamphetamine.

Miller faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $25,000 if convicted.

A conviction would be a reversal of fortune for Miller, who once was a
respected prosecutor in New York and Seattle.

He joined the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office in 1988 and became a
prosecutor specializing in sex crimes. In 1991, Miller found himself on the
wrong side of a gun when a bullet grazed his temple during a mugging in
Brooklyn, according to the Long Island newspaper Newsday.

Fellow prosecutors in Seattle say Miller kept a laminated copy of a New
York Post story on the shooting in his office. It proclaimed him a
"miracle" prosecutor.

Late in 1991, the Queens District Attorney's Office hired Miller, putting
him in the special victims bureau. Miller also volunteered as a liaison to
the gay and lesbian community. A year later, Miller handled a high-profile
investigation of a Korean gang suspected of such crimes as kidnapping,
robbery and rape.

He joined the King County Prosecutor's Office in November 1995, first
handling juvenile cases, then moving to the so-called trial team, where he
prosecuted car thefts, burglaries and assaults.

In New York, he was known as D. Willas Miller. In Seattle, co-workers knew
him as Will Miller.

By March of last year, Miller was supervising new prosecutors working
mostly misdemeanor cases in District Court. In fact, he was on his way to
supervise the prosecution of a drunken-driving case March 2 when the pipe
and other items were found in his briefcase.

That incident resulted in the possession charge that was lodged against
Miller yesterday. In November, Greg Canova, chief criminal prosecutor in
the Attorney General's Office, said he couldn't file charges over the
incident and expect to win.

Miller contended at the time that he didn't know the drug pipe and drugs
were in his briefcase, and that they weren't his.

Yesterday, however, Canova said he has new evidence to support a charge
over the courthouse incident. He would not identify the new evidence.

Last year, Vinson told investigators that the pipe and a scale found in the
briefcase were his. He said the pipe and scale were in a plastic box that
he had lent to an acquaintance, who might have been a drug dealer.

Vinson got the box back and put it in Miller's briefcase March 1. The two
had an argument, and Vinson left, neglecting to tell Miller about the box.

The undercover investigation that began in January led to Miller's home on
Eighth Avenue Northwest near Northwest 80th Street.

Neighbors said they had little contact with Miller, who kept the drapes
closed on his little brick home most of the time.

However, at least one neighbor, Gowri Shankar, suspected something strange
was going on at Miller's home. Monday at 11:15 p.m., a young man dress in
socks, pants and a T-shirt knocked on Shankar's door. The young man said he
had been locked out of Miller's home and asked to use the telephone.

The next morning, Shankar introduced himself to Miller, who said he had had
an electrical fire. Shankar said he wondered aloud to his wife whether the
fire was the result of a methamphetamine lab inside the house.

"There was always something going on there -- a lot of activity," he said.

But other neighbors said they saw little, until just after suppertime
Tuesday night when they heard officers battering open Miller's front door.