Man Who Helped Ex-Lesbian Mother Escape Country Faces Court

A man who helped a woman and her daughter flee the country after a complicated custody battle could face five years in prison.

Philip Zodhiates is on trial now after being indicted in 2014 for allegedly driving Lisa Miller and her daughter to Canada. He was part of a group of Mennonite pastors and missionaries to Nicaragua who helped the mother and daughter escape to South America.

Miller was fleeing a broken lesbian civil union where she had reason to believe her former partner was sexually abusing her daughter.

Miller and her former partner Janet Jenkins were legally bound in a civil union in Vermont in December 2000. Like many other couples, they dreamed of having a child one day. Lisa began having fertility treatments and gave birth to their daughter Isabella Ruth Miller-Jenkins in 2002.

Everything seemed perfect until their dream of motherhood soon turned into a nightmare of court battles, sexual abuse charges, and kidnap.

A year after Isabella was born, Miller and Jenkins separated and filed to end their civil union. During that time, Lisa went under a radical change. She became a Christian and renounced her homosexual lifestyle.

"It wasn't a struggle," Miller told The Washington Post in 2007. "I felt peace."

But that peace was tested when she was involved in an intense custody battle with her ex-partner. The Vermont court awarded custody to Miller and visitation rights to Jenkins. Miller challenged Jenkins' visitation rights when she suspected she was sexually abusing Isabella.

Miller testified that Isabella began having nightmares, wetting the bed, and touching herself inappropriately after her visits with Jenkins.

"Isabella came home and said, 'Mommy, will you please tell Janet that I don't have to take a bath anymore at her house,'" Miller told LifeSite News in 2008. "I asked her what happened. She said, 'Janet took a bath with me.' I asked her if she had a bathing suit on. 'No, Mommy.' She had no clothes on and it totally scared Isabella. She had never seen this woman except once in two and half years years and she takes a bath with her."

Isabella allegedly even threatened suicide.

"Isabella put a comb up to her neck and said she wanted to kill herself after one of the visits," Miller said. "She took a comb and pressed it into her neck and said, 'I want to kill myself.' I don't know where she got that. It was immediately after a visit. Other people have seen huge changes."

Miller tried to keep Isabella away from possible sexual abuse and her ex-partner's lesbian lifestyle.

She fought for sole custody but was denied. She refused to hand over her daughter and was later found in contempt of court. But before the court could transfer full custody from Miller to Jenkins, Miller and Isabella were gone.

Meanwhile, Jenkins is suing not only the group of people who helped Miller and her daughter escape, but also multiple churches, ministries, and Liberty University School of Law for their possible involvement.

Despite the legal drama, Miller and her daughter are still on the run and Isabella is well into her teen years.

Liberty Counsel's Rena M. Lindevaldsen, a counsel on Miller's case, says this is not about kidnapping but about a broken justice system.

"It's sad that in America a woman was faced with this choice," she said in a statement. "The court overstepped its bounds, calling someone a parent who is not a parent and turning a child over to a person who lives contrary to biblical truths."