A man accused of helping former lesbian Lisa Miller leave the United States in violation of a court order that she turn over custody of her daughter to the child’s other mother was arraigned in a federal court in Vermont on Monday, April 25.

The man, Timothy Miller (no relation to Lisa Miller), was charged with “international parental kidnapping,” a federal criminal charge. Magistrate Judge John M. Conroy required Miller, who spent time in Nicaragua as a missionary, to surrender his passport. He released Miller into the custody of a friend, Richard Huber of Pennsylvania, who posted a $25,000 unsecured bond.

Miller is ordered to appear again in federal district court in Burlington, Vermont, on May 10.

Specifically, Miller is charged with “aiding in removing a child from the United States …with intent to obstruct lawful exercise of parental right.”

An FBI statement filed with the federal district court in Burlington, Vermont, in relation to the arrest warrant for Timothy Miller indicated that Lisa Miller took her child to Mexico in September 2009 “with the intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of parental rights by Janet Jenkins,” her former civil union partner.

Miller was under increasing pressure, in September 2009, to allow Jenkins to exercise her right to visitation with their child. Miller had, with the help of a conservative legal group, Liberty Counsel, challenged court decisions in Vermont and Virginia, upholding Jenkins’ right to visitation.

By November 2009, a Vermont family court judge granted custody of the child to Jenkins, after Miller continued to resist the visitation orders. By February 2010, the judge issued a warrant for Miller’s arrest, saying she was in contempt of court. A judge in Virginia refused to issue an arrest warrant there, saying he could not be sure Miller was aware of the Vermont judge’s custody order. And Miller’s Liberty Counsel attorney, Mathew Staver, said he did not know where his client was.

FBI documents identify Timothy Miller as a pastor with an organization that supports charity missions by Amish, Mennonite, and Anabaptist groups and people. They also say Jenkins’ attorney, Sarah Star, received a call from someone who told her Timothy Miller sought supplies for Lisa Miller by sending a message through an administrative assistant at Liberty University Law School. The caller claimed Miller contacted the Liberty University staffer by going through the staffer’s father, conservative direct mail activist, Philip Zodhiates. The caller, who is not identified in the FBI document, said Lisa Miller and her daughter were staying at Zodhiates’ beach house in Nicaragua.

The Advocate magazine reached Zodhiates for comment and said he Lisa Miller and her daughter were not living at his home in Nicaragua and called the claim “absolutely absurd” before hanging up on the reporter.

Liberty Counsel attorney Staver, who is also dean of the Liberty University Law School, told the New York Times the Liberty Counsel firm had no contact with Lisa Miller since the fall of 2009 and that they knew nothing about the alleged communications between Timothy Miller and Zodhiates’ daughter.

Timothy Miller is due back in court on May 10.