Con Artist's Number Is Up Today

D.C. Prosecutors Seek Long Sentence in Fraud Case

Robert Franklin Miller greeted his victims in a swank office just blocks from the White House. It looked high-class, with its spiral staircase, appealing artwork, leather furniture, flat-screen televisions and seemingly busy employees.

Wearing a crisp suit, Miller promised potential investors quick and hefty profits. He showed them photographs of investment properties, displayed financial records and played a slide show celebrating the promise of American Funding and Investment Corp.

This was a company, according to Miller, that got homes on the cheap through foreclosures, then rehabilitated them for sale to buyers with bad credit histories.

Brenda Alston, 61, was among those who fell for the pitch. She gave Miller a check for $3,000 and eagerly awaited a dividend payment that never came. "I just feel violated all over," Alston said.

The cash vanished in the hands of a man who authorities say is one of the region's most prolific and indefatigable con artists. Citing his refusal to give up the con game, prosecutors are seeking a 130-year prison term at Miller's sentencing on fraud charges today at the federal courthouse in Washington. By contrast, former Enron chief executive Jeffrey K. Skilling got a 24-year term in one of America's most infamous scandals.

In his latest, biggest scam, Miller cheated Alston and others of almost $500,000 in 10 months, prosecutors said. Authorities estimate that he stole at least a million dollars over the years from at least 50 victims in the Washington, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Atlanta areas.

A smooth talker who drove a Corvette loaded with radar detectors and a police scanner, Miller has falsely claimed over the years to be a real estate investor, banker, lawyer, chiropractor, reggae record producer and police officer to impress his victims, authorities said.

Miller, 54, stole as easily from a former American Express business manager ($133,000) and an analyst for Freddie Mac ($25,000) as he did from a convenience store clerk ($30,000) and a struggling janitor at Verizon Center hoping to buy her first home ($7,200).

Even after his conviction last year on 11 counts of fraud -- his 17th conviction in almost 60 arrests -- Miller allegedly has continued his swindling ways from his jail cell. Authorities said he has tried to obtain millions in credit lines through false pretenses and befriended women through ads in tabloid magazines, promising marriage, jewelry and homes. He persuaded one to run a retail Web site for him and asked another to consider refinancing her home to help him raise cash, they said. He even tried to con a corporate loan broker over a D.C. jail phone line, they said.

"Like the calculation of Pi, Miller's criminal history has been endless," prosecutors John D. Griffith and Michael K. Atkinson wrote in court documents.

Miller's attorney, Jonathan Jeffress, a federal public defender, has asked U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon to impose as little as six years and five months behind bars. Jeffress argued at trial that Miller was a businessman, not a crook. He "was trying to build something, not steal it," Jeffress told the jury.

Miller did not respond to two letters seeking comment. But in a letter to the judge, he said prosecutors misled jurors. Then he went into a treatise on the art of lying.