AUBURN – A man whose Newbury Street apartment burned in an arson fire last month was charged this week with three counts of sexually assaulting young girls.
Clifford J. Miller Jr., 46, of 127 Newbury St., was indicted on two counts of gross sexual assault and a charge of unlawful sexual contact.
The charges date back to 1998 and involve two different girls who were under the age of 14 at the time, according to court documents.
Miller is accused of having sex with one young girl in June and July of 1998 and another on March 12 of this year.
Miller was indicted by the Androscoggin County grand jury when it rose on Wednesday. A summons was issued for his arrest, but he remained free on Friday. Court documents listed his last known whereabouts as Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston.
Miller was in the hospital the night of March 22 when fire ripped through a tenement building at Main and Newbury streets, police said. The fire started in a fourth-story apartment leased by Miller and his wife, Rebecca Lombard Miller, according to court documents.
Police and fire officials said the blaze that destroyed the apartment building was set by 35-year-old Kenneth Rideout, who had been visiting Rebecca that night. Investigators said Rideout set the fire in retaliation after he was punched in the face by a man who lived on the third floor of the building.
Rideout was arrested on a charge of arson a few days after the blaze. On Friday, he was in Androscoggin County Superior Court, where he denied the charge. His bail was increased at the court hearing to $100,000 cash, and he was returned to jail.
Miller and Rideout were among a handful of people indicted by the April session of the grand jury. Several of the suspects who were indicted appeared in Superior Court Friday morning for arraignments. Among them, a group of Portland area teenagers accused in a Lewiston mugging last month and a pair of men charged with breaking into Saints Peter and Paul Church late last year.
Khiron Kinney and Carl Harrington, both 22, of Auburn, each entered a plea of not guilty Friday to charges of burglary and theft stemming from the Dec. 29 break-in at the Ash Street church. Each remained free on bail.
Also in court were three 18-year-old teens accused of beating a man with a metal hook and stealing his wallet in an early morning attack on Lisbon Street in Lewiston.
Tim Desjardins of South Portland, Kevin Martin of Portland, and Brandyn Dow of Scarborough each entered not guilty pleas Friday to charges of robbery.
Bail for Martin and Desjardins remained at $25,000 each. Bail for Dow was set at $2,500. The three suspects were returned to jail. A fourth teen, a 17-year-old accused in the attack, has not been identified.
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