Charges Against High-risk Sex Offender Dismissed

CANTON - A high-risk sex offender accused of failing to register a proper address had charges against him dismissed.

Raymond C. Miller, 37, was indicted in January on charges of failure to register as a sex offender and first-degree offering a false instrument for filing.

St. Lawrence County Judge Jerome J. Richards on Wednesday ruled the charges should be tossed because of a lack of evidence presented to a grand jury. A former lover of Mr. Miller also was allowed "to give clearly hostile testimony concerning the defendant, and the prosecutor neither interrupted her nor gave any cautionary instruction to the grand jury."

The judge's ruling does not stop prosecutors from refiling the charges against Mr. Miller.

Mr. Miller was accused of giving authorities the wrong address and telephone number when registering as a sex offender.

He was picked up Feb. 25 at an Albany bus station after he allegedly cut off a home-monitoring device and fled while police were attempting to arrest him for violating his probation, St. Lawrence County sheriff's deputies said.

He is a Level 3 sex offender owing to his 1996 conviction for the attempted first-degree rape of a 32-year-old woman in Schenectady. After his release from state prison in 2001, he moved to Potsdam and then to Massena. He had second-degree stalking charges dismissed in St. Lawrence County Court last year.

Mr. Miller is being held in St. Lawrence County jail.