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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
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TJ Miller Arrested Over 911 Call After Amtrak Ejection

The comedian T.J. Miller paid a $100,000 bond on Tuesday after he was accused of reporting a fake bomb threat on a train that had kicked him off for being drunk.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (CN) - The comedian T.J. Miller paid a $100,000 bond on Tuesday after he was accused of reporting a fake bomb threat on a train that had kicked him off for being drunk.

Though charged in Connecticut, 36-year-old Miller, who has starred on HBO’s “Silicon Valley” and as himself on HBO’s “Crashing,” was arrested the night before at New York’s LaGuardia Airport.

Prosecutors say his altercation on an Amtrak train traveling from Washington, D.C., toward Penn Station in Manhattan occurred on March 18, 2018.

That evening, according to the criminal complaint, Miller appeared intoxicated to train attendants when he boarded in Washington, then proceeded to consume two glasses of wine and two double scotch and sodas.

Before he was ejected at Penn Station, as told to investigators, Miller got “into a screaming match” with one of the passengers in the first-class cabin, apparently miffed that he had been admonished for talking loudly on his phone, while the woman was making calls as well, albeit in a more quiet tone, according to the complaint.

FBI Officer Daniel Sentementes notes in his sworn April 9 affidavit that Miller did not disclose any of this information when he called 911 on March 18 to report that he was on an Amtrak train and had observed that one of the other passengers “has a bomb in her bag.”

Miller allegedly gave the wrong train number, and this train suffered a delay of one hour and 22 minutes that night while law enforcement conducted an ultimately fruitless search for the bomb.

An Amtrak police officer called Miller during this search, according to the complaint, and detected slurring in his voice.

Sentementes says Miller admitted to having consumed “one glass of red wine” and denied that he suffered from mental illness.

“This is the first time I’ve ever made a call like this before,” he said, according to the affidavit. “I am worried for everyone on that train. Someone has to check that lady out.”

The affidavit says officers ultimately located the train on which Miller had been a passenger and stopped it in Westport. While a search of this train also did not turn up any explosive devices, one of the train attendants pointed officers toward the female passenger with whom Miller had exchanged words.

Sentementes said this passenger, described as white woman with brown hair, appeared to stumble while disembarking from the train, and that one or more officers smelled alcohol on her.

She was not carrying any explosives, and the complaint says Miller would not have been able to get a look at her bags from where they were each sitting on the train.

Miller and this woman’s train experienced a delay of one hour and five minutes for this investigation, and two other trains were delayed for 50 minutes and 27 minutes respectively that night.

Amtrak spokesman Jason Abrams noted that the train company “is working with local and federal authorities on this matter.”

The last year has been one of upheaval for Miller. Though a fan favorite on “Silicon Valley,” the actor was written off the show last season and vowed in an interview with Vanity Fair that he would “never” return.

In December 2017, The Daily Beast ran a story in which an anonymous former classmate of Miller’s at George Washington University accused the comedian of hitting and sexually assaulting her. The woman said he punched her in the mouth during sex, fracturing her tooth, and on another occasion penetrated her with a beer bottle without her consent.

Miller and his wife, Kate, have denied the accusations.

Last year Miller also told reporters that an Uber driver who has accused him of battery is trying to extort him.

Miller will retain counsel for the proceedings in Connecticut, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office there has revealed. He is being represented in the meantime by federal defender Tracy Hayes.

Miller’s private attorney Karl Austen has not returned a request for comment.

Categories / Criminal, Entertainment, Trials

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