John-Paul Miller's Myrtle Beach church was his piggybank and status symbol, lawsuit claims
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WBTW) — At one point in the middle of 2024, John-Paul Miller controlled a nearly $6 million real estate portfolio that included a private plane and huge swath of land along Highway 17 Bypass.
The Solid Rock Church pastor was never shy about sharing his fascination with money — he called it 'the most fascinating subject to me in the Bible' during a February 2021 sermon.
'But this image was a lie,' is how a 43-page lawsuit filed Tuesday against Miller, his father Reginald Wayne and their consortium of ministries begins. ' It was part of a calculated plan to groom victims while simultaneously gaining the community's trust and financial support.'
Timeline: The saga of John-Paul and Mica Miller
The suit claims that the Millers 'presented themselves as devout religious leaders' through the years and ran the churches 'for their own personal financial gain,' while also using 'their positions of power to manipulate and exploit vulnerable victims while concealing their actions from the public.'
John-Paul Miller has repeatedly refused to speak with News13, which also reached out to him Tuesday for this story. Attorney Russell Long, who has represented Miller in other legal matters, declined comment when contacted by News13 on Tuesday.
The complaint — filed by an anonymous woman who said John-Paul raped her when she was 15 years old in 1998 — also pulls apart the church's financial standing in a bid to prevent a cap on damages due to ecclesiastical and nonprofit protections.
Sunday rock and roll, ministry trips to Kenya and plans to construct a lavish school on that prized piece of Horry County property on Highway 17 were all part of the Miller brand — partly on the strength of tithes from his followers.
News13 has been investigating John-Paul Miller and his Solid Rock Ministries for a nearly a year — ever since his wife Mica died by suicide last April at Lumber River State Park in Robeson County amid allegations of abuse and a contentious divorce proceeding.
Since that time, a flurry of lawsuits against and by John-Paul Miller have wound through Horry County's court system — many of them adding context and new details about his troubled past.
Tuesday's lawsuit is the first that takes aim at the Millers' evangelical empire, which began with Reginald in the early 1970s in Florence and migrated to Myrtle Beach in 1993.
Two years later, Reginald acquired property at 803 Howard Ave., paying the U.S. Air Force $280,000 for a site that now sits inside The Market Common.
Beginning as Cathedral Baptist Church and then All Nations Church, the 2.31-acre parcel was transferred to John-Paul in 2013 under the Solid Rock name — his son created the ministry seven years earlier.
In 2014, Reginald Miller took a deal with federal prosecutors after pleading guilty to fraud in foreign labor contracting, visa fraud and willful failure to pay minimum wage — all stemming from claims that they worked at Miller's Cathedral Bible College under a 'pervasive climate of fear and intimidation' that includes being forced to work at Miller's home unpaid, deprivation of food and water and threats to eliminate their visa status.
Miller was charged with crimes that carried a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.
'Though the names have changed over the years … (all) are not separate and distinct entities but rather a continuing joint enterprise under the exclusive control of RWM and JPM, evolving over time through strategic name changes and restructuring to maintain their influence, evade scrutiny and shield assets from liability,' the lawsuit claims.
Among Jane Doe's allegations is that the Millers violated South Carolina's Unfair Trade Practices Act and shouldn't be granted 'charitable immunity' under state if found liable for her rape.
'While allowing John-Paul Miller to be a church leader may involve ecclesiastical considerations, the training, supervision and monitoring of Miller to prevent the abuse of minors is a secular obligation governed by neutral principles of law, which Defendants failed to uphold,' the lawsuit claims.
Solid Rock Church on Feb. 13 was purchased by Salem Woods Holdings LLC for $2.1 million. By that time, its membership had dwindled to nearly nothing as controversy dogged John-Paul after his wife's death — punctuated by weekly 'Justice for Mica' protests across the street on Sundays.
But back in 2021, Miller explained why tithing was such an important part of his life — and needed to be for his churchgoers as well.
'All growing up, I saw Christians manipulate each other financially, I've seen spouses break up and have horrible marriages because they fight about money, I've seen friendships that were supposed to last forever disintegrate because of money,' he said at a sermon.
Miller said he would ask the church's bookkeeper for tithing information on congregants if they expressed interest in taking on a leadership role or 'cause me a whole bunch of problems.'
Tithing is the practice of giving 10% of a person's income to support a church or religious community.
Miller said he began tithing in 2003 after a religious conversion. Solid Rock Church earned its federal tax-exempt status in 2015.
'Let's say you meet somebody and you start to fall in love and you really want to get to know them, because we can all put on a good face, we can all fake people out, if you really want to know somebody, look at their bank account,' Miller said. 'Imagine telling somebody, 'I love you,' but they never ever spend any money on you.'
While Solid Rock Ministries doesn't claim a denomination, marketing materials labelled it as 'Christian.'
On Solid Rock's now defunct website, John-Paul Miller started one section by saying 'I am the richest person on the planet.'
The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability — which counts more than 2,700 affiliates nationwide — does not include Solid Rock Ministries among them, according to its websiteGround Zero in Myrtle Beach and WMBJ FM based in Murrells Inlet are ECFA members.
On its website, Solid Rock explained how its finances were split: A third on ministry purposes including local, national and international mission work, a third for employment and third for maintenance and operations.
* * *
Adam Benson joined the News13 digital team in January 2024. He is a veteran South Carolina reporter with previous stops at the Greenwood Index-Journal, Post & Courier and The Sun News in Myrtle Beach. Adam is a Boston native and University of Utah graduate. Follow Adam on X, formerly Twitter, at @AdamNewshound12. See more of his work here.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Just after dawn on May 29, the swish of chains dragging on asphalt was loud enough to be heard over idling engines. Roughly 70 men shuffled across the tarmac toward a chartered jet that would take them to Nicaragua. Before boarding, guards patted each down, looking for hidden weapons, unlocking and relocking their restraints, and directing them to make the awkward ascent up the stairs to the plane. One of the men, wearing a black hoodie, shook the chains around his wrists at a guard and said, 'Como perros! Como perros!' (Like dogs.) Once the detainees were on board, agents brought in a van with dozens of women, also manacled, to board next. Then came the only migrants without chains: family units. A woman with her teenage son got on first, followed by a woman with her young daughter. By the time the flight lifted off, there were 118 passengers on board. Whether Cristian will end up on one of these planes isn't yet clear. In May he was let out of Jena on a $4,000 bond. 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Others depict a lion; a rose; and a razor blade on the side of his neck—a symbol of his work as a barber, according to his wife. She says he has no criminal record in the U.S. or Venezuela. 'They were only looking at his tattoos,' Johanny says. Outside of CECOT's Module 7, Garcia, the warden, brings out a Styrofoam container with a hamburger, French fries, ketchup packs, and Milano cookies. This is a typical meal for the Venezuelan inmates, he says. Their diet was devised by Bukele, who instructed they be fed fast food to gain weight, as a way of trolling critics who argue CECOT's conditions are inhumane, according to Salvadoran sources. 'It's a cat-and-mouse game,' says one person close to Bukele. The maneuver is similar to the photo op Bukele staged when Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador to meet with Abrego Garcia. The pair were photographed sitting poolside with what Van Hollen said were 'fake' margaritas. (Abrego Garcia was returned to the U.S. in early June.) After the tour of the prison, Garcia allows TIME to interview one inmate in a holding area near the unit's entrance. The man says his name is Hector Hernandez. He appears to be the nightmare that Trump has conjured time and again on the campaign trail. He says he is an MS-13 member, and has tattoos all over his body, from his face and neck to his forearms. The prisoner claims that before he was deported in 2019 and apprehended by Salvadoran authorities, he murdered 50 people in Northern Virginia—more than three times the number of reported murders in Prince William or Fairfax counties for that year. TIME was unable to verify the details provided by the prisoner, including his name, his alleged crimes, or how he came to be there. Inside CECOT, the extreme terminus for Trump's deportation program, the truth, like everything else, is under the control of the authorities. What is clear, however, are the draconian conditions to which the Salvadoran inmates at CECOT are subjected. They are under constant surveillance. The lights never go off. They share cells with rival gang members. Prisoners who get out of line face up to 14 days in pitch-black solitary confinement, says Garcia. For the past 2½ years, the man who identifies himself as Hector Hernandez says, he's had no communication with the outside world. He hasn't spoken to family. He hasn't seen or read a news report. He doesn't know who the President of the United States is. — With reporting by Harry Booth, Leslie Dickstein, and Tharin Pillay Must-Reads from TIME As Trump Seeks Mass Deportations, Workplace Raids May Not Help Much As Trump Vies to Blows Up Border Deal, Migrant Crisis Could Get Worse How a Dead Border Deal Led to a Trump-Biden Border Duel Can One Agency Keep the U.S. Safe and Still Be Humane? 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Baptist college in Georgia places president on leave as it probes whether he ignored sexual abuse
CLEVELAND, Ga. -- A Baptist college in northeast Georgia has placed its president on leave while it investigates whether he ignored claims that a former administrator was abusing students. Trustees at Truett McConnell University in Cleveland announced on Friday that they had placed Emil Caner on leave. They said they hired an investigator to examine claims that a former administrator and professor sexually assaulted a woman who was a student and later a university employee. She claims she was assaulted when she went to the administrator's home for Bible study. Trustees also named John Yarborough, the director of alumni and public policy, as acting president. Southern Baptists have faced allegations that hundreds of church leaders and workers have abused people over the years and that the denominaton hasn't done enough to prevent abuse. The former student made the allegations on a podcast on May 29. Truett McConnell issued a statement May 30, saying that it first became aware of the allegations in February 2024, when the administrator informed the university he was under investigation by the White County Sheriff's Office 'regarding an inappropriate relationship.' The 3,100-student university says the administrator's employment ended within days and that school leaders later learned that the administrator had sent 'hundreds' of 'sexually-explicit and theologically-twisted' emails from a personal account. Sheriff's deputies concluded there wasn't enough evidence to seek criminal charges, the university said. The sheriff's office didn't immediately respond Monday to a phone call and email seeking comment. A lawyer for the former student contacted the university in February, Truett McConnell said. The student alleged in the podcast that she was repeatedly sexually assaulted at the administrator's home. Marcia Shein, the former student's lawyer, said Monday that the university knew about the claims well before 2024. She said a petition complaining about the administrator's behavior was ignored. The university replied that it 'takes all allegations of sexual misconduct seriously' and that if a formal complaint had been filed, the administrator 'would have been immediately investigated and ultimately dismissed.' Shein said the student hasn't sued Truett McConnell because she is blocked by Georgia's four-year statue of limitations on civil lawsuits. However, Shein said White County District Attorney Jeff Langley has told Shein's investigator that he is taking a renewed look at the case. Several alumni demonstrated on campus Friday as trustees met, saying the university hasn't done enough. Brianna Derryberry, a 2017 graduate, held a sign saying, 'Your silence says more than your slogan.' 'I truly believe that there has been a lot that has been covered up,' Derryberry told WDUN-AM. 'I've just been praying that the darkness won't be there anymore and that the truth will come out.'
