T.J. Miller Bomb-Threat Charge Dropped; Feds Say Actor Agrees To “Cognitive Remediation” Program
Federal prosecutors in Connecticut have filed to dismiss the bomb-threat charge against former Silicon Valley star T.J. Miller over a 2018 incident involving an Amtrak train and a “false 911 call.”
A hearing is set for 1 p.m. ET Friday in Connecticut District Court, where the feds will move to have the case dismissed. Miller’s attorney agreed to the terms of the dismissal, prosecutors said.
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The Justice Department’s Connecticut office had indicted the actor in April 2018 for “intentionally conveying to law enforcement false information about an explosive device on a train.” The original complaint (read it here) said the actor had been on an Amtrak train from Washington, D.C., heading to New York when he called 911 to report that a female passenger “has a bomb in her bag.”
Miller was arrested at New York’s La Guardia Airport on April 9, 2018, and released on $100,000 bond.
In Thursday’s filing (read it here), prosecutors said their decision was based on “expert medical analyses and reports regarding the defendant’s prior brain surgery and its continued neurological impacts, which cast doubt upon the requisite legal element of intent to commit the charged offense.” Miller had undergone brain surgery several years ago after having a hemorrhage and multiple seizures. He said “a golf ball-sized” piece of his frontal lobe was removed.
The feds’ filing Thursday also Miller agreed to “make full financial restitution for the costs of the law enforcement response to the false 911 call, and to continue a thorough and necessary program of Cognitive Remediation to render any recurrence of such conduct most highly unlikely.”
Miller’s preliminary hearing in the actor’s case had scheduled for March 31, 2020, after a number of postponements, but then was delayed again as the pandemic took hold. He had faced up to five years in federal prison if convicted.
The actor had endured a number of legal problems since breaking out for his role as Erlich Bachman on the HBO series Silicon Valley. He was arrested in the assault of a Los Angeles-area Uber driver in 2016 and saw sexual assault allegations from his college days resurface, which he denied. He also made headlines in 2017 when he abruptly announced that he was walking away from Silicon Valley. “The producers of Silicon Valley and T.J. Miller have mutually agreed that T.J. will not return for Season 5,” HBO said in a statement at the time.
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