Jerry Allegood, Staff Writer FAYETTEVILLE - An AWOL Special Forces soldier who eluded investigators for two weeks faces a court hearing May 5 on 53 charges of child sexual abuse stemming from 2004.

Scott Kendrick Miller, 38, is being held in lieu of $11 million bail pending the hearing in Cumberland County Superior Court. The U.S. Marshals Service said Miller, who was classified as absent without leave in March, was arrested after a search through casinos and a car chase at the Illinois-Kentucky border.

Diane Grant, spokeswoman for the Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, said she did not have information on Miller's rank or the nature of his duties.

Miller was assigned to the 3rd Special Forces Group. He was charged in 2004 with 17 counts of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, 17 counts of third-degree sexual exploitation and 19 counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor.

The charges cover a period from 2002 to Jan. 11, 2004. Miller was scheduled for court March 27 when he disappeared, said Debbie Tanna, a spokeswoman for the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department.

One indictment issued in June 2004 accused Miller of possessing and duplicating material that depicted a boy "5 to 12 years old" engaged in a sexual act. Court documents also accused him of taking indecent liberties with a girl who was about 9 years old.

In an affidavit for a search warrant in February 2004, a Cumberland County Sheriff's Department detective said that a young girl disclosed inappropriate touching to a friend; the friend told her mother.

The detective said the girl told police that Miller had touched her improperly while they were watching TV in her mother's bedroom. The girl was the daughter of a friend of Miller's.

Investigators searched Miller's home in Fayetteville and seized items including a computer, digital camera, digital video camera, camera film, videocassette tapes, CD-ROMs and "three pornographic teen test CD-ROMs," according to court documents.

Miller had been free on bond pending trial. He had been ordered to remain on the Army post. In a court document in April 2004, Miller said he was indigent. Authorities said in a motion in April 2004 that he should be restricted because, with his special forces background, he was "trained in eluding."

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