An Elizabethtown man was sentenced to 18 to 36 years in prison last Thursday after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography on three different dockets.

Philip Miller, 64 of the 800 block of Rutts Road, pleaded guilty to five felony counts of possessing child pornography and three felony counts of criminal use of a communication facility before Lancaster County Judge David Ashworth.

“Despite having previously been convicted of possessing child pornography, Philip Miller continued to download large amounts of it,” prosecuting Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Lapp said. “Even after his phone was seized and he was charged in Jan. 2023, he obtained a new phone and continued to download and possess child pornography on both his cell phone and work computers. His conduct displays not only a disregard for the law, but for the decency of the children who are victimized in the making of child pornography.”

Investigators received a cybertip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) on Oct., 21, 2022, tracing child pornography to Miller’s phone. A search warrant on Nov. 17, 2022, revealed 59 videos depicting indecent contact and five videos of naked children.

While that case was still being investigated, a new NCMEC cybertip generated from the same cell phone number still registered to Miller. Another search warrant was executed on the phone on March 28, 2023, which revealed three pictures with indecent contact, one naked picture, and seven videos of indecent contact of children.

New charges were filed, and Miller was arrested on April 20, 2023.

On April 28, 2023, Employees of Miller reported that when they were assisting customers get a form for Lincoln Financial on Miller’s computer, they typed in “Li” and “Litle girls 9-11” popped up as a prior search.

The witness further reported that Miller told another coworker to get rid of a hard drive and ram located in his office shortly before his arrest.

A search warrant was executed at Miller’s tax office located in the 300 block of South Market Street and the hard drive and desktop computer were recovered from Miller’s office containing one video with indecent contact, 75 images with indecent contact, 26 images of naked children over the age of 10, and 23 images of naked children under the age of 10.

Additional charges were then filed on May 18, 2023.

Miller had previously been convicted of possessing child pornography in 2008.

Northwest Regional Police Detective Charles Tobias filed charges and investigated the case.

MEDIA CONTACT: Sean McBryan, semcbryan@co.lancaster.pa.us; Twitter: @SeanMcBryanLanc.