A former doctor from Arizona pleaded guilty to manslaughter on Tuesday and was sentenced to five years’ probation after admitting that he had helped a 59-year-old woman kill herself in a motel room in the Hudson Valley in New York last fall.
The former doctor, Stephen P. Miller, entered his plea and received his sentence during a brief appearance in Ulster County Court. The deal came about seven months after he was charged for his role in the asphyxiation death of the woman, Doreen Brodhead.
Mr. Miller, 85, had pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter count and two assault charges in February. Under an agreement with the Ulster County district attorney’s office, the assault counts were dropped. He had faced a potential prison term of five to 15 years on the manslaughter charge and up to 25 years if convicted on all counts.
Mr. Miller did not make a statement in court and declined to comment afterward. One of his lawyers, Jeffrey Lichtman, said outside court that his client had acted compassionately in helping Ms. Brodhead fulfill her wishes but acknowledged that Mr. Miller had flouted New York’s law against assisting in a suicide.
“Technically, he violated the law, and we accept that,” Mr. Lichtman said. Nonetheless, he added, “morally, Stephen Miller did nothing wrong.”
A spokeswoman for the Ulster County district attorney, Emmanuel C. Nneji, did not respond to a request for comment.
Assisted suicide prosecutions are rare in the United States. The most recent such case in New York appears to be one that involved an Ulster County woman who, according to The Daily Freeman of Kingston, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in her husband’s 2016 death. She, too, was sentenced to five years’ probation.
Ms. Brodhead’s body was found at around 11:15 a.m. on Nov. 9 on a bed in a Super 8 motel room in Kingston, N.Y. There was a note on the bed and a canister of nitrogen gas nearby.
Mr. Miller was charged after surveillance footage obtained by investigators showed him picking Ms. Brodhead up at her apartment on Nov. 8, accompanying her to get a tank of nitrogen, driving with her to the motel and carrying the tank to the room, according to court documents. He left at one point to buy a wrench because of a problem with the tank’s regulator, returned, and then left again after about an hour for Albany and a flight back to Arizona.
A firm believer in the idea that mentally competent adults have the right to set the terms of their deaths, Mr. Miller belongs to Choice and Dignity, a right-to-die group in Tucson, Ariz. He told the authorities it had been an act of mercy to help Ms. Brodhead end a life that chronic back and neck pain had turned into constant misery.
Ms. Brodhead’s mother told The New York Times in May that the pain had plagued her daughter for nearly 40 years. Even if New York were among the states where so-called medical aid in dying was legal, Doreen Brodhead would not have qualified because she did not have a terminal illness with no more than six months to live.
It is unclear how she first came into contact with Mr. Miller. Mr. Lichtman said on Tuesday that the two had communicated extensively for about six months before her death and that Mr. Miller had tried to talk Ms. Brodhead out of suicide before agreeing to help her.
Mr. Miller told investigators he had sat with Ms. Brodhead while she prepared to asphyxiate herself, court records show. She hesitated briefly, telling him she was going to miss her family, especially her mother. The two spoke further, and Ms. Brodhead proceeded as planned. Mr. Miller said that he had left after she took her last breath and that she had paid only his expenses.
Mr. Miller received a medical degree in 1964 and started his career as a pediatrician at hospitals in Chicago and Boston. For more than 25 years, he worked in California and Texas.
In 2006, court records show, he was convicted of federal tax evasion for hiding more than $1 million in income offshore with the help of a corrupt financial planner. He spent three years in prison. Regulators in Texas and California revoked his medical licenses, according to government documents; his licenses in Arizona and Massachusetts expired.
He told investigators he had traveled the country in recent years advising people who had decided to kill themselves. Without providing details, Mr. Lichtman told The Times in February that Mr. Miller had helped in several suicides.
“That part of his life is over,” Mr. Lichtman said on Tuesday.
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