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Father pays daughter $200,000 over charge of long-ago sex abuse By CHRIS BRISTOL and JULIE SWENSEN A woman who sued her father using a little-known law that allows people to sue for abuse endured in childhood has accepted a $200,000 settlement, the woman's lawyer said Tuesday. The 34-year-old woman from the Portland area, identified only as "ML," accepted the settlement from her father, Norman Gene Miller, 56, of Medford, according to a statement issued by her Portland attorney, David Slader. The woman had filed suit in Jackson County, claiming her father had sexually abused her for nine years. The lawsuit was set to start next month. "After breaking my silence, I sued my father as an example for all survivors of incest and sexual abuse," the woman said in the statement. "I want other women who have been through the horrors of child abuse to know you are not alone, it is safe to speak out, you can fight back and win." A man who answered the phone at Miller's Medford residence said he wasn't interested in talking to the newspaper and hung up. His lawyer, Thomas C. Howser, began to say that his client strongly disputes the allegations, but then wouldn't comment further. Miller had denied the allegations in affidavits and sworn testimony, and said his daughter had made up the charges out of spite and greed. But his wife, who separated from Miller after the daughter told her of the abuse, tape-recorded a telephone conversation in October 1997 with Miller in which he admitted to molesting his daughter, although he quibbled over the specifics and definitions of abuse, Slader said. After the tape was played during a deposition in December 1998, Miller said he had told his wife he was guilty only to "appease" her, as she was "hung up" on the allegations and was making the divorce settlement difficult, Slader said. The woman sued under an Oregon statute in which adults younger than 24 can sue a person who abused them as a child, or a person who knowingly allowed the abuse to happen. Although the woman is older than 24, a provision of the law allows victims to sue within three years of the time they first realize their injuries were caused by abuse. The woman, who had been chronically depressed and suicidal at times, kept the alleged abuse a secret for two decades until telling a psychologist in 1997. Her father had told her no one would believe her, according to the statement. The woman learned through counseling that her emotional pain was caused by the reported abuse, the statement read. Slader said the statute is little known to most Oregonians. Before the law went into effect -- at least in 1991, he said -- it was very difficult for adults to sue. "The victims have been made to feel so powerless all their lives, and they can turn the tables from victim to victor. It's marvelously therapeutic." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA