Man Innocent in Animal-Cruelty Case : Courts: Jury splits over guilt of his father, Stuart Miller, who may be retried. A deer died on family’s Christmas tree lot.

The holidays may be over for the rest of the San Fernando Valley, but they’re still haunting the Miller family.

On Thursday, William Miller was found not guilty of cruelty-to-animals charges in connection with the death of a deer that had been displayed at one of his family’s Christmas tree lots. And the same jury failed to reach a verdict on whether to convict his father, Stuart Miller, of the same charges.

The Millers were accused of neglect and cruelty after animal control officers found a deer, its antlers entangled in a chicken-wire fence, on property Stuart Miller owns in Granada Hills, said Deputy City Atty. Norman Wegener. The officer tied up the animal and called for backup, but it died before help arrived, Wegener said. The defense argued that the animal would not have died had it not been tied up.

They accused animal control officers of seeking publicity about the deer’s condition and keeping the animal tied up while they waited for a news photographer.

After three days of deliberations, the jury found William Miller innocent and deadlocked over whether to convict his father, coming two votes short of the unanimous decision needed for a guilty verdict.

Stuart Miller was found innocent of possessing wild animals without a license, but William was found guilty of the charge, which carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail or a $1,000 fine.

Wegener said he plans to retry Stuart Miller. “It’s clear that Stuart Miller kept the animal in conditions which exposed it to unnecessary suffering,” he said.

Wegener said he is also considering prosecuting his son, Ty Miller, 30. Ty Miller was responsible for maintaining the property where the deer died, Wegener said. The animal was one of eight kept on the property for use during the holiday season to portray reindeer on the family’s Christmas tree lots.

With a retrial looming for Stuart Miller and the possibility of new proceedings against Ty Miller, it is beginning to look like more holiday-themed litigation for the Millers, an unhappy prospect for a family whose business is based on holiday cheer.

“There are probably 100 to 150 families a day which came by to see those deer,” Stuart Miller said. Miller said his family has displayed deer on its tree lots for a decade.

“For 10 years have we been cruel to animals? No,” he said. “All of a sudden this city attorney thought there was a big story and ramrodded this to trial before Christmas.”

Wegener has said that it is ridiculous to claim that he prosecuted the Millers for the Yuletide headlines.

“Mr. Miller does not want to take responsibility for his actions,” Wegener said. “His attempt to focus the blame on someone else was in evidence during the trial.”

Richard Howard, an attorney for the Millers, conceded that conditions on the property were “not perfect,” but that didn’t mean the family caused the deer’s death.

The Millers displayed “negligence, perhaps, but not criminal negligence,” Howard said in an interview Thursday.

The senior Miller opened his first Christmas tree lot as a teen-ager in Granada Hills. The enterprise grew into Miller & Sons Christmas Tree Co., which billed itself the “McDonald’s of the Christmas tree business,” with as many as 50 lots around the state, including eight in the Valley. The Millers became widely known for their hardball business tactics, battling the rival Cicero family over the rights to sell trees on Pierce College land in what was dubbed “the Christmas tree wars.”

Stuart Miller said he closed the lots before last Christmas after filing for personal bankruptcy, a move he said was unrelated to the reindeer incident. Family members still maintain interest in Christmas tree farms in Oregon and are involved in some sales.