OMAHA -- Former Nebraska fullback Willie Miller, now an operating room nurse, took the stand in a Douglas County courtroom Wednesday and told jurors that NU Regent Jack Stark was a rock for him as a psychologist.
Miller said he leaned on Stark, who rose to prominence as the Nebraska football team’s psychologist, in good times and bad — and Stark proved to be a gentle, guiding force beyond football.
The same could be said for the start of a 10-minute phone call the two had in August 2020. They talked about the nursing program that Miller was about to embark on at Creighton and a relationship problem Miller was having. Stark was empathetic, encouraging and helpful.
Stark told Miller how proud he and other prominent Omahans, including businessman David Sokol and former Creighton Athletic Director Bruce Rasmussen, were of Miller and his recovery from alcohol and painkiller abuse, Miller testified. Stark, then the only candidate and soon-to-be winner of a spot on the NU Board of Regents, told Miller that he would use his connections to make Miller a top addiction specialist at the Nebraska Medical Center, Miller said. He also rattled off all the things he had done for Miller, including helping him get into Creighton’s nursing program, Miller said.
Then the conversation turned, abruptly.
Stark had learned that Miller was going to testify at a trial on behalf of their one-time mutual friend, Doug Anders, who was facing a charge of sexually assaulting a teen girl who worked out at Anders’ gym. Stark said he believed the teen accuser and would be testifying “in the strongest language” against Anders.
Miller said Stark became stern, angry, outspoken.
“He said, ‘I need you to know, Willie, my reputation is going to be on the line,’” Miller testified this week. “I am going on that stand. Doug has no chance of winning because I am going against him.
“What I’m going to need you to do is: I’m going to need you to not show up, need you to not testify (on Anders’ behalf). Because if you do, everything that I promised you, I will take away from you. And I can promise you that I can make things very difficult for you at Creighton.”
That accusation is the center of the trial this week against Stark on a charge of witness tampering — a felony punishable by up to three years in prison.
Stark’s attorneys, Mike Coyle and Joseph Naatz of Omaha, have left little unturned as they fight for Stark’s political life and reputation. Elected in 2020 as a regent governing Nebraska’s universities, Stark, 76, is expected to testify on his own behalf later in the trial. Among the highest-ranking elected officials in Nebraska to ever be charged with a felony, Stark is well known as a sports performance psychologist, having worked with Nebraska and Creighton athletes, NASCAR drivers and others.
Coyle told jurors that Miller’s account is nonsensical, unreliable and uncorroborated. He said that Stark, who was on the witness list because he had counseled Anders’ victim, had no motivation to intervene in Anders’ trial and noted that the only physical evidence that prosecutors have is a text in which Stark tells Miller “do what you want.”
In the Aug. 13, 2020, text, Stark told Miller he had heard from prosecutors that Miller was a defense witness. “Do what you want but I will be testifying against (Anders) in the strongest language and if you want to know more let me know. Doubt if you are involved but just letting you know.”
The next day, the two spoke by phone. Under questioning from prosecutor Mike Guinan, an assistant attorney general, Miller said Stark was the one who brought up the Anders trial.
“He said, ‘They don’t need you because they have a ton of other witnesses,’” Miller said. “He says, ‘It’s simple. You let (your attorney) know that you can’t testify and that you’re not going to show up for this deal because your classes start at Creighton and you’re in the accelerated (nursing) program. They’ll understand that because everyone knows how difficult a program that is.’”
Guinan asked the tone of the conversation.
“His tone was angry,” Miller said. “He was angry. This was not a conversation. Once he brought it up, there was no talking, no two-way, no interaction. There was him yelling.”
What was Miller’s reaction?
“I was freaking out,” he told jurors. “Jack is a person who has helped me a ton. I don’t know where this is coming from. All I know is I’ve got a lot hanging on the line here. I just got into Creighton. The last thing I’m going to try to do is piss off the person who is helping me.”
Miller said Stark had helped him through good times and bad.
After his Husker football career ended, Miller testified that he struggled to find his outlet and purpose, suffering through failed marriages, a fledgling career and massive weight gain. He ballooned to more than 400 pounds at one point, was “popping pain pills like they were Skittles,” lost his job and lived at the Salvation Army for two years. He persevered through all of that to come out the other side weighing less than his playing weight, earning a Creighton degree in nursing — and now serving as a registered nurse for a local hospital system.
Miller said he knew Stark, then the football team’s performance psychologist, throughout college, from 1996 to 2000. By the end of his Husker career, Miller said he relied on him for personal issues — some of them related to family, some of them related to Nebraska’s fans.
“We have a lot of wonderful fans,” Miller testified. “It just takes one person — I got some hate mail. One said specifically you shouldn’t be playing our position, (N-word).”
From then on, Miller said, he didn’t open another piece of fan mail. But that wasn’t the only time that Miller says he was subjected to the N-word.
The trial delved into Miller’s rocky past, including his felony road-rage conviction for the April 2008 daytime, rear-end ramming of an off-duty Omaha police officer’s car on 132nd Street in Omaha. Miller, who received probation after being convicted of criminal mischief, testified this week that the off-duty officer twice called him the N-word, which set off Miller. The assertion that the officer used the N-word did not appear in 2008 reports about the crash — nor was it heard in a 911 call the officer made when Miller was yelling at him. An attorney also didn’t recall it coming up at Miller’s 2009 trial over the road rage.
Turning to this case, Coyle cast Miller as a supporter of a child rapist, ripping his testimony on behalf of Anders.
The attorney criticized Miller’s assertion that he was only there to testify that, in working out at Anders’ gym, he never saw anything untoward between Anders and the girl. He suggested that Miller went far beyond that account when he testified that, as a communications major, he is able to pick up on “nonverbal cues” — and that the girl wasn’t giving any such signal that she and Anders were engaged in a sexual relationship.
A judge ultimately convicted Anders — and the 61-year-old is serving up to 15 years in prison.
Coyle suggested that Anders was obsessed with trying to discredit Stark, once he found out that Stark was going to testify on behalf of the victim. Coyle pointed out Anders’ numerous texts to Miller, asking him for updates on whether he had reported Stark to police or to state administrators who oversee Stark’s professional license.
Miller said he did tell his attorney, Woody Bradford, who in turn called Omaha police. He also acknowledged he filed a report with the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, in the hopes that they might do something to Stark’s license.
HHS officials declined to do so, writing that the accusations were unfounded.
Coyle called Anders and his friends “a cabal” who were out to get Stark.
Miller: “It’s not a cabal.”
Coyle: “You have a nursing license; I have a law license. Filing a complaint against someone’s professional license is a big deal, isn’t it?”
Miller: “That’s why I did it.”
Coyle also pointed out that just two days after the purported threat, Miller sent a text to Stark with his new home address.
If he was so afraid of Stark, why would he give him his new location? Coyle asked.
Miller’s response: “Because at the time I was doing what he asked me to do” and not testifying.
Upon further reflection, Miller said, he decided he couldn’t skip testifying. For one thing, it wouldn’t be right to not testify about what he saw or didn’t see.
For another, he said: “My sobriety is the most important thing to me. One of the things you do is to play the tape forward. What do you see happening? I saw myself getting all (that Stark promised) based on doing the wrong thing. So what happens when Jack comes to me and asks me to do something else? When does it stop? That’s when I knew, I can’t do that.”
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