Randy Miland Back and Neck Pain Center Randy Miland - Theft by Swindle St. Paul, Minnesota

Randy Miland

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS In the '90s, Miland operated a chiropractic firm in Woodbury known as the Back and Neck Pain Clinic. In 1996, he began soliciting short-term loans from friends and patients. The money was supposedly going to be used to seed new Blockbuster Video franchises.

Miland claimed that he had a personal connection with the corporation and could produce extravagant returns of 25 to 30 percent for investors in just three months. Between 1996 and 1998, according to a criminal complaint, he collected more than $1.2 million from at least 21 people. But instead of investing the money in video stores, Miland squandered it on his hedonistic lifestyle, heavy on strippers and booze. When disgruntled investors successfully sued him in court, he generally either ignored the judgments or wrote them bad checks. Barbara Benassi and Robert Harvey, for instance, got a default judgment of $277,671 against Miland in Washington County District Court, but were unable to collect on the debt.

In October 1998, Miland was charged with five counts of theft by swindle. He eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced to up to 55 months in prison. However, because he participated in Minnesota's "Challenger Incarceration Program," which emphasizes intense work and chemical dependency treatment, Miland ultimately served six months incarceration.

FUN FACT In 1997, Miland and the Back and Neck Pain Clinic were sued by his former fiance, Gina Benassi, in Washington County District Court. Miland responded by filing a counterclaim seeking return of the $24,000 engagement ring that he'd given her. In 2001, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ultimately declared Miland the ring's proper owner.

QUOTE Robert Harvey, testifying at Miland's 1999 sentencing: "And I believe, Randy, that you preyed on the vulnerable patients, your friends and your professional associates, and I resent that personally because of the status that you had.... And then when I learned, as we all did, of the spending of the monies that we had invested, spending thousands of dollars as Doctor Big Shot in all the strip joints, feeding your sexual addiction, I don't know what else to call it, on drugs and girls and the lifestyle... I can't tell you how much that hurts."

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