John-Paul Miller sues paralegal for $6M, claims she slandered and libeled him on YouTube, TikTok

HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) — A Myrtle Beach pastor at the center of a News13 investigative series after his wife’s suicide in April is suing a paralegal for $6 million, alleging that she slandered and libeled him on TikTok and YouTube.

John-Paul Miller, pastor of the Solid Rock church in The Market Common, filed the lawsuit against Melissa Mancari in Horry County Common Pleas on Monday. It seeks $5 million in punitive damages and $1 million in actual damages.

The lawsuit also seeks an injunction to prevent Manacari from “making false statements” about Miller and to require her to remove all derogatory comments from her social media platforms.

Mancari made an appearance on “The Robbie Harvey” show, a YouTube channel with more than 105,000 subscribers, on or about Aug. 30, according to the lawsuit. She claimed to have spoken with Miller months prior on the phone, saying that he sought marital legal advice and told her he wanted to “destroy” his late wife, Mica, whose death was ruled a suicide by Robeson County authorities in early May.

“Defendant then went on in the interview proclaiming that she believed that Plaintiff either murdered his wife, or had a role in the death of his wife,” the lawsuit claims, adding that “neither of which is true.”

Then, on Aug. 31, Mancari “made another social media appearance for the sole purpose of defaming and destroying the reputation of the Plaintiff,” according to the lawsuit. Mancari appeared on a TikTok account for a two-part interview that the lawsuit claims was “for the sole purpose or proliferating the false and harmful claims about Plaintiff.”

In the lawsuit, Miller claims that in the months before the interview, he saw posts of videos and photos of himself taken from a location adjacent to his attorney’s office, the Winslow Law Firm. The lawsuit said Miller stopped into the offices to ask who might have been “constantly harassing him” every time he visited his attorney.

Miller later realized that Mancari worked in an office adjacent to his attorney’s, according to the lawsuit.

On Sept. 7, Mancari appeared on TikTok again. The lawsuit claims Mancari made the appearance “to publish her false and defamatory statements about Plaintiff.”

During the 90-minute interview, Mancari claimed that Miller “had appeared at her place of employment, and that while there he threatened her,” the lawsuit said.

Miller was released from his ministerial functions in early May while authorities investigated her death. John-Paul was later involved in legal disputes with Mica’s family over her estate, but the two sides reached an agreement in late July.

News13 reached out to Mancari through TikTok on Thursday afternoon.

“I haven’t been served with anything and without seeing it first hand directly from the source, I truly can’t comment,” she said.

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Caleb is a digital producer at News13. Caleb joined the team in January 2023 after graduating from Liberty University. He is from Northern Virginia. Follow Caleb on X, formerly Twitter, and read more of his work here .

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