Bobby Randall Miller

Introduction

Bobby Randall Miller is a 74-year-old retired pastor of Sparta United Methodist Church in Sparta, North Carolina, who led that congregation from 2008 to 2021 — and who now stands charged with five felony counts of sexual exploitation of a minor after a forensic examination of his cellphone allegedly turned up visual representations of minors in sexual situations. The charges, filed by arrest warrant on November 2, 2026, arrived more than four years after Miller last stood in Sparta’s pulpit, and they converted a quiet retirement in Roaring Gap into a criminal case with a decade-scale exposure .

Background Information

Miller’s ministry career ran through Sparta United Methodist Church for thirteen years, from 2008 until 2021, in the small Blue Ridge foothills community of Sparta in Alleghany County. He had been out of the pulpit for years when the case against him began: on August 30, 2026, members of the Alleghany County Sheriff’s Office and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation responded to a call for service in Roaring Gap regarding suspicious material on an individual’s cellphone — the phone that would become the evidence base for the charges .

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Charged; presumption of innocence. Miller faces felony charges that have not been tested in court; he is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

After the August 30 call, investigators developed probable cause to seize the phone and submit it to the SBI laboratory for forensic examination. Warrants issued by the Alleghany County Sheriff’s Office on November 2, 2026 charged the 74-year-old with three counts of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and two counts of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor; the warrants allege Miller possessed visual representations of minors in sexual situations. The examination’s completion, per the WACB report of the case, was the trigger that turned the August tip into filed felony counts .

The charging documents make no allegation that Miller abused a child himself — the five counts are possession-based exploitation charges — and the fetched reporting does not allege that any conduct occurred during his Sparta ministry, which ended in 2021. What the charges do establish is the path from an August suspicious-material call to a November criminal complaint against the town’s former longtime pastor .

Public Reaction and Consequences

Miller was given a $25,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court on November 10. The reports identifying him as Sparta United Methodist’s former pastor appeared across regional outlets the same week, putting the name of a familiar small-town church figure on the sexual-exploitation docket; no statement from Miller, a defense attorney, or the United Methodist conference appears in the fetched coverage .

Current Status

Miller is charged with five felony counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, held to a $25,000 bond, and due in court November 10, 2026. The forensic examination that produced the charges is complete, the investigation that began with the August 30 call remains the operative record, and no additional counts or federal charges had been reported as of the fetched coverage. He has been out of ministry since 2021, so the immediate institutional consequence falls on his own liberty and reputation rather than on a current congregation .

Impact on Their Career/Life

Miller’s case lands in the least forgiving category of local notoriety: a retired pastor whose congregation remembers him from the 2010s now faces a courtroom where the evidence lives in a laboratory report about his own phone. At 74, with a November 10 first court date and five felony counts carrying years of potential imprisonment each, the ministry career that defined his public identity in Sparta is effectively over regardless of the outcome — and the congregation he led for thirteen years must reconcile the man they knew with the charges now on the Alleghany County docket .

Sources

• WACB / 860 AM, “Former Pastor Charged With Child Exploitation,” November 2026 — source