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# Just a little more than a year ago, Main Street furniture stripper Michael Miller drove with his
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/c-o-m-m-u-n-i-t-y-p-r-o-f-i-l-e-s-i-s-a-w-e-e-k-l-y-s-e-r-i-e-s-t-h-a-t-a-p-p-e-a-r-s-e-a-c-h-m-o-n-d-a-y-a-n-d-d-e-l-v-e-s-i-n-t-o-t-h-e-p-e-o-p-l-e-2/
- Published: 2006-01-09T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T17:02:05.000Z
- Author: Carolyn Sackariason
- Tags: Business, Main St, #archive-import

MAIN STREET — Just a little more than a year ago, Main Street furniture stripper Michael Miller drove with his buddies north of Santa Barbara, ate Mexican food and drank a beer. And then he went to federal prison.

Recently released from minimum security camp at Lompoc Federal Penitentiary, Miller, the 42-year-old owner of furniture stripping shop Stripper Herk, is still stunned over how he wound up serving 10 1/2 months incarcerated for telling the truth.

Miller was sentenced in October of 2004 to a year and a day at Lompoc for illegally dumping methylene chloride into the sewer — a charge that was later reduced to a misdemeanor. He also was charged with a felony for keeping sealed 55-gallon barrels of the toxic substance at his business for longer than the 90 allow-

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 9, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/010906.pdf?ref=smdp.com)