A woman has filed a class action lawsuit in Superior Court on behalf of all teenage girls who were allegedly recruited to provide sexual services to Montreal billionaire Robert Miller.
The plaintiff in this case, who is being assisted by the law firm Consumer Law Group, is not identified by name in the petition in order to preserve her identity. She is seeking $1 million for psychological damages she says she suffered and $1.5 million in punitive damages for each alleged victim.
The request targets not only Mr. Miller but also the company Future Electronics, a giant in the distribution of electronic components based in Pointe-Claire, of which he is still the main shareholder.
The plaintiff says that she responded to an advertisement published in a local newspaper to recruit models, around 1996. When she was 17 years old, she would have found herself in a hotel suite with several girls. A man allegedly informed her that she had been “chosen”.
Shortly after, she would have met Robert Miller, who presented himself under the false name of “Bob Adams” and said to be a businessman from Buffalo, according to his memories. Even though she was underage, she reportedly started having sex with him. Each time, she walked away with an envelope containing $1,000 to $2,000, she said. On one occasion, the amount was $3,000, she said.
A collaborator of the billionaire would have helped her find an apartment in Westmount and would have paid a deposit for the rent, specifies the request for a class action filed at the Montreal courthouse on Thursday.
The Applicant claims that her encounters with Mr. Miller continued until 1999 and had a “serious negative psychological effect” on her. She claims to have felt ashamed, guilty, depressed and self-medicated with drugs and alcohol.
It was a recent report by Radio-Canada that led her to initiate this action, on behalf of “any person who provided sexual services to Robert Miller when she was a minor or who was a victim of sexual exploitation of part of Mr. Miller when she was a minor”.
He strongly denies the allegations
Robert Miller left the presidency of the company Future Electronics earlier this month, in the wake of a report by Radio-Canada. The show Investigation collected the testimonies of a dozen women who say they had sex for money with him between 1994 and 2006. Six of them said they were minors at the time of the events.
In a statement, Future Electronics said Mr. Miller was stepping down to focus on his health issues and “devote his attention to the legal proceedings related to the allegations made by Radio-Canada.” Mr. Miller still remains the owner of the multinational, according to the Quebec Business Register.
“Mr. Miller strongly and vehemently denies the malicious allegations made against him and confirms that they are false and completely unsubstantiated and that they were raised following an acrimonious divorce. They are now being repeated for financial gain,” the statement continued.