Robert Miller case | An envelope of money torpedoes an 8 million lawsuit

The $8 million lawsuit filed by a woman who says she was recruited in high school by a “sexual exploitation ring” serving Montreal billionaire Robert Miller has just been dismissed. By accepting $50,000 in an envelope last year, the plaintiff implicitly waived any future claim against the octogenarian, the Superior Court ruled. The case could likely impact other alleged victims.

The plaintiff in this case, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, is identified by the initials A.B. in the proceedings. She says she was the victim of a “planned system of sexual exploitation of young girls who are minors or recently adults”.

In her lawsuit filed last May, she recounted having a full sexual relationship with the billionaire in exchange for gifts, during her first meeting with him, when she was a minor. She said she remained a victim for more than 20 years of what she calls the “Miller Network” and still suffers serious psychological after-effects today.

She sought $8 million in damages from Mr. Miller as well as the company he founded, Future Electronics, and his alleged collaborators.

Money for information

The chain of events that led to the filing of his lawsuit was the subject of two days of hearings, on March 7 and 8.

AB told the Court that in the fall of 2022, she was contacted by a Radio-Canada journalist who was preparing to publicly reveal the numerous allegations of sexual abuse against Robert Miller.

AB says he refused to participate in the report. “I didn’t feel comfortable answering, I wasn’t comfortable with it,” she explained.

However, she said she spoke on the phone shortly after with Mr. Miller’s right-hand man, who wanted to know what the journalist had in hand. This right-hand man transferred more than forty thousand dollars to him by electronic transfers in Mr. Miller’s name at that time.

On February 2, 2023, Radio-Canada broadcast a report on the “Miller system”. Around ten women said they had sex for money with the billionaire between 1994 and 2006. Six of them claimed they were minors at the time.

AB claims that after the report aired, Robert Miller’s right-hand man, Sam Abrams, explained to him that the money payments would become more complicated. “He said he was under investigation and he could no longer make electronic transfers to me,” the woman explained in court.

“I realized that I had done well”

A few weeks later, on February 20, AB came to Montreal to meet Sam Abrams. The meeting took place in the office of Mr.^e Karim Renno, Mr. Miller’s lawyer.

AB was then offered $50,000 in cash in an envelope. There was, however, one condition: she had to sign a document in which she agreed not to discuss the amount received and to waive any future recourse against Mr. Miller. However, she retained the right to speak publicly about her story and to speak with police in any criminal proceedings.

M^e Karim Renno explained in court that it was he who explained to Robert Miller the importance of having any woman who demanded money sign a receipt.

“I absolutely wanted there to be a written document for three reasons. One, I didn’t want the situation to continue indefinitely and people to be able to come and come and keep coming back asking for money. Two, I was concerned that law enforcement would reopen their investigation following the report and I didn’t want to give the impression that we were paying money to keep anyone from talking to the police. Three, if journalists got their hands on the document, I didn’t want Mr. Miller to appear to be paying women not to speak,” detailed M.^e Renno.

M^e Renno provided AB with names of attorneys she could consult before signing the document. The woman contacted one of them, scheduled a meeting, then left with the money, without signing the receipt.

The lawyer retained by AB then called M^e Renno to say that the amount of $50,000 was insufficient and that more was needed. But the discussions stopped there. On February 23, media reported a request for class action against Robert Miller, on behalf of all women who had been sexually exploited as minors. The request called for $1.5 million for each woman. The $50,000 offered to AB seemed small in comparison.

“And then I realized that I had done well not to sign,” AB explained in court. Shortly after, she filed her own lawsuit seeking $8 million.

Inferred consent

In his judgment dated March 22, Judge Marc St-Pierre ruled in favor of the Miller camp and dismissed the lawsuit. He asserts that even though AB did not sign the document confirming that she waived any future recourse, her consent “can be inferred” because she left by accepting the money.

“The departure of the plaintiff with the sum of $50,000 cannot be explained otherwise,” he decides.

“Although it is quite surprising that a lawyer would let the other party leave with the amount of money without the release document having been signed, it may have happened this way, given the short time frame for the available to the parties to finalize the transaction,” adds the magistrate.

Unusually, the judge wrote in his judgment that Mr Miller is an “abuser of young girls”. During the hearings, he used this term with caution, specifying that these were only allegations and that the case had obviously not yet been judged on the merits. In his judgment, he drops this reservation.

AB’s lawyers announced they would appeal the decision. “We have already been mandated by victim AB to appeal this judgment due to certain errors by the court in its assessment of the evidence submitted,” asserts M.^e Jean-Philippe Caron, from Calex Legal.

“Out of respect for the judicial process, we do not intend to comment further and we leave it to the Court of Appeal,” concluded the lawyer.

Other women had come forward

Could other women find themselves in the same situation as AB? Several dozen of them have already come forward to the various lawyers involved in this case and claim to have been victims of sexual abuse.

In his testimony, lawyer Karim Renno also confirmed that the release document submitted to AB had been prepared to be submitted to any woman who would accept compensation as part of an amicable agreement.

M^e Renno also confirmed that the Radio-Canada report had pushed several women to contact Mr. Miller’s representatives directly to reach an agreement with the businessman. “Lawyers have contacted us on behalf of clients, and women have contacted us directly to assert their rights,” he said.

The lawyer did not specify whether any of them accepted an envelope.

Robert Miller has always denied the complainants’ allegations against him. In September, he sold his company Future Electronics to a Taiwan group for 5.14 billion.