MONTREAL — A Quebec Superior Court judge has ordered the pretrial seizure of two Montreal-area houses belonging to billionaire Robert Miller, at the request of four women who have filed civil lawsuits alleging he sexually abused them as minors.
Justice Serge Gaudet on Friday authorized the request for a seizure before judgment of the two properties in Westmount, saying the plaintiffs have reason to fear that the 81-year-old founder of Future Electronics may try to hide assets.
“It is troubling to note that Miller, a billionaire, has no bank account in his name,” the judge said, according to detailed minutes from the court hearing. He also noted the “persistent and significant use” of other names to conceal Miller’s assets.
In a sworn statement, the plaintiffs allege that the two houses, valued at over $2 million each, were listed for many years under numbered companies that named lawyers as administrators. “Since at least 2005, the defendant Robert Miller used nominees to conceal his assets, notably Building 1 and Building 2,” the document reads.
It also cites testimony from a high-level Future Electronics employee who testified in March that Miller’s expenses were paid from a bank account in the employee’s name that had been opened for that purpose, and that Miller didn’t have a bank account of his own.
The four women are seeking millions of dollars from Miller, alleging they were recruited as high school students to have sex with him in exchange for money as part of what they allege was “a planned system of sexual exploitation of young girls who were minors or recently adults.”
Miller has denied all of the allegations, none of which have been proven in court. His lawyer could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. The lawsuits also target some of Miller’s employees and associates.
They are not the only legal actions the billionaire is facing. Miller was arrested in May on 21 sex-related counts involving 10 complainants, many of them minors. He has denied the allegations and the case is set to return to court Dec. 12. Miller is also facing a separate proposed class-action lawsuit alleging he gave dozens of minors money and gifts in exchange for sex between 1996 and 2006. That class-action lawsuit has not yet been authorized.
One of the four plaintiffs in the case that led to the property seizure alleges in a court document that in 1999 when she was 14 years old she was recruited by a high school friend to visit a man named “Bob,” later revealed to be Miller.
