MONTREAL — A Quebec Superior Court justice will deliberate before deciding whether to authorize a class-action lawsuit against Montreal electronics billionaire Robert Miller, who is accused of paying minors for sex.
On Friday, Justice Catherine Piché heard from lawyers for Sam Joseph Abrams, Raymond Poulet and Helmut Lippmann — all ex-employees of Future Electronics, a company Miller founded and recently sold.
According to the class action, Miller, 81, the company he owned, and his three ex-employees were involved in an alleged scheme to recruit young girls in Montreal to have sex with him in exchange for money and gifts in the 1990s and 2000s.
An investigative report in February 2023 by Radio-Canada and the CBC said Miller allegedly identified himself as an American businessman named Bob Adams who travelled frequently to Montreal, and the encounters are alleged to have taken place in hotels in the city and a private home in Westmount, Que., a wealthy suburb on the Island of Montreal.
Lawyers for Miller's ex-employees and for Future Electronics told the court Friday their clients should not be part of the lawsuit because they were not involved in any of the sex allegations brought forth by the plaintiffs.
The three ex-employees are alleged to have helped facilitate the contacts with the girls through various means. Their lawyers said the three didn't have direct contact with the girls and that the evidence presented doesn't indicate they are at fault.
They also raised the issue of holding all defendants on equal footing for punitive damages, even though Miller and the company have far different financial capacity than the three elderly men.
Miller, who was also chairman and CEO of Future Electronics, sold the company this year after stepping down in February 2023. A lawyer for the electronics giant said it was named in the class action application because ex-employees are named. The company is otherwise not named in the lawsuit, said Jean-Pierre Sheppard.
"Miller is not Future and Future is not Miller, and if the sordid acts did take place and illicit acts did (take) place, Miller was the beneficiary, not Future," Sheppard told the judge on Friday.
"There is not one allegation that Future Electronics paid one girl directly and once the money left Future and went to Miller's accounts, he did what he wanted with it," Sheppard added.
On Thursday, Miller's lawyer argued that the plaintiffs should be compelled to file individual lawsuits and that the former electronics CEO wanted to know the names of his accusers.
But lawyer Jeff Orenstein said Friday that would have a chilling effect of sorts. Thus far, 51 alleged victims have come forward to his law firm, and he said the actual number of alleged victims could be as high as 100.
It will be overwhelming for some alleged victims to file individual legal actions, Orenstein said, adding that they don't want to be forced to give Miller their real names.
The court heard five other individual lawsuits dealing with similar facts involving Miller are before Quebec Superior Court, one of which has been rejected and is being appealed.
Miller has repeatedly denied the allegations and has argued that the women should sue him individually instead of together in a class action.
He was also charged criminally in May on 21 counts including sexual assault, sexual interference and enticing a person to commit prostitution, between 1994 and 2016. That case will return to court next month.
The billionaire, who is suffering from Parkinson's disease, has not been in court for any of the proceedings.
After a three-day hearing, Piché will take the case under deliberation and decide at a later date whether to authorize the class action.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 29, 2024.
Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press