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Starting next week, submitting Obituaries, In Memoriams or Cards of Thanks for our publications and online becomes easier! Simply visitSomewhere on this planet, Robert Miller rests on his deathbed, alert but fighting a heart condition and advanced stages of Parkinson’s disease. Years ago, Canada’s most secretive billionaire contemplated writing a book about founding Pointe-Claire, Que.-based Future Electronics Inc. And it isn’t hard to imagine the gist of the story he’d like to tell.
At 80, with declining health, fate says Miller will likely pass away without publishing his autobiography. And yet, believe it or not, he could write it after it he dies. As a supporter of cryonics research, the billionaire has invested in coming back from the dead in a restored, cloned or robotic body. Plenty of intelligent people thinkwill eventually make this possible so it is conceivable that the founder of Future Electronics could tell his life story in 50 or 100 years.
And what happens if an alleged criminal comes back in a cloned body? Are they even the same person, from a legal perspective?reported on six women who claim they were systematically recruited as underage girls to join a prostitution ring run by Miller and some of his employees. The allegations covered the period from 1994 to 2006 and included alleged paid sex with girls as young as 14.
Most, but not all, of the billionaire’s accusers were at or above the age of consent when he allegedly started showering them with gifts and handing them envelopes stuffed with cash in return for sex and sharing intimate baths. But the age of consent was just 14 during the relevant period, and minors of any age can’t legally consent to paid sex with an adult.
With duelling accusations in this story, it is important for the court of public opinion to respect the presumption of innocence that applies to both sides until a court of law says otherwise. Unfortunately, that might not happen, given Miller’s medical condition — which is why legal experts say the appearance of justice may prove hard to find in this case.
By all accounts, Miller built his empire by taking a unique approach to customer relationship management. While competitors rejected arguments for stockpiling inventory, Future Electronics embraced them to give customers a competitive edge. According to corporate lore, the company also benefited from having a workaholic leader who once put in 16-hour days, seven days a week, for more than two years.
By this point, Future Electronics was a cash machine that allowed Miller and his wife to raise their own kids — Frederick and Rodney — in Montreal’s exclusive Westmount community. The money coming in also financed the launch of Miromar Developments, a real estate venture responsible for Canada’s first outlet mall.
The FBI investigation went nowhere after Future Electronics essentially shut it down by successfully challenging the search warrant. The matter was fresh on the minds of market watchers in 2002, when industry eyebrows rose again over the billionaire’s investment in one of his company’s publicly traded suppliers. No fire ever emerged from this smoke, and Miller retreated back into the shadows, where his marriage imploded.
By this point, Miller had allegedly assaulted at least 45 minors by seducing them with money. And he wasn’t done. According to Madame #34 in the proposed class action, this was the year she joined his prostitution network, which was now allegedly operating at locations undocumented by his wife’s PIs.
Either way, at this point, Miller’s interest in Madame #34 was allegedly declining as she aged. But she still allegedly continued meeting him for paid sex until one day in 2016, when she unexpectedly received less money than usual. “No one ever called me again,” she claimed, noting she was discarded with a constant feeling that “there is some kind of dirt I can’t wash off.
The industry and its critics agree on one thing: if death is defeated, how the world will deal with the ramifications is, to steal some words from Churchill, a “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Ethicists such as Nils Hoppe, director of the Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences at Leibniz University in Hannover, argue there is no need to regulate cryonics or even think about the ethical, legal and societal questions cryonics presents until “it might be possible.”
While police in some provinces are free to lay criminal charges based upon their own interpretation of public interest, the arrest process in Quebec is influenced by DPCP prosecutors who, like their counterparts across the country, must follow charging guidelines that require factors other than public interest to be considered.
Miller’s health has proven problematic in civil proceedings, where his alleged victims are racing a clock set by his mortality. For months, Orenstein has insisted the justice system should be concerned about the whereabouts of both Miller and his assets. According to the billionaire’s lawyers, he is bedridden at home. Orenstein has his doubts. “If Miller is at the Westmount house,” the class action lawyer said, “then nobody with him is willing to answer the door.”
Orenstein insists politicians in Ottawa and Quebec could have done something to limit the risk of a failure of justice in this case. “This will be remembered as a Canadian tragedy,” he said, adding “the public should be outraged.” As a result, not everyone looking to defeat death is rich enough to even worry about taking money with them. But when billionaire cryonauts don’t want to rely on the generosity of future generations, they plan accordingly. In fact, a whole cottage industry has developed around alleviating their concerns over people potentially targeting their estates after they die.
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