A billionaire accused of sexual harassment could be sued if his frozen body is revived

A dying Canadian billionaire accused of sexually abusing children and young women could be sued if his body is thawed and reanimated in the future.

Robert Miller, dubbed Canada’s Jeffrey Epstein, is facing a class-action lawsuit brought by several women who say he groomed and sexually abused them, some of them when they were minors.

The 80-year-old suffers from heart disease and late-stage Parkinson’s disease and is reportedly close to death.

He is a big donor to cryonics – where bodies are deep-frozen in the hope of being revived – and has reportedly considered freezing himself.

Miller’s alleged victims fear he will die before the case goes to trial. However, legal experts have floated the idea that if the businessman is brought back to life, he could still be sued, The Times reports.

Who is Robert Miller?

Miller is one of the most mysterious billionaires in the world, who in 1968 founded Future Electronics, a company dealing in the distribution of electronic components.

The company was a huge success, becoming a multi-billion dollar global empire, but Miller has avoided the spotlight, giving only a handful of interviews over the years.

Reports also indicate that the father of two children does not allow photos to be taken. If you Google his name, it will bring up about three photos.

Due to his elusiveness, many of the women accusing Miller of molestation were unaware of who he was when they were targeted.

What is he accused of?

The allegations first came to light last September, when a joint investigation by Canadian Radio Enquête and the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) aired.

About a dozen women allege that between 1994 and 2006, Miller recruited them into a prostitution ring he ran with some of his employees.

Some believe they were targeted because of their poor or difficult backgrounds. Miller apparently promised to help them, but never did.

Statements obtained by The Times show that he offered his victims envelopes of cash in exchange for sex and shared baths.

After the broadcast, a lawyer involved in the case, Jeffrey Orenstein, said that as many as 50 women had contacted each other claiming that they, too, had been molested by Miller, some as far back as the 1970s.

One of the women, whose name is Carmen, believes she may be one of his first alleged victims. She, like many other women and girls, knew him as Bob.

She said Miller was a family friend and in 1977, when she was 12, he forced himself on her while babysitting one night.

“I cried because he hurt me. I felt completely violated, not knowing what the word even meant,” she wrote.

She says the harassment continued for many years until he finally gave her $10,000 and told her to “just keep quiet.”

In statements issued on his behalf, Miller denied the accusations, claiming that he had been struggling with health problems, including erectile dysfunction, for a long time.

He accused his ex-wife, Margaret Antonier, of spreading rumors for “financial gain.”

Miller resigned as chairman, president and CEO of his company days after the broadcast. He said it was to focus on his “very serious health issues.”

He then sold Future Electronics to a Taiwanese company for C$5 billion (£2.9 billion).

What is its relationship to cryonics?

One of Miller’s previous employees, Pierre Guilbault – once the chief financial officer of Future Electronics – said in an interview that his then-boss hoped he would die with “considerable funds” to help him come back to life.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Miller has set up so-called “personal rebirth funds” designed to allow people to get their money back in the future if cryonics successfully revives people.

The billionaire is believed to have donated large amounts of cash to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, an Arizona-based cryonics organization.

What exactly is cryonics?

Cryonics is the practice of preserving the human body at extremely low temperatures after a person has been declared dead.

Legal death occurs when the heart stops, while total death occurs when all brain functions cease.

The body is cooled using liquid nitrogen, and cryptoprotective agents (similar to antifreeze) replace blood and tissue fluid, preventing ice formation and cell damage.

The body is then placed in a cryochamber at a temperature of approximately -196°C.

The freezing process is designed to stop all biological processes, effectively putting the person in a state of suspension.

It is hoped that future scientific advances will make it possible not only to be reborn, but in some cases to cure the disease that caused the person’s death.

Cryonics, legal in only a few countries including the US, Russia and the Netherlands, remains controversial and unproven.

However, supporters believe that the rebirth of humanity will be possible in just 30-40 years.

On its website, Alcor states that “no credible technical arguments are known to support the conclusion that cryonics currently performed under good conditions would not perform.”

Alco charges about $220,000 plus a membership of $17 to $100 a month for full-body “cryopreservation.”

About 230 people are being held in the tanks, and another 1,500 members from around the world are booked to join them when their time runs out.

Can cryonics patients be tried in old cases after reanimation?

Since reanimating dead people is still not a fact, there are no laws in place to prosecute a “reanimated” person in a pre-death case.

But Orenstein said it may need consideration, adding: “If you asked 100 years ago whether it would be possible today, people would have thought they were crazy, but science has achieved amazing things.”

However, he wondered how the trial would be conducted if all the witnesses were dead.

He said he is working hard to get Miller’s case to trial as quickly as possible so the 47 alleged victims of the lawsuit have a chance to get justice.

They are seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in compensatory and punitive damages.

Miller is currently believed to be bedridden but has normal cognitive abilities for someone his age.

Earlier this year, Metro looked at the Cryonics Institute (CI) in Michigan, which has several British members.

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