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Lawyers representing billionaire Robert Miller while he faces criminal charges alleging he sexually exploited girls plan to argue that he is too ill to have a fair trial.
The defence attorneys, Isabella Teolis and Nicolas St-Jacques, have filed a motion seeking a stay of proceedings on the charges filed against Miller last week. His first court date is scheduled for July 3. They argue Miller is unable to defend himself and a trial would violate two of his Charter rights, including the right to a fair trial.
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The alleged offences occurred while Miller ran the company based in Pointe-Claire that he founded.
According to the motion, he received a Parkinson’s diagnosis in 1996 and is “currently in Stage 5. This is the most advanced stage of the disease, when all available treatments have failed.”
The motion includes reports from Miller’s family doctor who says he requires 24-hour-per-day nursing care, is immobile, incontinent and has been bedridden since May 2022.
In December, the same doctor prepared a report stating Miller was “medically unfit to engage in testimony, deposition or to travel.”
The family doctor’s findings are supported by a neurologist who reported: “Mr. Miller is at a high risk of aspiration due to his Parkinson’s disease. He currently requires that all his food be mashed and jokes when there are chunks of food. He also cannot tolerate liquids, which he consumes in very small quantities with a straw.
“More recently he has lost his ability to cough.”
The neurologist also says that transferring Miller to court on a daily basis for a trial would increase the risk of aspiration. The transfers would also require a hospital bed, a lift, blood pressure machine, an oxygen saturation machine and “his full health-care team to provide support for all bodily functions and feeding.”
“Mr. Miller suffers from multiple medical issues (Parkinson’s disease, diaphragmatic dyskinesia requiring oxygen supplementation, orthostatic hypotension, coronary artery disease with angina, paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, dysphagia and anxiety). While no one medical condition he currently has places him at immediate substantial risk, the cumulative risk of these combined medical issues in association with the stress of the courtroom proceedings and the stress and risk of multiple transfers, in an individual whose routine is to be bedridden, do place him at increased risk of potentially having a medical adverse event.”
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