NEWARK, N.J.
A 67-year-old Bergen County man admitted selling fraudulent massage therapy training certificates to workers at various massage parlors in order to facilitate prostitution activities at those locations, according to officials.
Robert W. Miller, Westwood, N.J., pleaded guilty Thursday to using facilities in interstate commerce to promote prostitution, and performing an act to promote an unlawful activity.
Miller is facing up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
As part of his plea agreement, defendant Miller will forfeit $95,926, consisting of $25,826 seized from his residence in August of 2013. He also provided an additional $70,100 to the FBI in December of 2014, which were profits from his illegal activities.
Miller will be sentenced on May 19.
According to the evidence, this is what happened:
- Miller served as a Westwood councilman for approximately seven years prior to his resignation in 2015, and previously served as a councilman in the Village of Ridgewood, New Jersey, from 1996 to 1998.
- He owned and operated RWM Associates Inc., which purported to provide personnel department services for small and medium-sized businesses.
- Miller held himself out as a businessman who, for $500 to $2,500, could provide a massage therapy training certificate to get a massage license from New Jersey without receiving the required training.
- He also offered to provide a transcript listing the classe taken and the grades received by his customers.
- Between January 1997 and August 2013, Miller provided at least 50 fraudulent massage therapy training certificates to 25 different massage parlors located in Union, Passaic, Hudson and Middlesex counties.
- He admitted he knew that many of the massage parlors were being operated as fronts for prostitution and that the phony documents allowed the workers to continue to engage in prostitution activities under the guise of providing legitimate massage services.
- Miller also used A.R.M. Enterprises L.L.C., a separate company which he owned, to place advertisements in newspapers for massage parlors using discrete wording which signaled that the massage parlor was also a prostitution business.