Ex-Westwood councilman pleads guilty in scheme to provide fake massage training...

[massage]

A former Westwood councilman pleaded guilty to federal charges on Wednesday, confessing his role in a scheme to provide bogus massage therapy training certificates to women who worked as prostitutes at massage parlors.

RECORD FILE PHOTO/DANIELLE PARHIZKARAN

Robert W. Miller entered the plea in federal court in Newark to a single count of using facilities in interstate commerce to promote prostitution.


Robert W. Miller, 67, who resigned from the council in 2015 after seven years of service, entered the plea in federal court in Newark to a single count of using facilities in interstate commerce to promote prostitution.

As a result of the plea, he could face up to five years in prison when he is sentenced by U.S. District Judge Claire C. Cecchi. on May 19.

Miller admitted that he held himself out as a businessman who, for a fee of $500 to $2,500 could provide a massage therapy training certificate, as well as a transcript listing classes taken and grades received, to customers seeking to obtain a state massage license without actually receiving the required 650 hours of training.

In addition to creating the fraudulent documents, Miller admitted he was willing to provide them to the New Jersey Board of Massage and Bodywork Therapy on behalf of his customers.

Miller acknowledged that between 1997 and 2013 he created at least 50 training certificates containing false information about the classes taken and grades earned by applicants for massage licenses, and provided them to about 25 different massage parlors in Passaic, Hudson, Union and Middlesex counties.

The charges specifically refer to fraudulent certificates that he provided for five women working as prostitutes at a massage parlor in Middlesex County in June 2013.

Miller, who also served as a councilman in Ridgewood from 1996 to 1998, also admitted that he operated a purported advertising agency in Westwood, known as A.R.M. Enterprises L.L.C., that could place ads in newspapers for massage parlors using discreet wording that signaled that the massage parlor was also a house of prostitution.

Authorities said Miller placed ads in local newspapers for a number of massage parlors that operated as prostitution businesses and that he told many of the owners that he would give them advance notice of any law enforcement investigations into prostitution activities at their businesses.

Miller and his public defender, Linda Foster, declined to comment after the hearing.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, he would face between 18 months and two years in prison.

Email: [email protected]

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.