MTV VJ Sarah Meier charged with estafa

Days before the estafa case was filed, Justin Meier's mother's home had been broken into and it seems too coincidental that the break-in has coincided moves made to file the estafa case.

We do hope that Justin is safe and remains safe.

Model, Former MTV Personality Charged with Estafa in Connection with Younger Brother’s Inheritance

Model and former MTV VJ Sarah Meier has been named in an estafa case in Imus, Cavite, accused of withholding the share of her late father’s estate from her younger half-brother Justin Meier.

The criminal complaint, which also names Meier’s mother Josephine Go-Meier as a co-defendant, accuses the former MTV Philippines host of collecting her late father’s HSBC account in the Isle of Jersey without informing her brother’s guardian or distributing his portion of the proceeds, in violation of an agreement reached to settle a lawsuit filed by the boy’s mother on his behalf in 2006.

Meier’s father, the late Antoine Meier, was a Swiss national and long-time resident of the Philippines who died in Switzerland in early 2004 without leaving a valid will. In 2005, Meier and her mother Josephine, Antoine Meier’s estranged wife, applied for and received a Letter of Administration in the Isle of Man, where most of Antoine Meier’s financial assets were deposited, giving them control over Meier’s estate and naming Meier, her mother, and brothers Albert and Justin as the beneficiaries.

Despite initial assurances to Justin’s mother that she would provide an accounting and turn over Justin’s share of his father’s estate, Meier and her mother later maintained that he was not named as a beneficiary, prompting the filing of civil case 0866-06 in the RTC of Imus, Cavite against them.

A compromise agreement was reached to resolve the case in 2007, resulting in a share of a Friends Provident insurance policy being paid to Justin, with two additional accounts, the HSBC account that is the subject of the present criminal complaint as well as a Scottish Provident trust fund in excess of 200,000 British pounds, to be distributed when information about them became available. Upon learning from HSBC that Sarah had withdrawn the disputed account to her personal Citibank account in New York, in violation of the civil case compromise agreement, a charge of estafa was filed against her and her mother.

According to Justin Meier’s legal representative, an additional estafa case concerning the larger Scottish Provident trust fund is being prepared and will be filed “very soon.” In addition, Meier and her mother are also named in a civil complaint initiated by the Swiss government through their Makati embassy, alleging the pair failed to report the late Antoine Meier’s assets to his government and demanding repayment of several thousand Swiss francs’ worth of public assistance paid to Meier prior to his death in 2004.