The home of a Pornhub executive burned to the ground Sunday night in a suspected arson, authorities said.
Feras Antoon’s massive property is in an upper class Montreal neighborhood and valued at $19,800,000, VICE reported Monday. Antoon, who is the CEO of Mindgeek, the company that owns Pornhub, recently put the eight-bedroom, eleven bath property up for sale.
“Over the weekend, a fire occurred at my residence,” Antoon told VICE. “The residence was under construction. I am grateful that my family and I and our neighbours are safe. Out of respect for the ongoing police investigation, I will not be commenting further.”
Authorities said that they were called to the fire around 11:30 p.m. after two people were seen trespassing, according to VICE. Montreal Police media relations officer Julien Lévesque told the publication that authorities found the property in flames, more than 80 firefighters were called to fight the blaze, and neighbors had to evacuate their homes.
The property, which has yet to finish construction, was only recently put up for sale by Feras Antoon, the CEO of Mindgeek Canadian operations—the company that owns Pornhub. https://t.co/yc7ML5djIu
— Motherboard (@motherboard) April 26, 2021
“Police officers who arrived on site were able to see that the fire began inside the residence,” said Lévesque. “Earlier this morning… our arson squad from Montreal police took charge of the investigation. They were onsite this morning to analyze all the scene, meet some witnesses to try to understand what was the cause and the circumstances of the beginning of this fire.”
He added that damage to the home was “major.” (RELATED: Sasse Demands Full Investigation After Pornhub Rapidly Changes Policies Over Allegations Of Child Sexual Exploitation)
Montreal police did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
A real estate listing for the home promises that “from the moment you enter this luxurious residence, you will be seduced by the shear vastness of the space,” adding that the home is a “truly masterful offering for those seeking the EXTRAORDINARY.” (RELATED: Pornhub Purges Over 10 Million Videos)
The Canadian Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics brought MindGeek before the Canadian parliament in December to testify about its “failure to prohibit rape videos and other illegal content from its site.”
Pulitzer prize-winning opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof had accused Pornhub of monetizing “child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags” in a December op-ed to the New York Times.
Kristof’s reporting sparked a massive backlash against Pornhub prompting lawmakers to call for investigations into the pornography website. Major credit card companies also began reviewing their relationship with Pornhub, and Pornhub quickly announced changes to their website’s safety measures and purged millions of videos from its site.
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