Peter Nygard, the former Canadian fashion magnate, was found guilty on four counts of sexual assault in a Toronto court after several days of deliberation by a jury.
The verdict, delivered Sunday morning, followed weeks of testimony from five women Nygard was accused of sexually assaulting. The women shared detailed accounts in court of how Nygard invited them to his company’s headquarters in downtown Toronto before assaulting them. The names of his accusers are protected by a court-ordered publication ban.
Nygard, 82, had faced six different criminal charges. He was found not guilty on one count of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement. The maximum sentence for sexual assault in Canada is 10 years in prison, unless the victim is under 16 years old. A date for sentencing hasn’t been set yet.
The victims of the incidents, which took place between the 1980s and mid-2000s, ranged in age from 16 to their late 20s at the time. Nygard met some of the women on trips to the Bahamas where he owned property and, according to the prosecution, used his standing in the fashion industry to lure them with promises of jobs or a tour of the lavish offices.
The first woman to take the stand was a 28-year-old actress who was living in Toronto; she met Nygard as she was returning from a yoga retreat in the Bahamas in the late 1980s.
Now 62, she described accepting a ride from the mogul back to her apartment, but instead being taken on a tour of his company’s offices. The two exchanged numbers and later met again to attend a Rolling Stones concert with friends in December 1989.
At the end of that night, he invited her to a private suite in his company’s headquarters for a drink. She became alarmed when she realized she would be unable to leave the room, which was locked with a keypad. Nygard moved to the bed, first asking her to make a sandwich and then suddenly becoming angry and berating her. He chased her around the room, tearing her clothes off before pinning her to the bed and raping her, the woman testified.
Nygard’s lawyer, Brian Greenspan, spent weeks challenging the women during cross examinations. At one point, the questioning left one of Nygard’s accusers too distraught to continue: “I just need to breathe,” she told the court as her hands shook.
The other four women also testified to alleged assaults by the former businessman. Nygard who spent several days testifying in his own defense, said he couldn’t even recall four of the five women.
Nygard was arrested in late 2020 in Winnipeg on US charges claiming he trafficked women and girls for sex over the course of 25 years. In October 2021, Nygard agreed to US extradition to face racketeering and human trafficking charges.
Nygard founded Nygard International in 1967, which grew to be one of the largest Canadian-owned sellers of women’s clothing. It filed for bankruptcy protection in March 2020.
--With assistance from Danielle Bochove.
(Updates with additional information on the verdict and maximum sentence in third paragraph.)
