CANADA'S EPSTEIN
Fashion mogul Peter Nygard arrested in Canada on sex charges





Canada Fashion Mogul ArrestFILE - In this March 2, 2014, file photo, Peter Nygard attends the 24th Night of 100 Stars Oscars Viewing Gala at The Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. Nygard faces criminal charges in New York after his Canadian arrest on charges alleging that he dangled opportunities in fashion and modeling to lure dozens of women and girls to have sex with himself and others. The 79-year-old Nygard awaited an appearance in a Winnipeg courtroom after his Monday, Dec. 14, 2020 arrest in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada by Canadian authorities at the request of the United States. (Annie I. Bang /Invision/AP, File)

ROB GILLIES and LARRY NEUMEISTER
Tue, December 15, 2020
NEW YORK (AP) — Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard was arrested on charges alleging he sexually abused women and girls after luring them into his orbit with opportunities in fashion and modeling over the last 25 years.

Nygard, 79, was detained after a Winnipeg, Canada, court appearance Tuesday following his Monday arrest by Canadian authorities at the request of the U.S. No date was set for a bail hearing, though he was due to return to court Jan. 13. His lawyer, Elkan Abramowitz, declined comment.

His arrest on sex trafficking, racketeering and related charges came after the FBI raided Nygard’s Manhattan offices earlier this year.


The raid came soon after 10 women sued Nygard, saying he enticed young and impoverished women to his Bahamas estate with cash and promises of modeling and fashion opportunities. Several plaintiffs in the suit, filed in New York City, said they were 14 or 15 years old when Nygard gave them alcohol or drugs and then raped them.

Nygard has denied all allegations and blames a conspiracy caused by a feud with his billionaire neighbor in the Bahamas.

In announcing criminal charges, authorities said Nygard used the prestige of an international clothing design, manufacturing, and supply business he founded and headquartered in Winnipeg, Canada, to persuade victims, sometimes with a history of being abused, to submit to his demands.

According to an indictment, he capitalized on the Nygard Group’s influence, using its employees, funds, and resources to recruit women and girls under the age of 18. The indictment alleged that Nygard and his co-conspirators, including Nygard Group employees, used force, fraud, and coercion to enlist the women and girls, who were sexually abused and assaulted by Nygard and others.

The indictment said Nygard offered false promises of modeling opportunities and other career advancement, along with financial support, to lure victims, while restricting their movements to isolate them. It said he forcibly sexually assaulted some victims while others were forcibly assaulted by his associates or were drugged to ensure compliance with sexual demands.

The indictment said he maintained personal and quasi-professional relationships with some victims, referring to them as “girlfriends” or “assistants" while requiring them to travel with him regularly and to engage in sexual activity at his direction with himself, with each other or with others.

It said he also directed them to recruit new women and minor-aged girls to be sexually abused.

Nygard abused some women and girls at his properties in Marina del Rey, California, and in the Bahamas, during so-called “Pamper Parties" where some women, including minors, were drugged to force compliance with his sexual demands, the indictment said. It added that he sometimes paid the women and girls amounts ranging from hundreds of dollars to several thousand dollars.

He also directed and pressured “girlfriends” to have sex with other men at sex and “swingers” clubs in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles and Winnepeg and utilized sexual “swaps” in which male friends and business associates would bring Nygard a “date” for sex in exchange for sexual access to one of Nygard's “girlfriends,” the indictment said.

Meanwhile, 57 women, including 18 Canadians, have joined the lawsuit, which alleges that Nygard used his company, bribery of Bahamian officials and “considerable influence in the fashion industry” to recruit victims in the Bahamas, United States and Canada.

It alleges he kept a database on a corporate server containing the names of thousands of potential victims.

Nygard’s accusers had their passports taken from them when they were flown into the Bahamas, the lawsuit alleges, adding the designer “expected a sex act before he was willing to consider releasing any person” from his estate.

A spokesman for Nygard said earlier this year he was stepping down as chairman of Nygard companies and would divest his ownership interest.

Nygard International began in Winnipeg as a sportswear manufacturer. Its website says its retail division has more than 170 stores in North America.

___

Associated Press Writer Rob Gillies reported from Toronto.

SHARES A ROYAL PAL WITH EPSTEIN

Peter Nygard, fashion tycoon with links to Duke of York, arrested on sex trafficking charges   

Josie Ensor
Tue, December 15, 2020

Watch: Canadian fashion mogul indicted for sex crimes

Peter Nygard, a Canadian fashion designer who has been linked to Prince Andrew, was arrested yesterday on charges of sexually assaulting dozens of teenage girls in the US, Canada and the Bahamas.

Canadian police took Mr Nygard, 79, into custody in Winnipeg after the US requested a warrant that would allow his extradition.

The criminal charges of sex trafficking and racketeering were announced on Tuesday by Acting US Attorney Audrey Strauss in Manhattan, as well as by the FBI and New York City police.

Mr Nygard, who headed Nygard International clothing brand, is also facing class-action civil litigation in Manhattan, brought by 57 women accusing him of sexual misconduct over a 25-year period. He has denied allegations of wrongdoing.

Peter Nygard has denied allegations of wrongdoing in previous civil litigation. - Getty

In a statement, Ms Strauss said that since at least 1995, Mr Nygard used his influence and businesses to "recruit and maintain" women and underage girls for his own sexual gratification, and the sexual gratification of friends and business associates.

Mr Nygard is alleged to have thrown “pamper parties” at his California home and his Bahamas properties, where he is accused in a lawsuit of luring young women with the promise of cash and modeling opportunities.

The Duke of York is reported to have stayed at the lavish Caribbean estate in 2000 with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson and their children.

Sarah Ferguson (left) and Peter Nygard (right) with Princess Beatrice (bottom right) and Princess Eugenie (bottom second right).

The Times published a photograph of the duchess with Mr Nygard and princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.

Mr Nygard's website boasts of guests including George Bush, the former US president, Robert De Niro, the actor; Michael Jackson, the late pop singer, as well as the duke and duchess.

There is no suggestion the Duke knew of Mr Nygard's alleged criminality.

Born in Finland, Mr Nygard grew up in Manitoba, eventually running his own namesake clothing companies. He stepped down in February as chairman of Nygard International after its New York headquarters near Times Square was raided by the FBI.

A lawyer for Mr Nygard declined to comment.

Fashion mogul Peter Nygard has been arrested in Canada on a US warrant, on charges of sex trafficking.
Harriet Alexander
Tue, December 15, 2020

A sign featuring a picture of Peter Nygard outside his Times Square headquarters in New York City(AP)

Fashion mogul Peter Nygard has been arrested in Canada on a US warrant, on charges of sex trafficking.

The 79-year-old Canadian is accused of “a decades-long pattern of criminal conduct” in the United States, the Bahamas and Canada, prosecutors said. He was detained in Winnipeg on Monday.

Prosecutors in Manhattan said that Mr Nygard used the influence of his company and its employees to “recruit and maintain adult and minor-aged female victims” over a 25-year period for the sexual gratification of himself and his associates.

Many of his victims came from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds, prosecutors said.

They allege that Mr Nygard sexually assaulted some of the women and girls, while others were assaulted or drugged by his associates “to ensure their compliance with his sexual demands.”

He began his brand 50 years ago, with Nygard International starting out in Winnipeg as a sportswear manufacturer. Its website says its retail division has more than 170 stores in North America.

Yet this year a darker side began to emerge, with allegations of abuse.

He stepped down from Nygard International in February, after federal authorities raided his home in Los Angeles and corporate headquarters in New York, and major customers dropped his fashion lines.

The FBI searched the designer’s Times Square offices less than two weeks after 10 women filed a lawsuit accusing Mr Nygard of enticing young and impoverished women to his estate in the Bahamas with cash and promises of modelling opportunities.

Several plaintiffs in the suit said they were 14 or 15 years old when Mr Nygard allegedly gave them alcohol or drugs and then raped them.

The designer is facing a class action lawsuit in the United States alleging the sexual assault of dozens of women.

Fifty-seven women – including 18 Canadians – have joined the lawsuit, which alleges that Mr Nygard used violence, intimidation, bribery and company employees to lure victims and avoid accountability for decades.

Mr Nygard has denied all allegations and blames a conspiracy caused by a feud with his billionaire neighbour in the Bahamas.

His lawyer in New York, Elkan Abramowitz, declined to comment on the charges.

RAPE IS ABOUT POWER

Former Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard convicted of sexual assault

Peter Nygard, the founder of one of Canada's largest clothing brands, was found guilty Sunday on four counts of sexual assault, a court announced in Toronto.

Issued on: 13/11/2023 

Cormer fashion executive Peter Nygard, seen through a police vehicle window, arrives at a courthouse in Toronto, Ontario, Tuesday, October 3, 2023. © Cole Burston, AP

By:NEWS WIRES


The jury, which deliberated for five days, also acquitted the Finnish-Canadian Nygard on one count of sexually assaulting one of the women who testified at the seven-week trial, and one count of forcible confinement, according to Ontario's Superior Court of Justice.

The charges against the onetime fashion mogul, now age 82, involved four women and a 16-year-old girl, and date from incidents that occurred between 1988 and 2005.

The trial addressed the first in a series of charges he faces for sex crimes against multiple women over several decades in Canada and the United States.

"I know it's been a long and arduous case for you," Justice Robert Goldstein told the jury

On leaving the courthouse, Nygard's lawyer Brian Greenspan did not rule out the possibility of appealing the verdict.

During closing arguments Greenspan had said the case was built on "contradictions and innuendo" and he panned the prosecution's portrayal of his client.

"To describe Peter Nygard as an evil predator, a Jekyll and Hyde personality who, through wealth and power, lured women to his den of iniquity and forced women to comply with his sexual demands... is neither fair nor accurate," he said.

Greenspan said the complainants' testimony was at times "painfully absurd," and he suggested that four of the women were motivated by financial gain or "gold-digging," as they had admitted to being involved in a US class-action lawsuit against him.

Prosecutor Ana Serban, on the other hand, said Nygard on the stand was evasive and inconsistent, and that his memory was unreliable and selective.

Serban pointed to "remarkably similar accounts" of his five accusers, independent of each other, about how they met Nygard, were invited to his office building and "how he sexually assaulted them in his private bedroom suite."

"The similarities defy coincidence," she said. "It's a pattern of behavior."

Testifying in his own defense, Nygard did not recall meeting or knowing four of his accusers, and insisted he never raped any of the five.

"The type of allegations that were said and were described is the type of conduct that I know that I have never done, I never would do," he told the court, even while admitting that his memory had become "very fuzzy" with age.

He will return to court on November 21 for sentencing.

Nygard, who in 1967 founded the firm that was to become Nygard International, has been held in detention since his arrest in 2020.

He must now face similar charges in Quebec and Manitoba, as well as extradition to the United States, where he has been accused of sexually assaulting dozens of women and girls, racketeering and trafficking.

(AFP)

Peter Nygard, Former Fashion Mogul, Convicted of Sexual Assault

The verdict in Toronto concludes the first of Mr. Nygard’s criminal trials in Canada. The 82-year-old also faces charges in the United States.

Peter Nygard leaving a Toronto courthouse in a police vehicle in September. Mr. Nygard faces several more pending trials.

Credit...Cole Burston/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Vjosa Isai

NYT
Reporting from a downtown Toronto courthouse
Nov. 12, 2023

A Toronto jury on Sunday found Peter Nygard, the high-profile executive behind a fallen fashion empire, guilty of four counts of sexual assault after just over three days of deliberation at the end of a six-week trial.

He was found not guilty of one count of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement. His sentencing date will be set later this month.

The verdict represents the first criminal conviction against Mr. Nygard, 82, who has been in jail for the last two years. He is also expected to stand trial on charges of sex crimes next June in Montreal, and in Winnipeg, where a trial date has not been set.

At the conclusion of the Canadian proceedings, Mr. Nygard will be extradited to New York to face sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and other charges in a nine-count indictment. Mr. Nygard appealed the New York extradition ruling in Winnipeg — his hometown and the former base of Nygard International, his clothing company — citing poor health, but the court has not yet issued its decision.

Five women, whose testimony makes up the bulk of the prosecution’s evidence in the Toronto trial, testified that they were lured by Mr. Nygard to a personal bedroom suite in his Toronto headquarters under false pretenses, such as receiving a building tour, and sexually assaulted. The complainants were between the ages of 16 and 28 during the attacks, which they accused Mr. Nygard of committing between the 1980s and 2005. Their names are protected by a court-ordered publication ban.

“It’s something that has tainted my life,” said one complainant, now in her 60s, who first accused Mr. Nygard in 1998 of raping her nearly a decade earlier. She dropped her complaint to Toronto police soon after, fearing reprisal from the fashion mogul after she learned that his chief security officer flew to Toronto to canvass for information about her identity, she said.

Another woman, a former employee, broke into tears while testifying that Mr. Nygard had sexually assaulted her during a party at the Toronto office, where he had hired her to work as a hostess.

“I don’t know why somebody would hire me and just do that to me,” she said, adding that she did not tell anyone what had happened. “He’s so wealthy and so powerful, who would believe me?”

A picture of Mr. Nygard displayed in one of his stores in New York in 2019.

Credit...Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York Times

Lawyers for the prosecution and the defense spent much of their time mining the memories of the people on the stand, including Mr. Nygard, who testified in his own defense for about a week.

He persistently denied the accusations and said that he did not remember ever meeting four of the complainants, but said that he recognized his former employee. Mr. Nygard’s testimony was marked by frequent bouts of what he called “short-term memory loss,” though prosecutors questioned his ability to remember, in great detail, other facts.

Where his memory failed him, Mr. Nygard told jurors that the sexual assaults and rapes described by the women were not in his character.

“My position is that I would not have conducted myself in that kind of manner,” Mr. Nygard said, responding to the prosecutors’ assertions that he had sought out contact information from some complainants and offered to help their careers.

“I would not have been taking numbers from some female who was trying to be approaching me,” Mr. Nygard said. “This is a suicidal kind of thing in front of the media, and that’s a total no-no.”

Ana Serban, a prosecutor, characterized Mr. Nygard’s testimony as evasive, inconsistent and wrong.

“His memory was unreliable as well as selective,” Ms. Serban said in her closing argument to the jury. “You should have no difficulty rejecting his blanket denials.”

Records that would have assisted Mr. Nygard’s rebuttals, he said, had burned in “a mysterious fire” at a former warehouse in Winnipeg about 10 days before his arrest in October 2021. The building was put in receivership by a court after his company filed for bankruptcy in 2020.

“The only thing that was lost was the paper records that the receiver had put into this shed under their control,” Mr. Nygard said, adding that a hacking incident that year had compromised his electronic records as well. But he insisted that he tried to help the police investigation by participating in an 11-hour interview with a Toronto detective.

Brian Greenspan, Mr. Nygard’s lawyer, center, in Toronto, Canada, in September.

Credit...Cole Burston/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The guilty verdict comes after Brian Greenspan, a lawyer for the defense, urged the jury during closing arguments on Tuesday to reject the “revisionist histories of events” told by the five women and the prosecution’s narrative of Mr. Nygard’s “Jekyll and Hyde personality.”

Four of the women are involved in a class action against Mr. Nygard in the United States, a point raised by the defense during cross-examination to suggest that the women were fabricating their stories for a shot at financial gain. “Gold digging runs deep,” Mr. Greenspan said of one complainant’s testimony.

The civil action is yet another legal battlefront for Mr. Nygard. In May, he was ordered by a New York State judge to pay $203 million in defamation suit damages to Louis Bacon, a hedge fund billionaire whose feud with Mr. Nygard began over a property dispute in the Bahamas and spiraled into two decades of legal sparring.

Mr. Nygard attributed the stamina he kept throughout his high-octane way of life — glamorous parties, trips around the world in his private plane, being in the company of dignitaries — to his obsession with health. He told jurors that he avoided sugary and starchy food, didn’t take drugs or smoke, and maintained an active lifestyle that left him flush with energy despite often working 18-hour days.

Mr. Nygard wore a black suit and orange-tinted glasses, and his signature long hair was in a low bun for the duration of the trial. He was visibly relaxed for most of his testimony, sometimes laughing at his own remarks, and spoke with confidence about his effort to learn one new word per day.

But he said he didn’t know the word “Cognac,” the type of brandy that the youngest victim testified Mr. Nygard served to her before he raped her when she was 16.

“I certainly would not want to learn a liquor word,” Mr. Nygard said during his cross-examination.

In her closing argument, Ms. Serban, the prosecutor, cited the exchange as an example of why the jury should not rely on Mr. Nygard’s testimony.

“Here’s a man who enjoys the finer things in life,” she said. “Someone with a taste for luxury. He wants to give his guests the best experience, and he will have you believe that he doesn’t know the word ‘Cognac’?”

JEKYLL AND HYDE

Peter Nygard 'became another person, like a monster' during alleged assault, trial hears

Story by Mark Gollom •CBC

The first of five women accusing Peter Nygard of sexual assault said the Canadian fashion mogul became "a monster" as he trapped her inside his private bedroom suite in his downtown Toronto headquarters, chased her around the room and then raped her more than 30 years ago.

"I was forced to stay in a room against my will and I was raped," the woman testified in a Toronto courtroom on Tuesday.

"By whom?" asked Crown attorney Neville Golwalla.

"By Mr. Peter Nygard," she said, breaking down in tears.

Nygard, 82, has pleaded not guilty to five counts of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement in alleged incidents involving five women, dating from the late 1980s to 2005.

In opening arguments made last week, the Crown told jurors that Nygard, the founder of a now-defunct international clothing company, used his power and status to lure and sexually assault the women — aged 16 to 28 at the time — in his private bedroom suite of his downtown Toronto headquarters.



Nygard, 82, is driven to a Toronto courthouse on Tuesday, ahead of the continuation of his sexual assault trial. (Cole Burston/The Canadian Press)© Provided by cbc.ca

The woman, now 62, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, told court Tuesday that the night of the alleged assault, she was invited to meet Nygard at the Toronto SkyDome for a Rolling Stones concert in December of 1989.

She said that during the alleged attack, when she realized she was trapped and unable to overpower Nygard, she stopped putting up a fight.

"I was terrified," she said. "I didn't know what to do, I couldn't get out."

Instead, she testified, she "went limp," but fearing she could get pregnant or a disease, pleaded with Nygard to "put a f--king condom on."

The woman began her testimony by describing how she first met Nygard. It was the summer of 1988 or 1989, she said, and she was 27 or 28, single, and an actress who had been living in Toronto. She had gone on a yoga retreat in the Bahamas with a male friend when Nygard approached her at the Nassau airport, both on their way to Toronto.

"Someone touched me on the back and said, 'Oh, that's a very nice colour you're wearing,'" the woman told court.

She said he talked about himself, telling her he was a fashion designer who owned property in various places, including the Bahamas, and that she found him to be an interesting person and recalled thinking "he's an attractive man."

She accepted a ride from the airport back to her Toronto apartment, but Nygard's driver took a detour to the designer's downtown headquarters at 1 Niagara St.

Nygard gave her tour of the building, along with his private bedroom that included a small kitchenette, embedded television sets and a large bed, she said.

The two exchanged numbers, she said, and subsequently went out a couple times to restaurants. The woman said while she felt he was an interesting person, she had no attraction to him, that he was too full of himself, and that she was not being "talked with" but "talked to."


The former headquarters of Nygard's now-defunct clothing company at 1 Niagara St., in Toronto is pictured on Sept. 28, 2023. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)© Provided by cbc.ca

Months later, she said accepted an invitation to a Rolling Stones concert in December 1989, and then, while parked with him in his Mercedes near his office building, agreed to go inside for a drink.


She said he told her he wasn't going to do anything, but that she had a flash in her mind: "He's going to rape me."

Because of Nygard's social status, and as someone who knew then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, she said she ignored her concerns.

Once inside the building, they went to his bedroom suite, the woman told court, where Nygard pushed a button that opened the door.

After the door closed, with the two of them inside, she testified there was no doorknob inside the suite and that the door was locked.

Nygard told her she wasn't locked in, she said, showing her a keypad where he punched in some numbers to unlock the door. But she said when she tried it, the door remained locked, and that she started "to panic a little bit," thinking "something is really wrong here."

Nygard then told her to make him a sandwich, she said, and as she made him a ham sandwich, he started hurling insults. She said he called her a c--kteaser, that she was wasting his time. She said she rejected his insults and told him she never led him on, but that he became angrier, "pumping himself up."

When she brought him the sandwich, she said, he tried to grab her — and as he chased her around and over the bed, he would grab a body part and peel off a piece of her clothing. At one point, she said, Nygard was sitting on her with all his weight, pinning her to the bed.

"Why are you doing this?" she said she told Nygard.

The woman testified that when she begged him to wear a condom, he got off the bed, retrieved one, and then sexually assaulted her.

Afterward, she said she started to cry, and Nygard asked why she was crying.

"Because you raped me," she said she told Nygard.

"I didn't rape you," she said Nygard replied.

Golwalla asked the woman to describe Nygard from the point she was making the sandwich, to the point right after the alleged sexual assault.

"He became like another person, like a monster," the woman said.

But immediately after, Nygard was "back to business, as if nothing had happened," she said. "Like a personality switch."

Nygard called her a taxi, took out a $100 bill and threw it at her, she said, which she refused to take.

The woman's testimony continues on Wednesday.

CANADA HAS ITS OWN EPSTEIN

The Bahamian pleasure palace featured a faux Mayan temple, sculptures of smoke-breathing snakes and a disco with a stripper pole. The owner, Peter Nygard, a Canadian fashion executive, showed off his estate on TV shows like “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” and threw loud beachfront parties, reveling in the company of teenage girls and young women.

Warning: This story includes graphic language of a sexual nature 

Next door, Louis Bacon, an American hedge fund billionaire, presided over an airy retreat with a lawn for croquet. Mr. Bacon preferred hunting alone with a bow and arrow to attending wild parties, and if mentioned at all in the press, was typically described as buttoned-up


The neighbors had little in common except for extreme wealth and a driveway. But when Mr. Nygard wasn’t allowed to rebuild after a fire, he blamed Mr. Bacon. Since then, the two have been embroiled in an epic battle, spending tens of millions of dollars and filing at least 25 lawsuits in five jurisdictions. Mr. Nygard, 78, has spread stories accusing Mr. Bacon of being an insider trader, murderer and member of the Ku Klux Klan. Mr. Bacon, 63, has accused Mr. Nygard of plotting to kill him.

The latest charge is particularly incendiary: Lawyers and investigators funded in part by Mr. Bacon claim that Mr. Nygard raped teenage girls in the Bahamas.

This month, a federal lawsuit was filed by separate lawyers in New York on behalf of 10 women accusing Mr. Nygard of sexual assault. The lawsuit claims that Mr. Nygard used his company, Nygard International, and employees to procure young victims and ply them with alcohol and drugs. He also paid Bahamian police officers to quash reports, shared women with local politicians and groomed victims to recruit “fresh meat,” the lawsuit says. Through a spokesman, Mr. Nygard denied the allegations.

Over months of interviews with The New York Times, dozens of women and former employees described how alleged victims were lured to Mr. Nygard’s Bahamian home by the prospect of modeling jobs or a taste of luxury.

“He preys on poor people’s little girls,” said Natasha Taylor, who worked there for five years.

But this is not just a story of abuse allegations. It’s also a story about the lengths two rich men can go to in a small developing nation where the minimum wage is just $210 a week. Together, Mr. Nygard and Mr. Bacon are worth close to the annual budget of the government of the Bahamas, an archipelago off the coast of Florida with ritzy tourist resorts that belie the country’s pockets of poverty.

Their battle became a cottage industry for opportunists.

Investigators and lawyers tied to Mr. Bacon offered Nygard associates generous incentives to build an abuse case against the Canadian — Cartier jewelry, a regular salary or a year’s rent in a gated community, according to documents and interviews. Smaller payments filtered down to some accusers, which could be used to undermine their credibility in any court case or investigation.

Mr. Nygard used his wealth to intimidate critics and buy allies. He had employees sign confidentiality agreements and sued those he suspected of talking. Multiple women said he had handed them cash after sex, helping to buy silence. And he paid tens of thousands of dollars to people providing sworn statements to use against Mr. Bacon in lawsuits, according to court records, interviews and bank statements.

Some women said they felt exploited by both men — by Mr. Nygard for sex, and by Mr. Bacon against his enemy.

“They’re messing up people’s lives in the middle of their fight,” said Tamika Ferguson, who claims Mr. Nygard raped her when she was 16. She said she intended to join the lawsuit.

The Times interviewed all the women who eventually signed on to the suit, which identified them as Jane Does to protect their privacy. Reporters also spoke with five other women, who said Mr. Nygard sexually assaulted them in the Bahamas when they were teenagers. Three said they were under 16 at the time, the age of consent there. But two later recanted, saying they had been promised money and coached to fabricate their stories.

This isn’t the first time that Mr. Nygard, whose company sells women’s clothes at his own outlets and Dillard’s department stores, has been accused of sexual misconduct. Over the past four decades, nine women in Canada and California have sued him or reported him to the authorities. He has never been convicted.

Mr. Nygard declined multiple interview requests. One of his lawyers said he had “never treated women inappropriately” and called the allegations “paid-for lies.”

Ken Frydman, his spokesman, denied all the claims and said Mr. Bacon had spent more than a decade trying “to smear Peter Nygard by coercing women to fabricate and manufacture sordid stories about him.” Mr. Nygard also accused Mr. Bacon in a lawsuit of masterminding a conspiracy “to plant a false story” in The Times about sexual misconduct.

Mr. Bacon, who founded New York-based Moore Capital Management, said he felt obliged to take action after hearing of possible sexual abuse by his neighbor. His associates have spent two years finding women to bring claims against Mr. Nygard.

“I of anybody knew what it was like to have this guy come at you,” Mr. Bacon said in an interview. “So my heart went out to these women.”

‘8th Wonder of the World’

Mr. Nygard’s property was unlike any other in Lyford Cay, one of the most exclusive communities in the Bahamas. His estate looked like something out of Las Vegas.

He called it the “Eighth Wonder of the World”: a lush retreat with sculptures of roaring lions and a human aquarium where topless women undulated in mermaid tails.

For one birthday, he flew in models who danced before him in body paint. His workers said they regularly lit torches at sunset and played the title song from “The Phantom of the Opera.” Michael Jackson and former President George H.W. Bush visited the property, which the Canadian businessman renamed “Nygard Cay.” (He named many things after himself: his jet, an electric shade of blue, bottled water.)

An avowed playboy who once joked that his attempt at celibacy was “the worst 20 minutes of my life,” Mr. Nygard wore his gray hair long and shirts open. He traveled with an entourage of models and women who described themselves as “paid girlfriends,” dated tabloid regulars like Anna Nicole Smith and fathered at least 10 children with eight women. Using himself as a human guinea pig, Mr. Nygard tried to fight off aging with stem cell injections and talked of cloning himself, one close friend said.

On many Sunday afternoons at his Bahamian estate, Mr. Nygard threw “pamper parties” that offered female guests free massages, manicures, horseback rides and endless alcohol. And he demanded a steady supply of sex partners, according to six former employees who said they recruited young women at shops, clubs and restaurants.

“One time, he was like: ‘I don’t know where you find these girls from, but there’s pretty girls in the ghetto as well,’” recalled Freddy Barr, Mr. Nygard’s personal assistant in the early 2000s. “‘You need to find pretty girls in need.’”

Eventually his staff compiled an invitation list, provided to The Times, with names of more than 700 women. Former workers said they photographed guests when they arrived, uploading the images for their boss’s perusal. Only those who were young, slim and with a curvy backside — which Mr. Nygard called a “toilet” — were supposed to be allowed inside, according to the ex-employees, including Ms. Taylor. (She asked to be identified by her maiden name to keep people from knowing her connection with Nygard Cay.)

The actress Jessica Alba, who attended a Nygard party while filming “Into the Blue” in 2004, later described it as “gross.” “These girls are like 14 years old in the Jacuzzi, taking off their clothes,” she said on a press tour.

Once the party got going, the former employees and girlfriends said, they coaxed teenagers and young women into Mr. Nygard’s bedroom, sometimes with the aid of alcohol and drugs.

Mr. Nygard did not respond to most of The Times’s questions. Instead, his spokesman, Mr. Frydman, sent affidavits from former employees who asserted that their boss had never abused women and that no underage girls were allowed at Nygard Cay. One even called Mr. Nygard the Bahamas’ “most generous and honest expatriate.”

Others cast aspersions on Mr. Bacon, claiming he had paid Nygard employees to dig up dirt and had objected to black Bahamians visiting Lyford Cay.

Mr. Nygard, estimated to be worth roughly $750 million in 2014 by Canadian Business magazine, had long blended his professional and personal lives. He literally lived at work. A 1980 news article described an area of his office in Winnipeg — the city in Manitoba where he built his company — as a “passion pit” with a mirrored ceiling and a couch that transformed into a bed at the “push of a button.”

Over the years, he was repeatedly accused of demanding that female employees satisfy him sexually. There were the nine women in Winnipeg and Los Angeles who accused Mr. Nygard of sexual harassment or assault. But The Times spoke with 10 others who said he had proposed sex, touched them inappropriately or raped them. Only one of them is a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

Debra Macdonald, hired as his secretary in 1978 when she was 19, said Mr. Nygard continually harassed her and tried to grab her breasts. Once, he summoned her into his Winnipeg office as a pornographic film played on television, she said in an interview. “I was so disgusted,” she said.

Ms. Macdonald quit in 1980, shortly after the Winnipeg police charged Mr. Nygard with raping an 18-year-old woman. The case was dropped after the woman refused to testify.

Another former employee said that on a business trip to Hong Kong that same year, Mr. Nygard slipped into her hotel room while she slept. The woman, Jonna Laursen, then 32, told The Times that he raped her. A single mother from Denmark, she said she worried the police wouldn’t take her seriously and she’d lose her reputation and job.

“I knew the right thing would be to report it,” Ms. Laursen said, “but somehow I felt that I would come out the loser.”

Just over a year later, she said, she was fired without cause. She then described the episode to a colleague, Dale Dreffs, who confirmed hearing it. When Ms. Laursen threatened to go to the press, a company manager offered her $6,700 and a letter of recommendation for her silence, she said.

In 1995, a new hire was taken from the airport to Mr. Nygard’s Winnipeg office-apartment, where he had sex with her “against her will,” a lawsuit said. The woman’s lawyer confirmed that the suit led to a nondisclosure agreement. Then, in 1996, Mr. Nygard’s company settled sexual harassment complaints against him by three former workers — for about $15,000, according to The Winnipeg Free Press.

In 2015, another former employee said, Mr. Nygard came into her locked room while she slept at his Los Angeles home and raped her. He later fired her, she said. Emails shown to The Times confirmed that she contacted a lawyer at the time about suing him. The woman, who wanted to remain anonymous, is the only non-Bahamian to join the new lawsuit.

Separately, two women sued Mr. Nygard last month for sexual battery. One, who was not identified, said she was under 18 — the California age of consent — when she visited Mr. Nygard’s Los Angeles home in 2012. Her lawsuit said Mr. Nygard knew her age “yet repeatedly had sexual intercourse with her.”

In the other lawsuit, a former employee, Maridel Carbuccia, claimed Mr. Nygard drugged and sexually assaulted her at his Los Angeles home in 2016. Ashamed to tell her family, she said, she continued working for him for more than two years before she was fired.

Clash of the Titans

In 2009, a blaze erupted at Nygard Cay, damaging several cabanas, the so-called grand hall and the disco. The fire department said it was accidental, probably caused by an electrical fault. But some Nygard Cay employees said their boss blamed Mr. Bacon, an ardent conservationist who had accused Mr. Nygard of illegally mining sand to create new beachfront.

The government refused to let Mr. Nygard rebuild. Within days, the war began.

Mr. Nygard sued over changes his neighbor had made years earlier to their driveway. Then he sued the government, saying it was colluding with Mr. Bacon to force him off the island.

The allegations became more bizarre: One street protest in Nassau featured men in white hoods and placards proclaiming, “Bacon Is KKK.” New websites funded by Mr. Nygard claimed Mr. Bacon was responsible for several murders, court records show. A video made by Nygard staff, according to a former contractor, superimposed Mr. Bacon’s face on the collapsing Twin Towers.

“It was an assault on me, my reputation, my safety,” Mr. Bacon said.

Mr. Nygard was a formidable opponent. Police officers and local journalists dined at his home; one later admitted in court that Mr. Nygard had paid him to smear Mr. Bacon. Mr. Nygard also had allies in the Progressive Liberal Party, which he wanted to legalize stem cell injections. He bragged he’d given the party $5 million during the 2012 election campaign — legally, as the Bahamas has no campaign finance laws. After it won the election, a Nygard YouTube channel posted a video featuring six ministers visiting his estate.

He threatened — or sued — media outlets that investigated him. He slow-walked lawsuits, filing countless motions and requesting delays, exhausting his foes. A judge referred to his “scorched-earth” tactics in a protracted fight over child support.

But Mr. Bacon was a rare adversary. His wealth was valued at more than double Mr. Nygard’s.

He helped form a nonprofit called Save the Bays to target environmental abuses, starting with Nygard Cay. Fred Smith, a prominent human-rights lawyer, came on board.

Mr. Bacon and his older brother, Zack, hired a small army of lawyers and private investigators, including veterans of the F.B.I. and Scotland Yard. They persuaded some of Mr. Nygard’s allies to provide evidence for a defamation lawsuit, filed in 2015. They launched their own lawsuits. And they paid well.

Two self-described former gang members, Livingston “Toggie” Bullard and Wisler “Bobo” Davilma, told the Bacons’ investigators that Mr. Nygard had hired them for dirty work, like torching his ex-girlfriend’s hair salon and staging anti-Bacon rallies, according to court records. The men claimed Mr. Nygard had given them a “hit list” that included Louis Bacon and Mr. Smith. Mr. Nygard has denied this.

Mr. Bullard and Mr. Davilma, working with the Bacon investigators, hatched a plan to videotape Mr. Nygard. The private eyes acted like secret agents, using encrypted phones and dropping cash for the two men in a box behind a post office. Eventually, the Bacons paid the two about $1.5 million, mostly for secretly recording five meetings with Mr. Nygard.

The videos turned up no sign of Mr. Nygard’s plotting murder. “I can’t get into killing,” he said in footage obtained by The Times.

Instead, a video from June 2015 captured him on a favorite topic. Looking out a car window, Mr. Nygard said there were many women with whom he hadn’t yet had sex.

“Do you see those toilets?” he asked.

The Hunt

The Bacons said they were disturbed by stories they heard about Mr. Nygard having sex with teenage girls. In late 2015, they hired TekStratex, a new Texas security firm, to push American law enforcement officials to investigate him for sex trafficking.

The firm’s leader, Jeff Davis, told Zack Bacon that he’d worked for the C.I.A. for 10 years — including in something called “the ghost program,” Mr. Bacon recalled.

The F.B.I. looked into Mr. Nygard twice, but only briefly. In April 2016, the Department of Homeland Security dug in.

To help the inquiry, the Bacons moved five witnesses — two former Bahamian employees of Mr. Nygard and three former girlfriends — to the United States and covered their living expenses. Mr. Davis told them that Mr. Nygard had “put out hits on them,” several recalled in interviews. Burly bodyguards drove them to different houses and hotels, swerving through traffic and changing cars, saying they were being followed.

Despite the Bacons’ efforts, the Homeland Security investigation fizzled after nine months, suspended because of “unforeseen circumstances” and “lack of prosecutorial evidence,” according to an agency email.

Mr. Davis turned out to be a fraud. Instead of being an ex-spy, he was a former car broker with a string of debts and failed businesses. The Bacons had shelled out about $6 million. “I fired him,” Zack Bacon said.

He soon focused on a lawsuit, hoping to draw on the #MeToo movement and “the most aggressive lawyers in the world,” Zack Bacon said in a recording provided to The Times.

By last summer, Mr. Smith and the private investigators had introduced about 15 Bahamian women to American lawyers at the DiCello Levitt Gutzler firm. They were planning to bring a lawsuit in New York, where Mr. Nygard’s company had its corporate headquarters. His portrait hung outside a flagship store near Times Square, golden muscles flexing.

At Mr. Smith’s suggestion, six women went to the Bahamian police — a big step, as law enforcement is considered the most corrupt public institution in the country, according to a 2017 Transparency International study, and sex crimes are notoriously underreported. Only 55 rapes were tallied there in 2018, while Cleveland, with a similar population size, had 585. The Bahamian police are still investigating.

The stories echoed one another. The lawsuit would later claim that women were sodomized and forced into other acts they found degrading.

One woman, now involved in the suit, told The Times she was 14 when she met Mr. Nygard at one of his stores in 2015; she has a photo with him that day. She said she was later invited for a modeling interview at Nygard Cay, where he assaulted her. She said she had never told anyone what happened.

Another woman in the suit said in an interview that she was 14 when she attended a pamper party in 2011, after her mother asked Mr. Nygard to sponsor her in a beauty pageant. “Is this what my life can be?” she recalled thinking of the models in the room.

Her glass of wine never seemed to empty, she said. Later, she recalled, she swallowed pills Mr. Nygard told her models took. Then, she said, he took her upstairs and raped her. Drawn by the money and promise of modeling gigs, she later returned, recruiting other women, she said.

Tamika Ferguson found her way to Nygard Cay in 2004 after being kicked out of high school. An orphan from a poor neighborhood, she said a D.J. had invited her to a pamper party. She drank too much and ended up in a bathroom barefoot in her bikini, she said. When she emerged, her friends had gone. She said Mr. Nygard steered her upstairs and raped her.

Ms. Ferguson said she returned multiple times and had sex with Mr. Nygard because she felt she couldn’t say no; he sent people to her home to pick her up. She gave The Times two photographs of herself at Nygard Cay; three people — a former Nygard girlfriend, an ex-employee and a guest — said they remembered her there.

“He messed with my whole life,” said Ms. Ferguson, now 32. “And everybody knew what was going on except for me.”

‘A Gift From Our Boss’

For years, Mr. Nygard had insisted that Louis Bacon paid people to lie about him. The hedge fund founder maintained that wasn’t true.

But his team created vulnerabilities, giving money and gifts to witnesses and accusers in the Bahamas, The Times found. Mr. Bacon and his brother said they were unaware of any gifts and payments, and expressed confidence in Mr. Smith’s professionalism.

The Bahamian lawyers and investigators were not paid by the Bacons directly. Instead, they were paid by a nonprofit Mr. Smith created, called Sanctuary, to support sexual assault victims; both he and Mr. Bacon donated generously to that.

“They are handing the defendant arguments,” said Jeanne Christensen, a New York lawyer focusing on sexual harassment.

The private investigators and Mr. Smith compensated two witnesses who found alleged victims: Litira Fox, a former girlfriend of Mr. Nygard’s who said she recruited for him, and Richette Ross, a former massage therapist at Nygard Cay who said she did the same. Through a spokesman, Mr. Nygard said that he did not remember Ms. Fox, and that neither woman recruited for him.

Ms. Ross did well. After she told Mr. Smith that unknown assailants had shot up her former home, killed her family dog and broke into her car in different incidents, Mr. Smith moved her into a gated community, paying $5,000 a month.

The story was familiar: She had told a variation to Mr. Nygard two years earlier, emails show. “I sent you money to buy a new dog,” Mr. Nygard wrote after his company wired her almost $10,000.

“Call police immediately,” he said. “Put in a charge against BACON.”

Mr. Smith also gave Ms. Ross $500 a week to work on another potential lawsuit against Mr. Nygard, this one for workplace abuses.

Accusers received smaller payments. Ms. Fox, who earned $2,000 a month, said she passed some of that to the women she brought to meetings with lawyers and investigators — often $200 for a visit. Mr. Smith acknowledged giving about $1,000 collectively to four or five alleged victims, but said that was for their time and expenses.

“I’m not going to give them $100 to lie, for goodness’ sake,” he said.

There were more substantial gifts. Deidre Miller said Ms. Fox invited her to the Baha Mar luxury resort in August 2018 to meet with investigators. She was a valuable witness — she would later tell The Times she had dated Mr. Nygard for years and had seen two teenagers in his bed, one in her school uniform.

Afterward, Ms. Miller said, the investigators took her and Ms. Fox to the resort’s Cartier store. There, she said, the men bought each woman a matching 18-carat gold bracelet and necklace for $9,350. Ms. Miller provided a photo of the receipt, though the man whose name was on it denied making the purchase.

“He was like, ‘It’s a gift from our boss,’” Ms. Miller recalled. “They said they were working for Louis Bacon.”

The Lie

For more than a year, Marvinique Smith and her sister, Marrinique, were central to the developing lawsuit.

They told their stories repeatedly to lawyers, investigators and the Bahamian police. Marvinique said she was invited to a pamper party in 2010, when she was 15. There, she said, Mr. Nygard talked to her about modeling and had sex with her. Her sister recounted a horrific tale: Mr. Nygard had raped her as cartoons played on TV. She said she was 10.

But in October, the sisters told a very different story to Times reporters: They had never been assaulted by Mr. Nygard. They had never even met him. They claimed Ms. Ross had paid them to make everything up.

Marvinique Smith said Ms. Ross suggested she might collect as much as a half-million dollars in a settlement, and then could give Ms. Ross a cut.

She coached them on Mr. Nygard’s pickup lines, bedroom layout and sexual proclivities, the sisters said. Meanwhile, she gave them cash — $150 here, $350 there — for every meeting, they said.

Ms. Smith said she confessed to lying because Ms. Ross, who was dating her boyfriend’s father, stopped paying her. She and her sister felt guilty and scared. “I couldn’t do it anymore,” Ms. Smith said, adding, “There might be girls that it actually happened to, but it didn’t happen to me and my sister.”

Ms. Ross denied paying anyone to fabricate stories about Mr. Nygard, and passed a lie-detector test to that effect, according to Robert Ennis, a polygrapher hired by her lawyers.

In an interview, she speculated that Mr. Nygard had paid the Smith sisters to recant — a notion they rejected.

Ms. Ross had undisclosed connections with other women she brought to the lawyers. Two were relatives. Two were related to a close friend. All were included as plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

She had also sent a note to a former Nygard employee, asking to talk about the case. “It will pay very handsomely,” she wrote. When asked about that, Ms. Ross said she meant it would pay in “justice.”

Since the American lawyers filed the suit, they said, they’ve received calls from more than three dozen women alleging abuse as far back as the 1970s. The new allegations, mainly from women in Canada and the United States, show their case has nothing to do with the neighbors’ feud, the lawyers said.

“It’s a good cause, regardless of what you think may have been the motivation,” said Greg Gutzler, the lead lawyer in the lawsuit. He said his firm, which operates on contingency and has no financial ties to Mr. Bacon, had done its own investigation and never paid any accuser or witness. The lawyers hope the claim will become a class action.

Facing legal troubles over his property, Mr. Nygard hasn’t been to the Bahamas in more than a year. Even as he recently attended a fashion show flanked by models in Canada, he insisted he was too ill to travel to the Bahamas for court hearings.

Eric Gibson, a former Nygard employee and longtime friend, called The Times on his behalf. He said Mr. Nygard was a “kind, conscientious” man who would not have harmed anyone.

“Women in the Bahamas throw themselves at Peter Nygard,” Mr. Gibson said. “He is the one that all the girls want to be with.”

Research was contributed by Susan C. Beachy, Kitty Bennett, Johanna Lemola and Declan Schroeder.


If you or someone you know experienced sexual assault and is seeking resources, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

Investor Louis Bacon wins defamation case against ex-fashion mogul Peter Nygard

NYGARD IS CANADA'S EPSTEIN

ByReuters
Published: December 24, 2025 

Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard is shown in this courtroom sketch in Toronto on Jan. 19, 2022. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Alexandra Newbould)

‍Billionaire hedge fund manager Louis Bacon has won his long-running defamation lawsuit alleging that former fashion mogul and convicted sex offender Peter Nygard spread lies about him during a public spat over their adjacent properties in the Bahamas.

Justice Richard Latin in Manhattan ⁠said in an order on Monday that Nygard had ‍admitted he had no evidence to back up his claims against Bacon, including that he was a murderer, narcotics trafficker and white supremacist. Bacon said in his lawsuit that Nygard’s claims were “brazen lies.”

Nygard’s lawyer, Peter Sverd, said in a statement on Tuesday that Nygard will continue to fight the case and expects to appeal.

Lawyers for Bacon, the founder of Moore Capital Management LP, did not immediately ⁠respond to emails seeking comment on Tuesday.

Nygard, the founder of Nygard International, who was once one of Canada’s richest men, is serving an 11-year prison sentence in Canada for sexual ⁠assault.


Bacon and Nygard were neighbors in an exclusive gated community ‌in the Bahamas and became ‌embroiled in a bitter dispute over Nygard’s efforts to expand his property, which Bacon opposed.

In his lawsuit filed in 2015, Bacon ⁠accused Nygard of orchestrating an obsessive and malicious smear campaign to falsely link Bacon to arson, bribery, drug smuggling, the Ku Klux Klan and murder.

Nygard was found guilty by a Toronto jury ‌on four counts of sexual ‍assault in 2023. He was acquitted of a fifth count of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement. Nygard has denied the allegations against him.

(Reporting ‍by Jack Queen in ‌New York

Editing by Rod Nickel and Noeleen Walder)

CANADA'S  EPSTEIN

Canadian fashion mogul lured women and girls to bedroom suite at his Toronto HQ, prosecution alleges

Associated Press
Tue, September 26, 2023


- A sign is displayed above the storefront of Peter Nygard's Times Square headquarters, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020, in New York. Former Canadian fashion mogul Nygard pleaded not guilty Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023, to all charges against him in his Toronto sexual assault case, as jury selection for his trial got underway.

 (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

TORONTO (AP) — Former Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard leveraged his wealth, assets and status over several years to lure young women and girls to a top-floor bedroom suite at his company’s Toronto headquarters where he forced himself on them, prosecutors alleged Tuesday as arguments at his sexual assault trial got underway.

Nygard invited all five complainants in the case — whose identities are protected by a publication ban — to visit his custom-built office building under pretenses ranging from tours to job interviews, with all the encounters ending in the bedroom suite, the prosecution said. There, he sexually assaulted them at different times, sometimes trapping or intoxicating them, the prosecution alleged in opening arguments.

“Five women, it took them years to come forward. 1 Niagara St., a custom-design office building with huge letters on the front: Nygard. The Toronto headquarters of a fashion empire,” assistant prosecution attorney Ana Serban said.

“But within these walls, behind all the trappings of success and power, there is a bedroom suite with a giant bed, a stone jacuzzi, a bar and doors — doors with no handle, doors with automatic, keypad-operated locks controlled by Peter Nygard.”

Nygard has pleaded not guilty to five counts of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement in alleged incidents dating back to the ’80s, ’90s and mid-2000s.

The 82-year-old appeared in court sporting a suit with no tie, tinted glasses and with his long white hair tied back.

Nygard also is set to be extradited to the United States to faces sex-related charges there, but only once his criminal cases Canada are completed. Nygard was first arrested in Winnipeg in 2020 under the Extradition Act after being charged with nine sex-related counts in New York.

The first complainant in Toronto, the prosecution said, will testify she met Nygard in her 20s while on a flight to the Bahamas, where he allegedly flattered her, offered her a job and a stay at his property in the Caribbean country, which she declined. After recognizing him on TV later, the woman called him and was invited to 1 Niagara St. for a job interview, court heard.

“It ends in his top-floor bedroom suite. She grows uncomfortable, she tries to leave. He tackles her onto the bed, puts his full body into it, pins her down on her back and tries to undress her, rips her clothing,” Serban, the assistant prosecution lawyer, alleged. “She’s terrified.”

Nygard then allegedly penetrated the complainant with his fingers and ripped her blouse with his teeth, only stopping when his next appointment was announced on the intercom, Serban said.

Nygard founded the now-defunct Nygard International brand in Winnipeg in 1967.


Fashion mogul Peter Nygård allegedly used firm’s head office to assault women

Leyland Cecco in Toronto

THE GUARDIAN
Tue, September 26, 2023


Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images


Fashion mogul Peter Nygård used his power and status to lure five women separately into a private bedroom suite attached to his company headquarters where he sexually assaulted them, a court in Toronto has heard.

In opening arguments on Tuesday, prosecutors said that Nygård, 82, met the women in social settings and invited them to the headquarters of his clothing empire in Toronto. All of the “tours” ended in his bedroom suite. The room had a bed, televisions and a jacuzzi. Prosectors say the doors didn’t have handles and the locks were controlled by Nygård.

Nygård has pleaded not guilty to five counts of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement. All complainants’ names are covered by a publication ban by the Canadian courts. Most of the women were in their 20s at the time of the alleged incidents, which occurred over a 25-year period, beginning in the 1980s. One of the women was 16 years old at the time of her alleged attack.

In one case, Nygård, who was in his 40s, met a woman in her 20s on a flight to the Bahamas, where he owned a sprawling estate, said Ana Serban, a crown lawyer. Nygård later invited her for a job interview at his Toronto office. When they ended up in the bedroom, she tried to leave.

He “tackles the woman onto the bed, puts his whole body into it, pins her down on her back and tries to undress her” against her will, said Serban. “She’s terrified.”

Nygård is alleged to have given her a new blouse and skirt to replace those he tore during the attack.

“She runs out of the building,” Serban said. “This was supposed to be a job interview at an office building.”

Born in Finland, Nygård grew up in Manitoba, eventually running his own namesake clothing companies and becoming one of Canada’s wealthiest people.

In 2020, US authorities charged him with racketeering and sex trafficking, alleging decades of crimes with dozens of victims in the United States, the Bahamas and Canada.

Fifty-seven women – including 18 Canadians – have joined that lawsuit, which alleges that Nygård used violence, intimidation, bribery and company employees to lure victims and avoid accountability for decades. Nygård has denied all allegations.

Nygård also faces sex-related charges in Manitoba and Quebec, and is set to be extradited to the US to face sex-related charges there once his criminal cases in Canada are completed.

Canada court to weigh extraditing fashion exec accused in US of sex crimes

Issued on: 01/10/2021

Peter Nygard, seen here in September 2005, is to appear in a Canadian court for an extradition hearing Friday -- he is wanted in the United States for alleged sex crimes

 Darryl James Getty Images North America/Getty Images/AFP/File

Montreal (AFP)

Fashion executive Peter Nygard, wanted in the United States for alleged sex crimes, is to appear in a Canadian court Friday for an extradition hearing.

Held in prison since his arrest in Winnipeg, Manitoba last December, the 80-year-old Finnish-Canadian millionaire faces nine charges in the United States, including racketeering and sex trafficking.

These involve dozens of victims in the United States, the Bahamas and Canada, and include minors, according to the New York federal attorney overseeing the case.

His extradition trial had been scheduled for five days in November but was unexpectedly pushed up to this week and is only expected to last one hour.

Earlier this year Nygard was denied bail on grounds he might tamper with witnesses or his accusers. The judge noted he had breached court orders on at least five past occasions and that the accusations against him were "disturbing."

His alleged crimes, US prosecutors said, took place between 1990 and 2020. Nygard and his alleged accomplices, including employees of his group, "used force, fraud, and coercion to cause women and minors to have sex" with them, according to the indictment.

He targeted women and girls from disadvantaged economic backgrounds or who had histories of abuse, using "the ruse of modelling and other fashion industry jobs" to lure them, it said.

His company's funds were said to have then been used to host dinner parties, poker games and so-called "pamper parties" where minor girls were drugged and women assaulted if they did not comply with his sexual demands.

Corporate accounts were also tapped to pay for victims' travel, living expenses, plastic surgery, abortions and child support, said prosecutors.

According to court documents, partygoers were often photographed and their personal information including weight and physical measurements kept in a registry.

The perma-tanned Nygard, known for his long, flowing gray hair and flamboyant dress sense, and who claimed stem cell injections kept him young, has denied the allegations.

- 'Worse than Epstein' -

His case has drawn parallels with that of late financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges when he killed himself in a New York jail in 2019.

"Nygard is worse than Epstein," Lisa Haba, a lawyer representing women suing Nygard in a class action, told AFP, saying the victims suffered "lifelong and all-consuming" pain.

"We believe he had more victims," she said. "And he was more violent in the crimes he committed," including "incredibly violent rapes (and) forcing victims to defecate on him."

Several women have joined the class action launched in February 2020, accusing him of having assaulted, raped and sodomized them after luring them to his seaside mansion on New Providence island, some of them when they were young teens.

Nygard, the founder of women's clothing company Nygard International, was reported to be worth over $850 million (US$ 670 million) in 2015, according to Canadian Business magazine.

He has long boasted about his rise from humble beginnings, as a young immigrant who built a fashion empire with nearly 170 stores at its peak.

His company, however, filed for bankruptcy shortly after the FBI and police raided Nygard's Manhattan corporate headquarters last year.

© 2021 AFP

UNLIKE TRUMP HE GOT BUSTED

Crown wants Quebec sex assault case of fashion mogul Peter Nygard to move forward

Mon, February 6, 2023 



MONTREAL — The Quebec lawyer prosecuting the sexual assault case against Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard told the court Monday the complainant wants proceedings to move forward more quickly.

Nygard's case in Quebec has been put off for months. The 81-year-old founder of a defunct international women's clothing company faces one count of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement involving incidents that allegedly took place in Quebec between Nov. 1, 1997, and Nov. 15, 1998.

He also faces sex-related charges in Toronto, where he is currently detained, and in the United States, where authorities say he used his position in the fashion industry to lure women and girls.

Prosecutor Jérôme Laflamme had told reporters it was expected that a trial date would be set on Monday. But Nygard's lawyer was not ready to proceed, and Quebec court Judge André Perreault put off the case once more, until April 14.

"The prosecution will be expecting a final position on this case at the next date so that we can move things along a little bit," Laflamme told Perreault. "It's been a little while since the initial arraignment and the plaintiff, she wants things to move."

Nygard was first arrested in Winnipeg in 2020 under the Extradition Act after being charged with nine sex-related counts in New York. He is also the subject of a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. involving 57 women who allege Nygard abused his position in the fashion industry and sexually assaulted them.

The fallen fashion entrepreneur was charged in Toronto in 2021 with six counts of sexual assault and three counts of forcible confinement involving incidents between the late 1980s and mid-2000s. He will face trial in Toronto in September 2023.

Two additional sex assault charges were laid by Toronto police in June 2022.

The Quebec charges were filed in March 2022, and Nygard waived his right to bail hearing in that province last July.

Nygard has denied all the allegations against him, and he is appealing a U.S. extradition order. That appeal is scheduled to be heard in Winnipeg on April 26.

In March 2022, federal Justice Minister David Lametti said Nygard could be extradited to the U.S. once his Canadian cases are settled.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 6, 2023.

Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press