The 82-year-old founding father of considered one of Canada’s largest clothes manufacturers convicted of costs linked to incidents between 1988 and 2005.
Former Canadian vogue mogul Peter Nygard has been discovered responsible of 4 counts of sexual assault, a courtroom in Toronto has stated.
Nygard, 82, was on trial within the Ontario Superior Courtroom for 5 counts of sexual assault and one depend of forcible confinement, costs linked to incidents between 1988 and 2005. The costs concerned 4 girls and a 16-year-old woman.
The jury handed down the decision on Sunday, the fifth day of deliberations following a six-week trial. Nygard was acquitted on one depend of sexually assaulting one of many girls who testified on the trial.
The trial addressed the primary in a sequence of costs he faces for intercourse crimes in opposition to a number of girls over a number of many years in Canada and the USA.
“I know it’s been a long and arduous case for you,” Justice Robert Goldstein instructed the jury.
Nygard’s lawyer Brian Greenspan didn’t rule out the opportunity of interesting the decision. Throughout the closing arguments, Greenspan stated the case was constructed on “contradictions and innuendo” as he panned the prosecution’s portrayal of his consumer.
“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 stated.
Prosecutor Ana Serban, then again, stated Nygard on the stand was evasive and inconsistent, and that his reminiscence was unreliable and selective.
Serban pointed to “remarkably similar accounts” of his 5 accusers, impartial of one another, about how they met Nygard, have been invited to his workplace constructing and “how he sexually assaulted them in his private bedroom suite”.
“The similarities defy coincidence,” she stated. “It’s a pattern of behaviour.”
Testifying in his personal defence, Nygard didn’t recall assembly or realizing 4 of his accusers and insisted he by no means raped any of the 5.
“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 instructed the courtroom, even whereas admitting that his reminiscence had develop into “very fuzzy” with age.
He’ll return to courtroom on November 21 for sentencing.
Nygard, who in 1967 based the agency that was to develop into Nygard Worldwide, has been held in detention since his arrest in 2020.
He should now face comparable costs in Quebec and Manitoba. in addition to extradition to the US the place he has been accused of sexually assaulting dozens of girls and women, racketeering and trafficking.
Born in Finland, Nygard grew up in Manitoba, ultimately operating his namesake clothes corporations and changing into considered one of Canada’s wealthiest individuals.
