Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard guilty of four counts of sexual assault | Sexual assault news
The 82-year-old founder of one of Canada’s biggest clothing brands has been convicted of charges related to incidents between 1988 and 2005.
Former Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard has been found guilty of four counts of sexual assault, a Toronto court said.
Nygard, 82, was on trial in Ontario Superior Court for five counts of sexual assault and one count of sexual assault, charges related to incidents between 1988 and 2005. Four women and a 16-year-old girl were involved. in these charges.
The jury handed down the verdict on Sunday, the fifth day of deliberations after a six-week trial. Nygard was acquitted of one count of sexually assaulting one of the women who testified at the trial.
The trial marked the first in a series of accusations he has had for sexual crimes against a number of women over several decades in Canada and the United States.
“I know it’s been a long and difficult case for you,” Judge Robert Goldstein told the jury.
Nygard’s attorney, Brian Greenspan, did not deny that he may appeal the decision. During closing arguments, Greenspan said the case was built on “contradictions and innuendo”, while dismissing 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 into a den of iniquity and forced women to comply with his sexual demands…
Prosecutor Ana Serban, on the other hand, said that on the stand Nygard was evasive and inconsistent, and that his memory was unreliable and selective.
Serban pointed to “very similar accounts” by his five accusers, independent of each other, about how they met Nygard, who was invited to his office and “how he sexually assaulted them in the room -his private bedroom”.
“The similarities defy coincidence,” she said. “It’s a behavior pattern. “
Giving evidence in his own defense, Nygard did not remember meeting or knowing four of his accusers and insisted that he did not force any of the five.
“The kind of allegations that have been made and described are the kind of behavior that I know I have never committed, never will commit,” he told the court, even though he admitting that his memory had become “very fuzzy” with age.
He will return to court on November 21 for sentencing.
Nygard, who founded the company that would become Nygard International in 1967, has been in custody since his arrest in 2020.
He now faces similar charges in Quebec and Manitoba. as well as being extradited to the US where he is accused of sexually assaulting dozens of women and girls, racism and human trafficking.
Born in Finland, Nygard grew up in Manitoba, eventually running his eponymous clothing company and becoming one of Canada’s richest men.
