A rich and powerful Canadian businessman has just been sentenced for sex crimes in a Toronto trial and is still facing charges in 3 other jurisdictions, as the reckoning for his decades of criminal behavior intensifies.
Disgraced fashion mogul Peter Nygard has been sentenced to 11 years in prison after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting four women.
Nygard’s lawyers had argued for a six-year sentence, because of what they claim is their client’s age and poor health, while the Crown sought a sentence of 15 years.
Daily Mail reported:
“Nygard was sentenced Monday in a Toronto courtroom by Justice Robert Goldstein who called him a ‘sexual predator’ and said he showed no empathy for his victims, all of whom were attacked in his company’s offices.
The judge said one of several aggravating factors in the case was the fact that one of the victims was just 16 years old at the time of the assault.”
The 83-year-old businessman – and sex offender – has been found guilty of four counts of sexual assault last November.
Nygard once mingled with the jet set and even hosted embattled Prince Andrew in his house in the Bahamas. He faces separate sexual assault and sex trafficking charges in Montreal, Winnipeg and the US.
Nygard has denied all allegations against him.
His actual time behind bars now will amount to a little less than seven years, when time served is discounted.
He will be eligible to apply for parole in two years unless convicted in other jurisdictions.
“The charges against Nygard stemmed from allegations dating back to the 1980s until the mid-2000s.
During his trial, five women – whose identities are protected by a publication ban – testified they were invited to Nygard’s Toronto business headquarters under pretexts ranging from tours to job interviews. All the encounters ended in a top-floor bedroom suite where four of the women were sexually assaulted.”
The witnesses in his case all told similar stories: they met Nygard on a plane, at an airport tarmac or at a nightclub – and then received invitations to come to his headquarters.
Their interactions with Nygard all ended ‘with sexual activity that they did not consent to’.
Judge Goldstein called Nygard ‘a Canadian success story gone very wrong.’
“Nygard stepped down as chairman of the [Fashion] company after the FBI and police raided his offices in New York City in February 2020. The company has since filed for bankruptcy and entered into receivership.”
Nygard was arrested in Winnipeg in 2020, charged with nine counts in New York, including sex trafficking and racketeering charges.
Read more:
Billionaire Fashion Mogul Peter Nygard Found Guilty of Sexual Assault in Toronto Trial
