Former fashion mogul Peter Nygard has been sentenced to 11 years for sexually assaulting four women in Toronto, Canada from the late 1980s to 2005.
The 83-year-old was convicted last November by a jury after he denied the charges.
Prosecutors sought a 15-year prison sentence for Nygard, arguing that he displayed a “pattern of behaviour” when he assaulted the women.
His defence team argued for a sentence of less than two years, asking the judge to factor in his advanced age, declining health and the time he has already spent behind bars.
The sentencing is not the end of Nygard’s legal challenges.
He faces separate sexual assault and sex trafficking charges in Montreal and Winnipeg as well as in the US.
He has denied any wrongdoing and the other charges have not been tested in court.
Nygard’s 11-year sentence will take into account the time he has already spent behind bars meaning he has more than 6 years left to serve. He will be eligible for full parole in about two years.
When delivering his sentence, Superior Court Justice Robert Goldstein called Nygard a “sexual predator” and a “Canadian success story gone very wrong”.
“He used his wealth and his power to commit four sexual assaults,” Judge Goldstein said.
Nygard has been accused of using his influence and wealth to systematically assault and traffic women in both the US and Canada over a number of decades, when he was at the helm Nygard International, his global clothing design and manufacturing business.
Over his six-week criminal trial in Toronto last autumn, prosecutors argued that Nygard – once estimated to be worth at least $700m (£542m) – used his “status” to assault five women over the course of a few decades.
Nygard was found guilty of sexually assaulting four out of the five women in the case.
Most of the women detailed similar stories, in which Nygard lured them with the promise of work or professional help in the fashion industry. Each of them were then invited separately to a tour by Nygard at his Toronto office that ended in his private bedroom suite.
He then raped or sexually assaulted them inside the bedroom, the court heard. The victims were aged 16 to 28 at the time.
One woman described in her victim impact statement how the assault derailed life and left her with post-traumatic stress disorder, severe depression and anxiety.
Another said the assault led her to distrust men and avoid long-term relationships for decades.
“Now a 63-year-old woman, I’m deeply saddened by the lack of love in my life,” she told the court.
Shannon Moroney, a therapist who has worked with four of the accusers, read statements they had written outside of court after sentencing. Several said that the sentence has given them some amount of closure.
“We did this to ensure every victim of sexual assault will remember this trial and feel the strength and confidence to come forward and not be threatened by social status or money,” she said, quoting one of the accusers.
Nygard was due to be sentenced for his crimes shortly after his conviction in November, but the process had been repeatedly pushed back, in part due to two of his lawyers resigning over ethical concerns.
During the sentencing hearings, Crown prosecutor Neville Golwalla asked the judge to impose a 15-year sentence on Nygard, which he said would take into account his crimes and time he has already served behind bars.
His lawyer Gerri Wiebe asked for less time, arguing that a lengthy sentence would lower Nygard’s life expectancy due to his already-deteriorating health.
Nearly 20 people submitted letters to the court in support of Nygard, including former business and philanthropy partners, an ex-girlfriend, his former dentist and a pastor.
The letters praised Nygard for his hard work and for his financial support to the people in his life and various charitable causes.
Nygard has been in custody since his arrest in late 2020. He has been held at an infirmary inside a Toronto detention center, the court heard, where he has been afforded privileges like his own phone and access to email through his assistant.
Now that the Toronto case is complete, Nygard is set to face another sexual assault case in Montreal, where he has been charged with assaulting and forcibly confining a woman more than two decades ago.
A preliminary inquiry in that case is set to begin in January 2025.
Nygard is also facing charges in Winnipeg related to offences allegedly committed in 1993, involving a woman who was 20 years old at the time.
In that case, he is alleged to have held the woman captive and raped her after inviting her to a modeling job. He has denied the charges and sued his accuser for defamation in 2023, while he was still in custody for the Toronto case.
Once his criminal cases in Canada are completed, he is expected to be extradited to the US, where authorities claim he engaged in a “decades-long pattern of criminal conduct” involving at least a dozen victims across the globe.
A separate class-action lawsuit has also been filed against him by 57 women in the US, though it was put on hold amid his criminal proceedings.
In 2020, Nygard stepped down as chairman of his firm shortly before it filed for bankruptcy after US authorities raided its New York headquarters.
Source: bbc.co.uk
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