Quote from Alex bobby on November 13, 2023, 2:02 PM

A Canadian jury has found the former fashion mogul Peter Nygard guilty of sexual assault after a six-week trial.

Prosecutors told a Toronto court that Nygard, 82, used his "status" to assault five women in a series of incidents from the late 1980s to 2005. Nygard denied the charges, and his defence team accused the victims of "gold-digging" for financial gain. He was found not guilty on a fifth count of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement.

Nygard appeared to show no emotion as the verdict was handed down on the jurors' fifth day of deliberations. According to prosecutors, Nygard lured the women - aged 16 to 28 at the time - to a private luxury bedroom in his firm's Toronto headquarters.

One prosecutor, Ana Serban, described the room as having "a giant bed...and a bar and doors, doors with no handles and automatic locks controlled by Peter Nygard. Ms Serban alleged that Nygard would assault the women once they were trapped in the room.

During closing arguments earlier this week, Crown prosecutors and Nygard's defence team painted dramatically different pictures of the man who once hobnobbed with celebrities and stood at the helm of a lucrative global apparel empire.

His lawyer Brian Greenspan told jurors that the state's case rested on "revisionist history" built on "contradictions and innuendo", Canadian media reported. He also claimed that four of the five women - who are also part of a US class action lawsuit - were motivated by financial gain.Gold-digging runs deep," he said.

Over five days of tense testimony and cross-examination earlier in the trial, Nygard said he could never have acted "in that kind of manner" and that he did not recall four of the five women, according to CBC.

Prosecutors relied heavily on the evidence of the women in court. Ms Serban said that the jury "should have no difficulty" finding Nygard guilty and that the women's evidence described "the same space and same behaviour" from the former mogul, CTV reported.

"It defies coincidence," she said. Nygard - who was once estimated to be worth $700m (£570m) - is still facing another trial in Montreal next year and assault and confinement charges in Winnipeg.

Once his criminal cases in Canada are completed, he is set 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. He is currently fighting that extradition.

The guilty verdicts on Sunday cap a stunning fall from grace for Nygard, who was once well-known for hosting celebrities and politicians at his swanky properties.

In February 2020, he stepped down as chairman of his firm, Nygard International, shortly before it filed for bankruptcy after US authorities raided its New York headquarters, He has been jailed since his arrest in December the same year.

US agents have raided fashion executive Peter Nygard's Manhattan offices as part of a sex-trafficking investigation. The FBI and New York police executed a search warrant on Tuesday, a spokesman for the US Attorney's Office said.

The raid comes as Mr Nygard, 77, is facing a sexual assault and trafficking lawsuit, filed by 10 women and girls earlier this month. He has denied allegations of wrongdoing. The Finnish-Canadian multimillionaire, who has been linked to Prince Andrew, has been the subject of an investigation by the child exploitation FBI task force and New York police for the last five months. He was reportedly the subject of a previous FBI investigation for sex trafficking in 2015 and 2017.

A spokesman for Mr Nygard said the fashion executive, who owns Nygard International brands, "welcomes the federal investigation and expects his name to be cleared. He has not been charged, is not in custody and is cooperating with the investigation."

Mr Nygard is estimated to be worth upwards of $700m (£538m). Brands owned by his company include Bianca Nygard, Tan Jay, ALIA and SLIMS.

What do we know about the lawsuit? The sex abuse lawsuit was filed on 13 February by 10 unnamed female plaintiffs against Mr Nygard and his associated companies.

The lawsuit accuses him of sexually assaulting "young, impressionable, and often impoverished children and women" after luring them with cash and false promises of lucrative modelling opportunities. Some of the plaintiffs are minors.

Mr Nygard is accused of using alcohol, drugs, force or other means of coercion "to engage in commercial sex acts with these children and women, Most of the assault and sex trafficking allegations took place in the Bahamas, where Mr Nygard has lived for years.

The lawsuit, which details complaints dating back four decades, also claims Mr Nygard would bribe officials to hide evidence of his crimes. It alleges he kept a "database of potential victims" on his company's servers with details on over 7,500 women and underage girls.

The case has brought forth echoes of other recent cases of wealthy and powerful men involved in sex abuse. Mr Nygard often hosted celebrities and politicians at his properties to promote his brands, including former President George H W Bush and actors Robert De Niro and Sean Connery. Prince Andrew is friendly with Mr Nygard, and has been photographed with his family and the sportswear tycoon.

Though there is no suggestion he knew of allegations against Mr Nygard, the Duke of York was forced to step back from public life amid furore over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, a sex abuser. A spokesman for the fashion tycoon said the claims against him were "completely false, without foundation and are vigorously denied. Peter Nygard looks forward to fully exposing this scam and, once and for all, clearing his name," his spokesman said.