CANADA – Peter Nygard, former leader of a global fashion empire, will be sentenced this week in a Canadian court for sexual assaults.
Last November, a Toronto jury convicted Nygard of assaulting four women, although he has denied the charges.
Nygard’s sentencing is only part of the ongoing legal battles for the 83-year-old. In addition to the charges in Toronto, Nygard faces additional accusations of sexual assault and sex trafficking in Montreal, Winnipeg, and the United States, all of which he categorically denies.
For decades, Peter Nygard ran Nygard International, a clothing design and manufacturing company based in Winnipeg, Canada, with offices in New York and California.
Prosecutors in his Toronto trial argued that Nygard, whose estimated net worth was once at least $700 million, used his status to assault five women between the late 1980s and 2005.
Nygard’s defense claimed the accusations were financially motivated. Nygard testified that he did not remember four of the five women and insisted he would never have acted in such a manner.
A jury found him guilty of four counts of sexual assault and not guilty of a fifth count of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement.
Nygard’s sentencing, scheduled for this week, has been delayed multiple times. Two of his lawyers resigned over ethical concerns.
His current lawyer, Gerri Wiebe, sought further delays to gather expert testimony on Nygard’s medical condition. However, Judge Robert Goldstein stated he would not consider more delays unless Nygard “is in a coma.”
Prosecutors in the Toronto case detailed how Nygard allegedly lured victims, aged between 16 and 28 at the time, to a private luxury bedroom at his company’s headquarters. They described the room as having “a giant bed, a bar, and doors without handles and automatic locks controlled by Peter Nygard,” where he allegedly trapped and assaulted the women.
After the Toronto sentencing, Nygard will face another sexual assault case in Montreal, where he is accused of assaulting and forcibly confining a woman more than two decades ago.
The preliminary inquiry for this case is scheduled for January 2025. In Winnipeg, he faces charges for offenses committed in 1993, involving a 20-year-old woman. Nygard has denied these charges as well.
Once his cases in Canada conclude, Nygard will be extradited to the United States. U.S. authorities have charged him with sex trafficking and racketeering, claiming that Nygard maintained “a decades-long pattern of criminal conduct” involving at least a dozen victims globally.
The U.S. Department of Justice asserts that Nygard targeted underage women and girls from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
A class-action lawsuit against Nygard by 57 women in the U.S. is currently on hold due to his criminal proceedings. Nygard has been in custody in Canada since his arrest in 2020 in Winnipeg.
He resigned as chairman of his company in February 2020, shortly before it filed for bankruptcy following a raid by U.S. authorities on its New York headquarters.
Peter Nygard, once a prominent figure in the fashion industry, now finds himself at the center of one of the largest sexual assault scandals. His multiple legal cases in Canada and the United States could significantly impact not only his personal life but also the public perception of his business legacy.
