Fashion Mogul Peter Nygård, 82, Guilty Of Sexually Assaulting 5 Women

A Canadian court has convicted Finnish-Canadian former fashion mogul, Peter Nygård for sexually assaulting five women including a 16-year-old minor. The Jury, in a six-week trial, convicted Nygård, 82, of sexually assaulting the women during 1988-2005. 

However, Nygård and his attorney denied the allegations as his lawyer suggested that women were trying to clinch financial claims with false allegations. Nygård said in court that he did not recall meeting any of the women who were accusing him. He alleged his memory has become "very fuzzy" with age. 

Peter Nygård Convicted Of Sexual Assault

Peter Nygård, who is the founder of one of the largest Canadian clothing brands, Nygård International, was convicted by a court in Toronto, as per reports. Nygård was not found guilty in one of the five charges of sexual assault and forcible confinement alleged by a woman who testified during the seven-week trial by the Superior Court of Justice in Ontario. 

Prosecutors told the jury of court in Toronto that Nygård (82) had used the power of his status to assault five women in several series of incidents during the period of 1988-2005.

Nygård now has been charged with four counts of sexual assaults including a 16-year-old minor in the states of Canada and the United States for several decades. 

Court Hearing

Prosecutors alleged that Nygård lured women aged between 16-28 at the time into his private luxury bedroom in his firm's Toronto headquarters and sexually assaulted them. 

Nygård reportedly showed no emotions during the trial when the verdicts were presented on the fifth day of deliberation during the court's hearing and the allegations were denied by him as well as his defence. 

On leaving the courtroom, Nygård's attorney Brian Greenspan denied the verdict to be appealing and denied the prosecutor's portrayal of his client in the case.

During the closing arguments, Greenspan claimed the case was built upon "contradictions and innuendo" and criticised prosecutors for portraying his client as an evil predator a "Jekyll and Hyde personality" who lured women using his wealth and power into his "den of iniquity" and forced them complying his sexual demands and claimed these accusations to be "neither fair not accurate."

Greenspan claimed that four out of five women during the trial were motivated by financial gains or "gold-digging" as they admitted to being involved in a US class-action lawsuit against his client as he called the testimonies during the trials as "painfully absurd". 

A prosecutor, Ana Serban claimed Nygård to be "evasive and inconsistent" on his stand and his memory was unreliable and selective. Serban pointed out the similarity in the cases of the five accusers despite being independent of each other in how they met Nygård, got invited to his office, and were taken into his private bedroom suite trapped by automated locks controlled by him and was sexually assaulted as they were trapped. 

Testifying in his defence, Nygård claimed during the trial that he does not recall meeting or even knowing any of the four accusers insisting he never raped any of the five accusers as he said that the type of allegations described during the hearing is the type of conduct he has never done and he knows he never would do.

Nygård will now be appearing before the court for hearing the sentencing of the case on November 21. He has been detained since his arrest in 2020. 

Peter Nygård who founded Nygård International in 1967 and once had an estimated net worth of  $700m stepped down from his position of chairperson of the company in 2020 soon before the company filed for bankruptcy and US authorities raided the headquarters. 

Nygård would also be soon facing similar charges in Manitoba, Quebec as well as extradition in the United States for racketeering, trafficking, and sexually assaulting dozens of women and girls. 

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