‘A sexual predator’: Former fashion mogul Peter Nygard
sentenced to 11 years in prison
The sentence was handed down on Monday by Justice Robert Goldstein, nearly 10 months after Nygard was convicted in November 2023 of four counts of sexual assault but acquitted of a fifth count as well as one count of forcible confinement.
He will also have a 10-year weapons prohibition, a DBA order and he will be on the sex offender registry for 20 years.
Nygard has 6.7 years left to serve on his sentence after pre-sentence custody. Justice Goldstein said Nygard will be eligible for day parole in 21 months and full parole in 27 months from now.
Nygard was a fashion tycoon and once helmed a successful women’s fashion company. He was accused of sexually assaulting multiple women at his Toronto headquarters from the 1980s to the mid-2000s.
The 83-year-old was wheeled into the courtroom in a wheelchair with a black hoodie pulled up over his head. He has a long beard and a paper visor under his hoodie to shield his eyes from the light.
“Mr. Nygard is a sexual predator,” Justice Goldstein said during the sentencing.
Goldstein spoke to how some of the women testified that they told family or friends about the sexual assaults but didn’t go to police because they were advised it would be “her word against his” and they would not be believed. “He was a rich and powerful man,” Justice Goldstein said.
Due to a publication ban, the identities of the complainants are protected and cannot be revealed.
Five women had testified that they were invited to Nygard’s headquarters at 1 Niagara St. in Toronto under pretexts ranging from tours to job interviews, with all encounters ending in a top-floor private bedroom suite where four of them were sexually assaulted.
Multiple complainants told the jury similar stories of meeting Nygard on a plane, at an airport tarmac or at a nightclub and then receiving invitations to come to the headquarters. All five women said their meetings or interactions with Nygard ended with sexual activity that they did not consent to.
One of the complainants testified that Nygard wouldn’t let her leave his private suite for some time, which led to the forcible confinement charge. Others also testified about feeling trapped in the suite, describing doors that had to be opened with a keypad code or the push of a button near the bed.
Nygard’s latest lawyer was seeking a six-year sentence minus pre-sentence credit, citing his age and health issues, while prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 15 years.
“While he has deteriorated in custody, I do not agree that his deterioration is because of harsh conditions in custody, ” Justice Goldstein said, adding he is skeptical of Nygard’s self-reporting. “While he has health problems, he is also prone to hyperbole and exaggeration.”
In other words, he's a liar. Satan is the father of lies, and liars.
Nygard was first arrested in Winnipeg in 2020 under the Extradition Act after he was charged with nine counts in New York, including sex trafficking and racketeering charges.
The federal justice minister at the time had said Nygard would be extradited to the U.S. after the cases against him in Canada were resolved.
— With files from The Canadian Press
Jacob Hoggard seeking leave to appeal sex assault
conviction to Canada’s top court
Canadian musician Jacob Hoggard is seeking leave to appeal his sexual assault conviction before Canada’s top court.
Hoggard filed a notice of application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada earlier this week, arguing the Court of Appeal for Ontario – which recently upheld his conviction – failed to apply the proper test in determining whether an error made by the trial judge constituted a “harmless error.”
The proposed appeal raises questions of “national and public importance” that relate to the fairness of the trial and Hoggard’s submission that he was wrongfully convicted, the application argues.
A lawyer representing Hoggard declined to comment further.
Meanwhile, the Appeal Court said the Hedley frontman will be seeking bail at a hearing on Tuesday.
A three-judge appeal panel upheld Hoggard’s conviction last month.
Hoggard’s lawyers had appealed on four grounds, including that the trial judge erred by admitting the evidence of clinical psychologist Lori Haskell on the neurobiology of trauma.
In a unanimous ruling, the court found the trial judge had erred in admitting the expert’s evidence in part because it risked being misused by the jury to reason backwards that the trial’s two complainants had experienced a sexual assault.
However, the judge corrected any potential misuse in answering the jury’s questions, and as a result, “there was no substantial wrong or miscarriage of justice,” the court found.
The court found the trial judge did not make any errors regarding the other grounds raised in the appeal.
Hoggard was found guilty in June 2022 of sexual assault causing bodily harm against an Ottawa woman, an offence the presiding judge called a “particularly degrading rape.”
He was also found not guilty of the same charge and of sexual interference, a charge that refers to the sexual touching of someone under 16, in relation to a teenage fan.
He was later sentenced to five years behind bars, but was released on bail hours later.
Hoggard began serving his sentence when his appeal was dismissed last month.
The musician, whose band rose to fame after he came in third on the reality show Canadian Idol in 2004, was charged in 2018.
Hedley went on an indefinite hiatus when allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced. Its last show was in Kelowna, B.C., on March 24, 2018.
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Harvey Weinstein may face more NY sex assault charges after Britain drops case
Spared from prosecution in Britain on Thursday, Harvey Weinstein now faces the prospect of a new indictment in New York, where prosecutors retrying the disgraced movie mogul’s rape case are taking steps to potentially charge him with up to three additional sex assaults.
Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service, which authorized two charges of indecent assault against Weinstein in 2022, announced Thursday that it decided to discontinue the proceedings because there was “no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.’’
“We have explained our decision to all parties,’’ the CPS said in a statement. ’’We would always encourage any potential victims of sexual assault to come forward and report to police, and we will prosecute wherever our legal test is met.”
At the same time, the Manhattan district attorney’s office in New York has begun presenting evidence to a grand jury of up to three previously uncharged allegations against Weinstein -– two sexual assaults in the mid-2000s and another sexual assault in 2016.
The New York grand jury’s term expires Friday, and a vote on an indictment could happen by the end of the week, though it’s possible the process could extend beyond that. Prosecutors said they would seek to combine any new charges with ones previously brought against Weinstein so that they could be tried together.
In April, New York’s top court overturned Weinstein’s rape and sexual assault convictions and ordered a new trial. The state’s Court of Appeals found that the judge in the 2020 trial unfairly allowed testimony from women whose claims against Weinstein weren’t part of the case.
Prosecutors shared some information about the additional allegations that the grand jury is weighing at a court conference on Tuesday.
They include alleged sexual assaults at the Tribeca Grand Hotel, now known as the Roxy Hotel, and in a Lower Manhattan residential building between late 2005 and mid-2006, and an alleged sexual assault at a Tribeca hotel in May 2016.
Judge Curtis Farber elicited the details as Weinstein’s lawyers weighed potentially having him testify before the grand jury, which they said he’d wanted to do. Weinstein was not present at the conference.
Defense lawyer Arthur Aidala said Thursday that he’s decided against Weinstein testifying, citing a lack of sufficient information about the new allegations. He criticized prosecutors for seeking to add additional accusers to the case rather than simply trying Weinstein’s original indictment again.
“The case was overturned in April and they spent six months trying to dig up someone to come after him,” Aidala said.
Weinstein, 72, has denied that he raped or sexually assaulted anyone. He remains in custody in New York while awaiting a retrial in Manhattan that’s tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12. He is expected back in court for a pretrial hearing Sept. 12.
Weinstein became the most prominent villain of the #MeToo movement, which took root in 2017 when women began to go public with accounts of his behavior. After the revelations emerged, British police said they were investigating multiple allegations of sexual assault that reportedly took place between the 1980s and 2015.
In June 2022, the Crown Prosecution Service said it had authorized London’s Metropolitan Police Service to file two charges of indecent assault against Weinstein over an alleged incident that occurred in London in 1996. The victim was in her 50s at the time of the announcement.
Unlike many other countries, Britain does not have a statute of limitations for rape or sexual assault.
After Weinstein’s conviction was overturned, New York prosecutors said they intended to bring new sexual assault charges against him and were actively pursuing claims of rape that occurred in Manhattan within the statute of limitations.
At the original trial, Weinstein was convicted of forcibly performing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006 and rape in the third degree for an attack on an aspiring actor in 2013. Those allegations will be part of his retrial. Weinstein’s acquittals on charges of predatory sexual assault and first-degree rape still stand.
After the retrial, Weinstein is due to start serving a 16-year sentence in California for a separate rape conviction in Los Angeles, authorities said. Weinstein was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022.
Weinstein, the co-founder of Miramax and The Weinstein Company film studios, was once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, producing such Oscar winners as “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love.”
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