Nygard denied bail on sex assault charges

Disgraced Canadian fashion designer Peter Nygard has been denied bail on charges of sexually assaulting and forcibly confining six women in Toronto between 1987 and 2006.

The reasons for the decision, as well as the evidence presented and arguments made over the three-day hearing before justice of the peace John Scarfe are under a routine publication ban intended to protect the rights of an accused person to a fair trial.

The 80-year-old multimillionaire has been in custody at the Toronto South Detention Centre for two-and-a-half months. He was flown by police to Toronto from Winnipeg in October to face the Toronto charges, which Nygard has denied.

Nygard had been held in a Manitoba jail since December 2020 pending extradition to the United States, where he is accused of sex trafficking. Prosecutors in New York have alleged Nygard, along with multiple co-conspirators, used his wealth, influence and fashion empire to recruit and sexually abuse women, some of them minors, over several decades.

“Victims were often promised modelling and fashion industry jobs on condition that they provide sex or were threatened with the loss of a job if they did not submit to sex,” according to a summary of the U.S. allegations in a Manitoba court. “Some victims were drugged or forcibly assaulted. Mr. Nygard used employees or girlfriends to recruit victims. Some of these “recruiters” were themselves victims. He would hold “pamper parties” to which potential victims were invited if they met certain body types. It is alleged that some victims were held captive on Mr. Nygard’s properties, unable to leave without his consent.”

According to prosecutors, the charges stem from “a decadeslong pattern of criminal conduct involving at least dozens of victims in the United States, the Bahamas and Canada, among other locations.”

Nygard’s company has filed for bankruptcy and he faces a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. involving 57 women.