Ten women filed a civil class-action lawsuit on Thursday accusing one of Canada’s wealthiest businessmen and clothing producers, Peter Nygard, of raping them at his seaside mansion in the Bahamas and working what they discuss with as a “intercourse trafficking ring.”
The women are looking for damages for the alleged rapes.
Three of the women had been 14 years outdated on the time of the alleged rapes. Three others had been 15.
The alleged rapes passed off between 2008 and 2015.
The women aren’t named in the lawsuit “to guard their identities as a result of of the delicate and extremely private nature of this matter.”
According to the lawsuit, filed in New York, Nygard “recruited, lured and enticed younger, impressionable and usually impoverished youngsters and women, with money funds and false guarantees of profitable modeling alternatives to assault, rape and sodomize them.”
There aren’t any prison expenses related to any of the allegations.
Nygard’s lawyer “vigorously” denied the accusations as “fully false [and] with out basis” in a press release Thursday.
“Peter Nygard appears to be like ahead to totally exposing this rip-off and as soon as and for all clearing his title,” stated Jay Prober.
Nygard operates a multimillion-dollar clothing empire based mostly in Winnipeg. According to its web site, the privately owned firm operates greater than 170 shops throughout North America.
Lawsuit alleges bribery
The lawsuit goes on to accuse Nygard of drugging women by placing “Rohypnol and/or different mind-altering medication in their drinks.”
It additionally alleges he “initiated a scheme to buy police safety and political cowl in the Bahamas by making common funds of tens of hundreds of {dollars} to regulation enforcement, authorities officers, regulators and even to a former cupboard minister who turned the prime minister of the Bahamas.”
It additional claims “Nygard additionally paid folks, utilizing Nygard firm cash, to intimidate his former ‘girlfriends’ by slashing their tires, committing arson, paying police to threaten to arrest them and by having them adopted.”
Decade-long dispute
“This lawsuit was anticipated,” stated Prober, his lawyer.
Prober stated the lawsuit is the newest in a decade-long try and destroy his repute by his former neighbour in the Bahamas, U.S. billionaire and former hedge fund proprietor Louis Bacon.
Their dispute started as a noise grievance and has advanced into a number of lawsuits in a number of nations spanning greater than 10 years.
Nygard’s most up-to-date authorized assault in opposition to Bacon was launched in New York in November 2019
It alleges Bacon has employed a workforce of attorneys and personal investigators who’re “partaking in a sample of illicit and unlawful conduct designed to improperly affect witnesses to make false statements, file false reviews, abuse course of, tortiously intervene with enterprise relations and help and abet the dissemination of false statements … all for the intentional goal of damaging [Nygard].”
Nygard stated allegations in the lawsuit filed Thursday are a response to his November lawsuit in opposition to Bacon, saying the complainants had been “purchased off to make such false claims.”
‘Pamper events’
According to Thursday’s lawsuit, the alleged rapes passed off after or throughout what Nygard has known as “pamper events” at his residence in the Bahamas.
His workers had been instructed to recruit younger women for the weekly events, the lawsuit claims. When visitors checked in, their particulars could be entered in a database and photographs despatched to Nygard for evaluate.
“Nygard would then use this data to pick out his potential victims for the night time,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit claims Nygard has a database of greater than 7,500 underage girls and women.
The lawsuit additionally contains particulars of the alleged assaults in opposition to the 10 women who made the allegations.
The allegations embrace vaginal rape, anal rape, oral intercourse and requests to urinate or defecate in Nygard’s mouth.
According to the lawsuit, one of the complainants, who was 14 on the time, stated the encounter started with Nygard displaying her pornography. Then Nygard requested her to make use of a intercourse toy on him and it ended when he raped her, “inflicting her extraordinary trauma and ache.”
The lawsuit says he paid the complainants hundreds of {dollars} after every of the rapes.
He resorted to ways of violence, intimidation, bribery, and payoff to try to silence the victims and to proceed his scheme.-Civil class-action lawsuit
“The Nygard corporations fund all of Nygard’s ‘pamper events’ by transferring money from the corporate’s checking account in Canada and routing it by New York,” the lawsuit says.
“[Nygard’s] destruction of harmless lives is immeasurable,” it says.
“When Nygard turned conscious of the investigation into his intercourse trafficking ring, he resorted to ways of violence, intimidation, bribery and payoffs to try to silence the victims and to proceed his scheme.”
There is a 10-year statute of limitations for instances like this below New York regulation.
The lawsuit requests or not it’s prolonged as a result of the complainants “had been impeded as a result of of a mixture of drive, threats of drive, disgrace, embarrassment, concern, political and regulation enforcement corruption, weak legal guidelines which are not often enforced to guard the sufferer and bribery.”
If not some accusers could also be barred from the go well with. The class-action lawsuit should even be licensed by a choose earlier than it may well proceed.
Additional lawsuits
Thursday’s allegations comply with two further lawsuits accusing Nygard of sexual assault that had been filed in Los Angeles in January and got here to gentle lately
Nygard denies these allegations as properly.
One lawsuit is from an unnamed girl who claims Nygard sexually assaulted and falsely imprisoned her whereas she was a minor. The age of consent in California is 18.
The incidents started, the lawsuit alleges, at Nygard’s residence in California in 2012 and continued throughout a visit to China on his personal aircraft, in a membership in New York and whereas visiting Florida.
“Nygard dedicated sexual battery upon the plaintiff by appearing with the intent to trigger a dangerous or offensive contact with intimate elements of the plaintiff’s physique,” the lawsuit alleges.
Plaintiff objected to being compelled to be concerned in procuring women for Defendant Nygard. She instructed him that she was not a madam and that she didn’t need to be concerned in these actions.– Civil class-action lawsuit
“Defendant Nygard deliberately disadvantaged plaintiff of her freedom of motion by the use of menace, fraud, deceit and/or unreasonable duress, for an considerable interval of time.”
The second lawsuit was filed by a former worker of Nygard who says she managed a medical hashish facility for him in Los Angeles.
The girl is known as in the lawsuit, however CBC News has determined to withhold her id as a result of of the character of the allegations.
She claims in her lawsuit that Nygard touched her sexually with out consent on a number of events between 2016 and 2018.
Nygard “triggered a dangerous or offensive contact with [the woman’s] breasts and/or buttocks and/or groin,” the lawsuit alleges.
On one event, the lawsuit says, Nygard stated “that her ‘ass’ seemed superb. He stated, ‘ what they are saying about pregnant women.’ He stated ‘they need it extra’ whereas making ahead movement along with his hips.”
The lawsuit alleges the lady was ordered to ask women to attend events at Nygard’s residence in California, and that he would then select just a few of them to “to remain the night time with him.”
“Defendant Nygard paid these women for his or her ‘companies,’ ” the lawsuit claims.
“Plaintiff objected to being compelled to be concerned in procuring women for Defendant Nygard. She instructed him that she was not a madam and that she didn’t need to be concerned in these actions.”
According to the lawsuit, the lady stop in 2018, following the alleged assaults and claims Nygard did not pay her the wage and advantages he promised. Nygard says lawsuits filed in Los Angeles are additionally half of Bacon’s marketing campaign to destroy his repute.
None of the allegations in the lawsuits have been confirmed in courtroom.
If you’ve gotten extra data associated to this story, please contact fifthtips@cbc.ca or timothy.sawa@cbc.ca.
