The Full Story - Nygard Was in Fact Canada's Jeffrey Epstein

Amazon Produced a 3 Episode Series: Evil By Design: Exposing Peter Nygard

Nov. 13, 2023 Update

Canada's Jeffrey Epstein - Retail Founder & CEO Convicted
Nygard was a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein

Peter Nygard convicted of four counts of sexual assault
Nygard has been in jail since December 2020.

Five women testified the ex-fashion mogul sexually assaulted them inside his former Toronto headquarters. Nygard is still facing sexual assault and other criminal charges in Montreal, Winnipeg and New York. His Montreal trial is scheduled for next July.

After disgraced ex-fashion mogul Peter Nygard was convicted by a Toronto jury on Sunday of four counts of sexual assault, one of his victims declared, "We did this for everyone, not only for ourselves."

Nygard, 82, showed no emotion in court Sunday as he stood to hear the verdicts, which the jury delivered after hearing nearly six weeks of evidence. The jurors acquitted Nygard of sexually assaulting the only complainant in the case whom he admitted knowing, and also found him not guilty of unlawful confinement in relation to one of the other four complainants.

The Finland-born, Winnipeg-raised Nygard founded what would become Nygard International in 1967. Once the largest manufacturer of women's clothing in Canada, the company filed for bankruptcy in 2020 as Nygard came under criminal investigation, first in the U.S. and then in Canada.

Four of the five women in the Toronto case are also involved in a class-action lawsuit in the United States against Nygard, in which 57 women made allegations of sexual assault and sex trafficking. The lawsuit was put on pause until further notice in 2020, with the reasons sealed, meaning the information is not publicly accessible.

Most of the incidents allegedly occurred at Nygard's mansion on Lyford Cay in the Caribbean paradise. And most of the alleged victims were young "impoverished" Bahamian girls.

According to Manhattan prosecutor Audrey Strauss Nygard has been using his wealth and position in the fashion industry to "recruit and maintain" victims in the US, Canada and the Bahamas. Nygard allegedly had a criminal network similar to Epstein’s in which he exploited both underage girls and young women, then sold them off to his wealthy friends.

In many cases, Nygard and his friends drugged their victims. They also specifically targeted victims from disadvantaged backgrounds who were less difficult to isolate from their families or friends.

According to the indictment Nygard’s company hosted "Pamper Parties" at his properties in Marina del Rey in California and the Bahamas, where many of the victims were forced to engage in sexual activity with his wealthy associates.

He also waged a relentless intimidation campaign against any of the victims who went public with accusations against him, threatening to sue them, destroy their reputations, and even have them arrested. thestar.com  eraoflight.com


Fall From Grace is Quick
'SEX TRAFFICKING: Is Peter Nygard the Canadian Jeffrey Epstein?'
Design & Retail Mogul Peter Nygard Sued by Son For Having Him Raped on Nygard's Island Retreat
2/14/20: Peter Nygard, meet Jeffrey Epstein.

The Canadian fashion kingpin has fallen into sordid company amid explosive allegations he sexually assaulted a slew of underage women — including three 14-year-olds.

Ten unidentified women have filed a class-action lawsuit accusing Nygard, 77, of rape and sex trafficking. The allegations are eerily similar to the twisted web woven by hedge fund pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

“Nygard lured and enticed young, impressionable, and often impoverished children and women with cash payments and false promises of lucrative modelling opportunities in order to assault, rape, and sodomize them. When the victims were not swayed by promises, many were drugged to force compliance with Nygard’s sexual desires,” the plaintiffs said in a press release.

Nygard allegedly has a database of more than 7,500 underage girls and women.

Wanted to make a man of his 14 yr old son who was still a virgin.

Most of the incidents allegedly occurred at Nygard’s mansion on Lyford Cay in the Caribbean paradise. And most of the alleged victims were young “impoverished” Bahamian girls.

3/18/20: Nine Nygard designer and retail companies filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. and Canada after sex-trafficking allegations against the mogul.

•  Nygard is based in Winnipeg, but has operations around the world, according to its website

•  Federal agents raided co.’s Manhattan offices and Peter Nygard’s Los Angeles home last month as part of a sexual assault investigation into the founder, per New York Times

•  Nygard stepped down as chairman, per Times


4/30/20: Design & Retail Companies & Hundreds of Jobs Wiped Out:
Fashion Mogul Peter Nygard Business Properties to Be Sold


7/11/20: Nygard's final sale: The rise and fall of the Polyester King's retail empire

Lawsuit Goes From 10 to 57 Women Alleging Rape & Sex Trafficked

On Friday the 13th of March, as Canada went into lockdown, Peter Nygard’s retail fashion empire was still standing, barely.

As it closed its distribution centres that day, with 1,450 employees operating 169 retail stores and a large wholesale operation, it was hardly at the peak of its influence.

But it was still an astonishing and profitable success, built on cheap and cheerful fast fashion for the modern cost-conscious woman of style, which had made Nygard fabulously wealthy and tagged him with the nickname of the Polyester King.

What a difference a few months can make. A court decision in March took corporate control out of Nygard’s hands, as his companies were put into receivership, and warehouses in Toronto and Winnipeg put up for sale.

This week came news that an intellectual property firm will be auctioning off the brands that made him rich, including the labels Nygard, Alia and TanJay, the last of which refers to Jacob Fashions, which was the first company Nygard bought into after leaving Eaton’s as an ambitious young salesman in the 1960s.

In 1980 he was charged with the rape of an 18-year-old woman, but was not tried or convicted. He settled with three women who filed sexual harassment complaints in Manitoba. He brought a Charter challenge to a blood test over a child support claim.

The world has now caught up to Nygard’s empire, however, and since that day in March, when control finally slipped away, the decline of the polyester king has snowballed.

He was already the subject of an arrest warrant in the Bahamas, but it was not until recently that his property there started to look less like the real estate extravagance of a rich man and more like an alleged crime scene, where young women were allegedly trafficked and abused sexually.

Styled as a Mayan palace, Nygard’s house was the site of modelling shoots for his various fashion lines, and elaborate parties with celebrity guests, including Prince Andrew, whose dealings with Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein have caused turmoil for the Royal Family, newly escalated by Maxwell’s arrest by the FBI.

Then came a class action law suit, filed in February in New York by a group of 10 women, which has now grown to 57, alleging they were raped and trafficked for sex by Nygard, some when they were as young as 14.

The lawsuit describes a sex trafficking scheme run over decades by Nygard, with his company’s money, in which underaged girls and women were drugged, sexually assaulted and coerced into sex acts in exchange for money or promises of modelling opportunities or career advancement within the Nygard empire, in locations that include the Bahamas compound, sites in the United States, and in Nygard’s hometown Winnipeg.

It was reported this week that Nygard is now also the subject of a Winnipeg Police Service sexual assault investigation. winnipegsun.com

Peter Nygard accused of hiring ‘sex worker’ to rape his teen sons
8/17/20: Fashion mogul Peter Nygard hired his girlfriend, a “known sex worker,” to rape two of his sons as teens — saying he wanted the woman to “make a man” out of one of them, according to a bombshell new lawsuit.

The complaint filed Sunday in Manhattan federal court alleges the sons — who are not identified — are also victims of the businessman.

“Hopefully my experience will help other people be able to speak the truth about what’s happened to them,” the older of the two sons said in an interview with CBC News.

The men — who are two of Nygard’s seven children — claim they were raped by the same woman 14 years apart, with the incidents both occurring at one of their father’s properties, court papers say.

In the lawsuit, the older of the two sons alleges that he was raped by the woman when he was 15 years old at his father’s Bahamas residence in 2004.

He said there was “shame” and “very little understanding” at the time of the sexual assault.

“It’s one of those things that when you look back at it, I see the pattern of it — that it happened with my younger brother — that’s when it struck me,” he told CBC News.

The younger brother involved in the suit claims that his father “lured, enticed and transported” him from California to the family’s residence in Winnipeg, Canada, in the summer of 2018.

Nygard, 79, allegedly said he wanted to “make a man” of the son who was 14 years old and a virgin at the time.

The woman — who was their father’s girlfriend — worked as a “fulltime sex worker” and was paid with Nygard company money to assault the teens, the suit alleges.

In the past, Nygard has been listed as one of the richest Canadians. His empire once included a palatial estate in the Bahamas with administrative and production facilities in Winnipeg, Toronto, Los Angeles and a world headquarters in New York.

Editor's Note: The legal story has just begun. But the Nygard empire has crumbled and hundreds of families have been impacted with some ruined for life. Regardless of how this all plays out, some of those women won't ever heal. One has to wonder that with such widespread activity and the dozens of people that somehow were interconnected, from the service workers to his legal team and even some of his executives, didn't anyone see what was happening? And why didn't someone raise a warning flag? Let's hope the 'good old boy' network that may have protected him no longer exists. Just some thoughts. -Gus Downing

Sources: cbc.ca wsj.com torontosun.com nypost.com bloomberglaw.com

12/15/20
Nygard Update
Canada's Retail Version of Epstein Arrested
Fashion mogul Peter Nygard arrested in Canada amid sexual assault allegations
Manhattan fashion designer Peter Nygard has been arrested in his native Canada amid allegations that he sexually assaulted dozens of teenage girls and women, prosecutors announced Tuesday.

The 79-year-old disgraced mogul was picked up in Winnipeg under the Extradition Act and is set to appear in a courtroom Tuesday afternoon, according to court records.

Federal authorities raided Nygard's Manhattan headquarters earlier this year - less than two weeks after a lawsuit accused him of luring young women to his Bahamas estate with cash and modeling opportunities.

Several of them claimed they were 14 or 15 years old when the mogul plied them with booze or drugs and then raped them. nypost.com

1/7/21
Canada's Epstein
Canada's Retail Tycoon Sitting in Jail - Canada to Oppose Bail
Nygard Faces Opposition on Bail From Canadian Prosecutors
Canada plans to oppose women's clothing designer Peter Nygard request for bail, with a prosecutor saying there's a serious risk he'll flee before an extradition hearing on U.S. sex-trafficking charges.

Canadian prosecutor Scott Farlinger also cited what he called Nygard's history of contempt for the judicial process for his opposition to letting the retail magnate out of jail. Nygard is wanted in the Bahamas in a separate case, after failing to attend a court hearing there.

Farlinger sought a delay for the bail hearing, saying prosecutors need to question two former executives at Nygard's companies who said they'd be willing to put up C$1.2 million ($946,000) in assets to ensure Nygard's appearance in court. The judge granted the request, over objections from Nygard's lawyer, and scheduled the hearing for Jan. 19 and Jan. 20.

Nygard was arrested in Winnipeg, Manitoba, last month on request from the U.S., which is seeking his extradition from Canada on racketeering, sex-trafficking and related charges in a New York indictment that alleges criminal conduct over 25 years. Nygard used company money, resources and employees to traffic dozens of women and minors to force them into sex with him and his friends, according to the U.S. news.bloomberglaw.com

1/20/21
Canada's Epstein
Nygard's Lawyer Calls Jail a 'Death Sentence'
Fashion mogul Peter Nygard seeking bail on U.S. charges of sex trafficking, racketeering
Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard plans to seek bail in a Winnipeg courtroom today following his arrest last month on charges in the United States of sex trafficking and racketeering. Nygard, who is 79, was arrested in December under the Extradition Act and faces nine counts in the southern District of New York.

In the first day of a two-day bail hearing in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on Tuesday, prosecutor Scott Farlinger opposed releasing the retail magnate. Jay Prober, a lawyer for Nygard, argued that holding the 79-year-old during the Covid-19 pandemic "is nothing short of a death sentence."

Authorities there accuse Nygard of using his influence in the fashion industry to lure women and girls with the promise of modelling and other financial opportunities. Nygard's lawyer, Jay Prober, has said his client denies the allegations.

Prober has told court his client should be released on bail because his health is deteriorating behind bars and he is not a flight risk. Lawyers for the Attorney General of Canada say Nygard has a history of not showing up to court and has the means to flee. bnnbloomberg.ca bloomberg.com

1/21/21
'Canada's Retail Epstein' is Still Behind Bars
Nygard lawyers ask judge for more time, no decision in Wed. bail hearing
Peter Nygard will spend at least a few more days behind bars after his lawyers told a Winnipeg court Wednesday they need more time to adjust their submission in an ongoing bail hearing following his arrest last month on charges in the United States of sex trafficking and racketeering.

Another bail hearing has been set for Jan. 28 at 10 a.m. in Winnipeg.

Nygard’s defence again brought up the 79-year-olds multiple health complications, which they say means death is all but certain if he contracts COVID-19 behind bars. Defence lawyer Jay Prober called their bail plan “rock solid,” and said because of Nygard’s condition, health care workers would be at the property 24/7.

Federal lawyers say the seriousness of the allegations Peter Nygard faces in the United States outweighs any risk the Canadian fashion mogul faces behind bars.

Nygard was arrested last month in Winnipeg under the Extradition Act and faces nine charges in the Southern District of New York, including sex trafficking and racketeering. globalnews.ca
 

Read the Daily's previous coverage of the Nygard scandal & fallout:
Feb. 14 | Feb. 19 | Feb. 26 | May 6


The Daily's Special Report from March:
The #MeToo Impact on Retail - The End of the Old Guard Era

20+ Retailers, 10+ CEOs, Dozens More Sr. Execs Involved

In this Special Report, we put together a timeline chronicling #MeToo scandals involving retailers in recent years, starting with the infamous Dov Charney/American Apparel scandal of 2014.

While our timeline shows over 20 retail companies, 10 CEOs and dozens more C-Level executives involved, we are limited to reporting only what has been made publicly available. It's safe to say there are many, many other cases that have gone unreported.

See the #MeToo Retail Timeline here.