Nygard lawyer claims ‘abuse of process' in Manitoba, asks judge to stay sex charges
A lawyer for disgraced fashion mogul and convicted sex offender Peter Nygard is seeking to have Manitoba charges against him stayed.
Nygard, 83, is set to stand trial in December on charges he sexually assaulted and forcibly confined a then-20-year-old woman in 1993 at his former corporate headquarters in Winnipeg.
At a hearing Friday morning before provincial court Judge Mary Kate Harvie, Nygard's lawyer Gerri Wiebe argued former provincial attorney general Kelvin Goertzen had no grounds to seek a second opinion on the case from the Saskatchewan Public Prosecutions Service in November 2022, more than a year after the Manitoba Crown attorney's office decided it would not pursue charges against Nygard.
COLE BURSTON / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES
Seen through a police vehicle window, Peter Nygard arrives at court in Toronto in October 2023. Nygard was convicted last September of sexually assaulting four women at his Toronto corporate headquarters from the late 1980s to the mid-2000s.
Wiebe called the Manitoba prosecution an 'abuse of process.' She alleged Goertzen was responding to media and political pressure when he made the decision to seek a second Crown opinion from out of province, a move not specifically sanctioned by government policy.
Nygard appeared via video from Bath Institution, where he is serving an 11-year sentence after being convicted last September of sexually assaulting four women at his Toronto corporate headquarters from the late 1980s to the mid-2000s.
Nygard, sporting long hair and a beard, sat with his head bowed, barely visible for the camera, his head topped with both a ball cap and tuque. When brought to the video room, he appeared not to know the purpose of the hearing.
'I have no idea (how long I will be here),' he told a corrections officer in a hoarse voice. 'I don't even know what this is about.'
The woman at the centre of the Winnipeg charges was one of eight alleged sexual assault victims whose cases were investigated by city police and assessed by Manitoba Crown attorneys.
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In November 2022, then Manitoba Liberal leader Dougald Lamont took the women's calls for a new investigation to the legislative assembly and organized a news conference with women who had accused Nygard of assault.
Two days later, Goertzen ordered a second opinion on the matter and sent the case files to Saskatchewan prosecutors for review.
'Sixteen months after a decision was made not to prosecute, in the face of direct questioning in the legislative assembly, the attorney general sought a second opinion with respect to what we say was a considered opinion by Manitoba Prosecution Services that there was no reasonable likelihood of conviction,' Wiebe said.
'The attorney general's explanation for seeking the second opinion does not appear to have been based on any articulated problem with the Manitoba Prosecutions decision,' she said. 'The only explanation given by the attorney general is that he appears to have been bothered by the fact that charges were authorized in other jurisdictions, that he had heard from the victims and that he had lost sleep at night.'
Nygard still faces charges in Quebec and extradition to the U.S., where he has been charged with sex trafficking and racketeering.
Dean PritchardCourts reporter
Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.
Every piece of reporting Dean produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
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