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Disgraced fashion mogul Peter Nygard, once one of Canada’s richest men, was sentenced to 11 years in jail on Monday, almost a year after a jury found him guilty on four charges of sexual assault. He was acquitted on a fifth charge.
A Toronto court found 83-year-old Nygard guilty in November 2023 of racketeering, sex trafficking and related crimes involving “at least dozens” of women and minor-aged girls, and it is anticipated that he will die in jail.
“Peter Nygard is a sexual predator,” Superior Court Justice Robert Goldstein said in his sentencing decision in front of a packed courtroom in Toronto, according to news agencies. “He is also a Canadian success story gone very wrong.”
The founder of women’s fashion company Nygard International still faces sexual assault charges in other jurisdictions, including in New York and the Canadian cities of Winnipeg and Montreal, where his next trial is scheduled for January.
According to the US Department of Justice, Nygard used his wealth and power, and promises of modelling contracts, to lure vulnerable women to sex parties across North America and the Bahamas that he paid for via his company accounts.
Nygard, who has been in jail since his arrest in 2020, denied all the charges. Because of time served, he will remain in prison for seven more years.
Canadian police arrested Nygard in December 2020 on charges of racketeering and sex trafficking following an FBI investigation based on the allegations of 57 women. Two were 14 years old at the time the alleged offences took place.
Nygard hosted infamous “pamper parties” in the Bahamas and held swinger sex clubs from Miami to Winnipeg, where he pressured victims to engage in sexual activity to which they had not consented, the US Department of Justice said in December 2020.
“Nygard frequently targeted women and minor-aged girls who came from disadvantaged economic backgrounds and/or who had a history of abuse,” they stated.
The Helsinki-born Nygard’s fashion company at its peak operated 169 retail stores in North America and had close to 1,500 employees worldwide.
But the flamboyant billionaire ended up owing millions to US lenders and in March 2020 a Canadian judge ordered a group of Nygard companies into receivership.
Nygard is no stranger to the courts. In May 2023, a New York judge awarded billionaire hedge fund founder Louis Bacon more than $203mn in damages at the end of a bitter defamation case and decade-long feud with Nygard, his former Bahamas neighbour.
The court found Nygard had spent $15mn on a smear campaign to personally and professionally destroy the founder of Moore Capital Management, who had complained about the noise of his neighbour’s sex parties.