Peter Nygard denied bail pending appeal of his Toronto sex assault convictions

TORONTO — Former fashion mogul Peter Nygard has been denied bail as he appeals his sexual assault convictions in Toronto and an 11-year prison sentence.

An Ontario Court of Appeal judge dismissed the bail application, saying that Nygard’s appeal appears to be “weak” and that he presents a flight risk as he faces charges in other jurisdictions.

“I have determined that the confidence of the public in the administration of justice would be undermined by release of the applicant pending appeal,” Justice Lene Madsen wrote in the decision.

Nygard, 83, was convicted of four counts of sexual assault last year after multiple women came forward with allegations dating from the 1980s until the mid-2000s. The judge who presided over the trial said Nygard’s time behind bars would work out to a little less than seven years after accounting for time already spent in custody.

The notice of appeal Nygard’s lawyers filed in court last month argues that his sentence is “excessive” and that the trial judge made several errors, including admitting the testimony of clinical psychologist Lori Haskell on the effects of trauma.

The lawyers cited the case of Canadian musician Jacob Hoggard, whose appeal of his 2022 sexual assault conviction also took issue with Haskell’s testimony on the neurobiology of trauma during his trial.

The Appeal Court found that the judge in Hoggard’s trial erred in admitting Haskell’s evidence, in part because it risked being misused by the jury to reason backward that the complainants had experienced a sexual assault. But the three-judge panel still upheld Hoggard’s conviction because it found there had been no miscarriage of justice. The musician is now trying to appeal their ruling at the country’s top court.

In a separate trial that concluded last week, Hoggard was found not guilty of sexually assaulting a young woman in northeastern Ontario eight years ago.

The judge who dismissed Nygard’s bail application wrote that, in her view, there is only one “legally plausible” argument raised in his appeal – the admission of Haskell’s testimony.

Nygard’s lawyers also claimed that the trial judge erred in allowing the jury to consider the evidence of one complainant to help decide whether the Crown had proven its case with respect to other complainants, and that the judge invited the jury to infer that Nygard had drugged two of the complainants before sexually assaulting them.

“While the admission of the expert evidence at trial is an arguable ground of appeal, overall, on the current record, this appeal appears weak,” Madsen wrote.

Nygard’s lawyers are also arguing that his age and frail condition warrant a shorter sentence, and that he wasn’t able to submit all relevant medical evidence to the court before sentencing in September.

But Madsen wrote that the new medical reports Nygard submitted “rely heavily on the applicant’s self-reports” and that his health needs were “fully and comprehensively considered” at the time of sentencing.

Madsen also raised issues with Nygard’s proposed plan to reside in a Winnipeg property now owned by one of his employees while out on bail.

“The applicant’s incentive to flee has increased with his convictions in this matter and must be considered in the context of the multiplicity of additional serious charges he faces in Canada and the United States,” the judge wrote.

Nygard, who rose to fame after founding a women’s fashion company in Winnipeg that ultimately became Nygard International, is also facing charges in Quebec, Manitoba and the United States.

He was first arrested in Winnipeg in 2020 under the Extradition Act after he was charged with nine counts in New York, including sex trafficking and racketeering charges.

In May, Manitoba’s highest court dismissed Nygard’s application for a judicial review of his extradition order, finding there was no reason to interfere with the order issued by then-justice minister David Lametti.

None of the criminal charges against Nygard in Quebec, Manitoba or the U.S. have been tested in court, and he has denied all allegations against him.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.

Sonja Puzic, The Canadian Press