Note: This story contains graphic content.
A woman who has accused Peter Nygard of sexual assault told his trial Monday that the former fashion mogul flew her to Toronto under the guise of helping with her designer aspirations, but what she thought would be a business meeting turned into an attack.
Nygard, the founder of a now-defunct international women’s clothing company, is accused of using his position in the fashion industry to lure women and girls.
The 82-year-old has pleaded not guilty to five counts of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement in alleged incidents ranging from the 1980s to mid-2000s.
The case’s fifth and final complainant – whose identity is protected by a publication ban – said she first met Nygard in the late 1980s at a popular nightclub in Gatineau, Que. The woman, in her late teens or early 20s at the time, was living with her family in nearby Ottawa, where she worked in television and sold hand-painted clothing on weekends.
She said a colleague introduced her to the famous fashion figure. Nygard asked for the woman’s number after hearing about her clothing designs, she testified.
“He said something along the lines of ‘I’m sure I can help you,'” she said, telling the court she provided her family’s home number.
She told the jury that “quite a long time” went by before she heard from Nygard again. After she had turned 21, she was on a work trip to Los Angeles when her mother called and told her Nygard had phoned the family home and invited her out to his Toronto office for what they thought would be a business meeting, she said.
“He said to her along the lines of … ‘I am in fashion and I have a lot of connections, I want to help your daughter,'” she said. After a brief chat with the complainant on the phone, Nygard booked her a flight to Toronto and put her up in a hotel, she said.
“It seemed extremely outlandish that someone I had met for a few minutes would be wanting to fly me from Los Angeles to Toronto for a meeting,” she said.
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She testified that she met Nygard, per his instructions, in the evening for a drink at a bar near his Toronto office. When she arrived, she said Nygard was already in a booth and ordered oysters. After some small talk, he mentioned that oysters are an aphrodisiac and are “like having a vagina in your mouth,” she said.
“It was very odd and very uncomfortable,” she testified.
She tried to steer the conversation in a business direction, she said, but Nygard wasn’t interested in answering her questions or discussing his fashion empire.
Instead he probed her about her sexual activity, she testified, until he started getting agitated and annoyed with her coyness.
After a brief walk toward his office, she said Nygard walked her through the building, viewing some collections that were showcased. “Finally, at last we’re going to talk business,” she remembered thinking.
She said when the two of them got to the end of the displayed clothing, Nygard fiddled with a switch on the wall and suddenly a wall slid open to reveal a private bedroom suite.
Multiple complainants in the trial have alleged they were taken to Nygard’s Toronto headquarters under pretences ranging from tours to job interviews, with all encounters ending in the top-floor bedroom suite that featured keypad-operated locks, where they allege they were sexually assaulted.
“It felt like it was a kind of sordid environment for sexual activity,” the fifth complainant testified, noting the dim lighting, bed, stone jacuzzi and two red dresses hung above it. The door closed behind her after they entered the bedroom and she noticed there was no door handle inside, she said.
She said Nygard made her a drink and she sat on the bed, because there were no chairs, trying not to give away her nervousness, and pornography suddenly began playing on the TVs in the room. Nygard suddenly lunged at her and pinned her to the bed, despite her yelling and repeating “the word ‘no’ at least 50 times.”
“My words were absolutely invisible to Mr. Nygard,” she said.
“It really struck me, there’s no way this is the first time this person has done this because it was artful. This person knew how to position his body to disable my body.”
He removed her clothing from the waist down and berated her for not co-operating, saying “all the other girls let me do this,” she recalled. She said she felt trapped because there was no door handle.
“I was a prisoner in that room,” she said.
She testified that she writhed around and fought back aggressively but the more she struggled, the angrier he became. After struggling against Nygard, she began to feel paralysis kick in, she told the court as she became overwhelmed with emotion.
Before inserting himself into her, Nygard repeatedly told her, “Your mum would be ashamed of you.”
“It really kind of broke me when he said that, I felt like really I had lost the battle,” she said through tears.
The complainant said she mentioned the ongoing AIDS epidemic at the time and Nygard left to put on a condom, returned and inserted himself into her until he finished and collapsed on the bed.
Afterward, she politely pleaded with Nygard to let her out — not wanting to anger him further, she testified — but he became irritated and ranted that they would do it again in two hours, and that she would become his girlfriend. She said she begged until he became annoyed and finally let her out, and she escaped onto the streets in the middle of the night.
Sporting a suit, tinted glasses and with his long white hair tied back in court, Nygard rubbed his temple throughout the complainant’s testimony on Monday.
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