‘It was a betrayal’: Woman tells sex assault trial Frank Stronach tried to rape her

One moment, the woman was standing in Frank Stronach’s midtown apartment after a friendly dinner at his high-end restaurant.

The next, the man she had grown to trust had pushed her over the arm of a chair and tried to rape her, she told his sexual assault trial Wednesday.

It happened quickly and with “no warning,” the woman, now in her 70s, told the court as she described the decades-old incident.

Stronach had invited her to see his apartment after a lobster dinner at the restaurant that was part of the dining and nightlife complex he owned and they’d driven over to the building in his Cadillac, she said. Once inside the unit, he disappeared for a few minutes, she said.

Then she felt a push — “fairly forceful” but not violent — that put her over the padded arm of an armchair and Stronach lifted her skirt, she said.

She could feel his erect penis against her underwear, but couldn’t tell if he was clothed or not, she said. It felt like he was “trying to penetrate the panties,” she said.

The woman said she was confused because Stronach had previously been polite and kind.

“This is somebody I had seen and met over a period of time, that I came to trust, and I had no reason to have apprehension being in his presence,” she said.

“I felt safe, so the whole incident came as a complete surprise and it was a betrayal.”

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Stronach, who is 93, has pleaded not guilty to 12 charges related to seven complainants over alleged incidents spanning decades.

All seven complainants are expected to testify at the auto parts tycoon’s trial in Toronto. Wednesday’s witness is the third to take the stand.

The woman told the court she was a regular at the restaurant and nightlife complex Stronach owned, and would go have a drink there with friends after work up to three times a week starting in 1975.

She saw Stronach there frequently and they had friendly interactions, she said. When she celebrated her 25th birthday at the club, he kept their table supplied with champagne, which she thought was a “very kind gesture,” she said.

The incident took place in the fall of 1977, she said.

She freed herself by standing up, then grabbed her purse and coat and left, she said, adding she didn’t recall any words being spoken. In her mind, she thought “what are you doing?” but she didn’t know if she said it out loud, the woman said.

She took the subway home, she said.

After that, she and her friends continued to hang out at the complex but avoided the restaurant and the nightclub sections, opting instead for the basement pub, she said.

“It just never felt safe again” to go to the restaurant or club, she said.

She also never had contact with Stronach again, she said.

The woman said she reached out to police in June 2024 after seeing a short newspaper article on the investigation in his case.

During cross-examination, defence lawyer Leora Shemesh questioned the woman on what she told police in 2024, including comments that she didn’t “feel like a victim.”

“I’m a survivor,” the woman replied.

When Shemesh noted the complainant hadn’t used that word with police, the woman responded that she was using it now.

The defence also suggested the woman was mistaken about the location of Stronach’s apartment, saying he was linked to a harbourfront property at the time, and that she had viewed the businessman as a womanizer even as she socialized with him.

Stronach was often accompanied by young women, the woman said, but it was only after the incident that she retroactively began to see him as a womanizer.

Two other complainants, both women in their 60s, have testified in the trial since it began last week, laying out their accounts of encounters with the billionaire businessman in the early 1980s.

On Tuesday, the second complainant said she met Stronach for dinner after asking him for information on her termination from his restaurant.

She said she felt obligated to accept his invitation to see his harbourfront condo afterward, and that she felt “terrified” when he groped her as she was trying to leave.

None of the complainants can be identified under a standard publication ban.