MANDEL: Long-delayed justice finally comes calling for Peter Nygard

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Published Sep 09, 2024  •  3 minute read

Seen through a police vehicle window, Peter Nygard arrives to a Courthouse in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on Tuesday, October 3, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston

How the mighty have fallen.

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Shrunken in his wheelchair, his beard long and unkempt, a parka hoodie over his head with his eyes blinkered with a visor, Peter Nygard, the once ever-tanned playboy who boasted he’d reversed the aging process now looks like what he’s become — an old, pathetic rapist destined to live out his final years behind bars.

Trapped, as he trapped so many women before.

In a crowded Toronto courtroom Monday, as some of his victims embraced and one spectator began to clap, Nygard, 83, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for sexually assaulting three young women and a 16-year-old girl between 1988 and 2005. After credit for pre-sentence custody — he’s been endlessly delaying his sentencing since he was convicted last November — he has 6.7 years remaining to serve.

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Seen through a police vehicle window, Canadian-Finnish fashion mogul Peter Nygard leaves a courthouse in Toronto on Sept. 26, 2023. Photo by COLE BURSTON / AFP /Getty Images

Nygard, who must also register as a sex offender for 20 years, will be eligible for day parole in 21 months and full parole in 27 months.

For his victims, though, there will be no restitution ordered, despite the Crown’s request. Still, there was the satisfaction of watching the once-powerful man who has haunted their nightmares finally being wheeled away to start serving federal time.

“We did not endure four years of hell just for ourselves. We did this to ensure every victim of sexual assault will remember this trial and feel strength and confidence to come forward and not be threatened by social status or money,” one of the women said in a statement read by therapist and advocate Shannon Moroney.

“If we can do it, so can you.”

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Moroney said the victims felt validated by Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Goldstein, who found Nygard used violence, degradation and humiliation to subdue the women after luring them to his hidden bedroom suite in the downtown Toronto headquarters of his fashion empire.

“Peter Nygard is a sexual predator,” Goldstein pronounced as he began his hour-long sentencing decision. “He’s also a Canadian success story gone very wrong.”

He once dined with royalty and prime ministers; now the disgraced fashion mogul was forced to hear the judge describe him as a self-centred narcissist who used his power, status and wealth to not only prey on young women but to then intimidate them into keeping quiet for decades.

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So he can’t now play the senior’s card, Goldstein said, when he was “the author of his own misfortune.”

His third defence lawyer, Gerri Wiebe, had argued Nygard should only have to serve less than two years in a provincial jail due to harsh conditions he suffered in pre-sentence custody as well his advanced age and serious medical issues aggravated by his detention.

Goldstein was having none of it.

To what must have been the egomaniac’s ultimate humiliation, the judge enumerated Nygard’s many health issues that pre-dated his incarceration, including low testosterone, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes and incontinence. “I don’t accept his health has deteriorated quite as much as he presents,” the judge said, finding he was prone to “exaggeration and hyperbole.”

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This is what Peter Nygard looked like in 2013 while at an event in Winnipeg. Photo by Kevin King /Postmedia

As for “harsh” conditions, Goldstein found that thanks to Nygard’s team of lawyers, jail records show he’s been treated with unusual care and attention: he’s been transported to court by car rather than paddywagon because he suffers from claustrophobia, while in the medical wing at Toronto South, he’s had unlimited access to a phone, been outfitted with a special bed and wheelchair, and staff enter his room with flashlights so his glaucoma-stricken eyes aren’t bothered by the glare from overhead lights.

He’s received not just special treatment but “very, very special treatment,” he noted.

Outside court, Wiebe said Nygard plans to appeal. “He’s going to continue to defend himself where he can, appeal where he can, and continue to maintain his innocence in all these matters.”

And there are many.

When Nygard’s Canadian trials and appeals are done — he still faces charges in Winnipeg and Montreal — he’s waived extradition to the U.S. where New York prosecutors claim Nygard targeted dozens of women and underage girls from poor or abusive backgrounds and invited them to “pamper parties” at his homes in the Bahamas or Marina del Rey.

So, to the relief of his many alleged victims in at least three countries, it’s probably safe to use that old cliche: Nygard will likely be leaving prison in only one way — and that’s in a pine box.

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