By JADE RUSSELL
Tribune Staff Reporter
jrussell@tribunemedia.net
FORMER fashion mogul and Lyford Cay resident Peter Nygard is expected to testify in his own defence as his sex crime trial continues in Toronto, Canada.
His lawyer, Brian Greenspan, announced this during his opening address to the jury yesterday.
Mr Greenspan said Mr Nygard could not recall the allegations from the five women testifying that he had sexually assaulted them, but will say the incidents never occurred.
Mr Nygard, 82, has pleaded not guilty to five counts of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement involving allegations ranging from the 80s to the mid-2000s.
“Peter Nygard’s response, unlike much of his life, is remarkably simple and straightforward. It is impossible to have a recollection of what did not occur,” Mr Greenspan said, according to CTV News Toronto.
“He has a clear and unimpeded memory of countless details of his life, which render the history the complainants have provided as inaccurate, unreliable and untrustworthy.”
Over the past four weeks, five women have testified that Mr Nygard sexually assaulted them in his bedroom at his Toronto headquarter’s office.
The witnesses were between 16 and 28 when the alleged assaults occurred. Their names have been concealed to protect their identity.
The New York Times reported the victims’ testimonies this week.
Each woman described a sliding door in Mr Nygard’s room that could be controlled by a keypad on his nightstand. Mr Nygard allegedly locked several of them inside the room against their will.
According to the New York Times, one woman said during her testimony that she “was a prisoner in that room.” She told the jury the sliding door is seared in her psyche.
The Toronto trial is one of the many cases for which Mr Nygard is set to stand trial. He also faces sex charges in New York.
When the Toronto trial ends, he will be extradited to New York.
In 2020, the Southern District of New York filed documents alleging that Nygard raped 10 women, including nine Bahamians, in a wide-ranging criminal enterprise that involved intimidating victims and offering them hush money for over a decade.
The lawsuit claimed he evaded exposure by bribing local police and certain Progressive Liberal Party politicians.
Eight of Nygard’s alleged Bahamian victims were between 14 and 18 when he raped them.
The indictment claimed Nygard’s victims were typically young, vulnerable, and impoverished Bahamian girls he knew wouldn’t report his crimes to the police.
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