Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygård, who was once listed as one of the richest Canadians, is in custody and facing extradition to the United States on sexual assault-related charges.
RCMP announced today (December 15) that Manitoba RCMP investigators and the Winnipeg Police Service arrested 79-year-old Finnish-Canadian women’s apparel designer in Winnipeg on December 14.
The arrest is in conjunction with a request from the U.S. for Canada to initiate extradition of Nygård to face charges in an FBI and New York Police Department investigation.
Nygård is remanded in custody pending a bail hearing and extradition proceedings. He made an initial court appearance in Winnipeg on Tuesday.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced in a news release that Nygård is facing a nine-count indictment on charges of “racketeering, sex trafficking, and related crimes arising out of a decades-long pattern of criminal conduct involving at least dozens of victims in the United States, the Bahamas, and Canada, among other locations.”
The attorney’s office alleged that since at least 1995 to the present, Nygård used his position as the head of Nygård International headquartered in Winnipeg (which has offices and warehouses in the U.S.) for sexual purposes. He founded the womenswear company in 1967.
“Over this 25-year period, Nygård used the Nygård Group’s influence, as well as its employees, funds, and other resources, to recruit and maintain adult and minor-aged female victims for Nygård’s sexual gratification and the sexual gratification of his friends and business associates,” the attorney’s office news release states. “Nygård and his co-conspirators, including Nygård Group employees, used force, fraud, and coercion to cause women and minors to have sex with Nygård and others.”
The indictment alleged that Nygård “targeted women and minor-aged girls who came from disadvantaged economic backgrounds and/or who had a history of abuse.”
It went to state he used “threats, false promises of modelling opportunities, and other career advancement, financial support, and by other coercive means, including constant surveillance, restrictions of movement, and physical isolation” to control his victims.
In addition, it states that Nygård “forcibly sexually assaulted some of his victims” while some were “forcibly assaulted by Nygård’s associates or drugged to ensure their compliance with his sexual demands.”
Nygård’s Winnipeg lawyer Jay Prober said his client denies all the charges and chalked the situation up to feud with his billionaire neighbour in the Bahamas, the Associated Press reports.
“This all stems from a conspiracy from the hedge fund billionaire Louis Bacon,” Prober told the AP. “He expects to be vindicated in court but the first order of business is to make a bail application for him considering his age of 79 and his medical issues. He’s very susceptible to the worst consequences of COVID-19, which is really running rampant in our jails.”
Nygård was reported to have stepped down as chairman of his company in February after FBI investigators raided his New York offices. A total of 57 women are part of a class-action lawsuit against Nygård accusing him of sexual assault and human trafficking.
Anyone who believes that they are a victim of sexual abuse by Nygård is asked to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI with reference to this case.
This story originally appeared in the Georgia Straight. With files from NOW staff.
