Front Burner - Weekend Listen: Evil By Design

Episode Date: November 12, 2023

More than 80 women from around the world have accused the fast-fashion mogul Peter Nygard of rape, sexual assault, and human trafficking in incidents across four decades and at least four countries. He has been charged for sex crimes in three Canadian provinces and the state of New York. He denies it all, and has claimed his accusers are lying as part of a vast conspiracy. In his words, the acts he is accused of are things he “would never do.” Nygard had built a sprawling international retail empire over the past 50 years — but his professional achievements are now overshadowed by a sinister personal life, one that has earned him the moniker, ‘Canada’s Jeffrey Epstein’. Listen to the Podcast Evil by Design at: https://link.chtbl.com/AKYfQMOA

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, Damon Fairless here. After nearly six weeks of testimony, former fast fashion mogul Peter Nygaard has been found guilty by a Toronto jury of four counts of sexual assault. He was acquitted of one of five counts of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement. Since early 2020, when a class action lawsuit was launched, more than 80 women from around

the world have accused Nygaard of rape, sexual assault, and human trafficking across four decades in at least four different countries. Now, charged for sex crimes in three Canadian provinces and in the state of New York, Nygaard continues to deny it all, and he's claimed his accusers are lying as part of a vast conspiracy. In his words, the acts he's accused of are things he would never do. Timothy Sawa has been an investigative journalist at the CBC for more than two decades. For almost half that time, he's been part of a team investigating Peter Nygaard and defending CBC's journalism in court. You may have even heard him before on FrontBurner covering this story. He's also the host of the podcast Evil by Design from CBC Podcasts and The Fifth Estate.

We've got the first episode of that for you now, so take a listen. The following episode contains difficult subject matter and accounts of sexual assault. Please take care. When I grew up on a small island, I moved to Nassau when I was about five years old, and I've been living here ever since. I planned on being a pediatrician when I grew up, but first I wanted to be a model.

There's little we can tell you about the young woman you're hearing, least of all her name. But she's letting us share her story. For decades, stories like hers have made their way through the Bahamas, but only in whispers. After all, Bahamians call what happened to her, hush. I met her in a private spot on a blistering hot February afternoon in Nassau.

She's tiny, soft-spoken, but also resolved. Because after hearing it happen to other people, I didn't want it to continue happening. Today, she's 19 with a one-year-old son. In the summer of 2015, she was practically a kid herself. In the summer of 2015, she was practically a kid herself. It was me, my sister, my cousin. We were inside the mall on a Saturday. This was during the summer. And we were just, we were supposed to go watch a movie.

And then we ended up passing a store, passing Nygaard Slims store. Nygaard Slims, a women's clothing store named for the brand's owner, Peter Nygaard. The Finnish-Canadian fashion mogul in his 70s had called the Bahamas home for the last four decades. And there's two ladies were standing outside. One average height and one was like six foot. And she asked us if we wanted to come inside to try on the pants. The two women were models and invited the girls into the store. So then we went inside. She asked us for our sizes.

Then we went in the back to the changing room. The Nygaard store was just opening in Nassau's Marathon Mall, and Peter Nygaard himself was there. He said people like me come inside the store, and he wanted to make sure all his customers have something that could fit them. Nygaard asks to measure her personally. Well, he took my measurements from around my waist. It was big.

Then going down, he said, like, around here is a little tight. And around my ankle pad, it was a little big, too. She says he rubbed her inner thighs and backside as he measured her. Oh, while he was measuring me, that's when he asked me about the modeling. He asked what grade she was in. She replied, ninth. And we went to the front and took pictures. And that's how I got the picture with Nygaard. Nygaard left, instructing one of the models at the store to take her phone number. Within days, she received a call from another of Nygaard's employees. She's told it's about a modeling opportunity,

and that she should be ready in a dress, heels, and makeup. She told me she was coming to pick me up and the time to be ready for. She's driven to the edge of an exclusive gated community, to Nygaard's luxurious estate. A home built as a series of glass tree houses, surrounded by soaring structures made to look like a Mayan temple. The view is of a private white sand beach. It's a place he'd named Nygaard Key. The girl arrives to find a party, a kind of party Nygaard threw several nights a week.

Yeah, we had dinner, and all the people who were with me, they were playing poker with Nygaard. I was just standing up, watching. After they were finished playing poker, he told me, let's go somewhere quiet so we can discuss business. I still thought we were going to have this discussion about the modeling. we're going to have this discussion about the modeling. Instead of talking about modeling, she says Nygaard took her to his bedroom and raped her.

She says she'd never had sex before this. When he was done, she says she was given an envelope of cash. As she left Nygaard's room and walked down the stairs, she saw another young girl walking up. I wasn't talking to no one. My head was just down so no one would see my face when I was crying. She never returned to Nygaard Key. It changed my life, and I held it in for a very long time without telling anyone.

Today, this young woman is known as Jane Doe No. 1. Her account is the first in a long list of anonymous allegations against Peter Nygaard, some nearly identical, others spread far across time and place. But each helps reveal the picture of a predator, hidden in plain sight. Ten women have filed a civil class action lawsuit against Peter Nygaard. They allege the Canadian fashion executive raped them. In the early months of 2020,

the lawsuit included Jane Doe No. 1, eight other women from the Bahamas, and an American former employee. Soon we found out there were criminal investigations into Nygaard, while more and more women joined the class action from Canada, Europe, and the U.S. Then, as the year came to an end... We have some breaking news for you. Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygaard has been arrested. Nygaard appeared in court this afternoon, shackled and disheveled. He didn't say anything.

American authorities asked the RCMP to arrest Nygaard. He's been indicted in the Southern District of New York on multiple charges of sex trafficking, minors, racketeering and other offenses. An FBI investigation ended with Nygaard behind bars in Canada, awaiting extradition. Nygaard is denying the accusations and his lawyer promises a vigorous defense. The CBC's been following the Nygaard story for nearly a decade. Until last year, Peter Nygaard was known mostly for his fashion brands. But some journalists had heard alarming stories about sexual misconduct and rape going back 25 years.

And we've been trying to tell them ever since. I've been an investigative journalist at the CBC for more than two decades. And for almost half of that time, I've been investigating Nygaard as part of a team at the CBC program, The Fifth Estate. Through it all, Nygaard has used his vast resources and the courts to deter us. It hasn't worked. But this is a story about more than the fall of Peter Nygaard. It's the story of those who protected him, the systems and cultures that allowed him to thrive, and the women who may, in the end, bring him to justice.

I'm Timothy Sawa, and this is Evil by Design, Episode 1, The Jane Doe's. Do you remember her telling you her story? Yes. A couple of years before she'd become a plaintiff in the lawsuit against Nygaard, Jane Doe No. 1 spoke to Daneth Cartwright. What was that like? She was so tiny, and she was still in her uniform. A lawyer in the Bahamas, Daneth's firm represented some of the women and girls who were the earliest to make allegations against Nygaard. She was one of the first people to hear their stories.

I don't have a daughter, but this was so traumatic for me because I said, this could be my little sister, this could be my child. She was in her school uniform. I'm the tiniest little person you could ever, beautiful young lady. And she came in to see us. She was still in high school. She told lawyers she was 14 at the time of the rape. She was scared, but she shared her story.

She was brave. And her reason was that she didn't want it to happen to other people. She wanted to get that release of not having the secret anymore. Well, it has been very traumatic for them, especially when they have to keep telling the story, you know. They've had to repeat their stories a few times, even to us, to make sure that this is consistent information that they're giving us. consistent information that they're giving us. For many of the girls and young women invited to Nygaard's estate, visits began with registration.

To get into that whole community, your name has to be on a list. You have to know who you're going to, and they check the list. It's a very secured area. Natasha Codner worked at Nygaard Key for years, beginning in 2003. Once they arrive, you sign in, your name, your email address, your telephone contact, your address. And also we take two mouth shots, like a head shot and a full body shot. Though she was a coordinator in the corporate communications department, Natasha says part of her job was to find an endless supply of young women to spend time with Nygaard. And just as we signed him in, you send him an email, he'll be at his computer waiting to see the email of what girl's coming and who he already registered.

And he will have to give you the okay to say, well, okay, she's nice, let her in, and so forth. But if she isn't slim, under 110 to 12 pounds, and looks like a model, he'll make you turn them back around and say, no, you can't enjoy. He'll say, give them an F-ing story. You don't know what to do. So you have to make up a story. Tell a lot of lies. That's the cover for him.

Since the late 80s, Nygaard staff have maintained a database of the young women and girls who visit Nygaard Key, a database used to invite them to come again. If you live in New York, Canada, LA, and you come to the Bahamas and visit, we have your contacts. And we have thousands and thousands of girls in the Bahamian contacts. When Mr. Nygaard is in town, my typical day will start off by calling him 7 a.m. And now 10 a.m., you'll have to start recruiting young ladies to come over for dinner for 7 o'clock that night.

So basically, all day you would be on the phone calling girls, trying to get them to come over, inviting them for dinner. So every night, some will tell you they're coming, but they don't show up, so you will have to keep calling them. He makes you call them every hour or two hours to confirm that they're coming and they're on their way. Lots say no, but you have to convince them that they're coming from nice, sit-down, fine dining setting and so forth. So you have to convince some, and some will say, okay, no problem.

But some, you'll have to convince them to come back. Typically, from Monday to Friday, I'll have to look for like about 10 to 12 girls for dinner. But on a Sunday, you'll have to look for 150 to 200 girls to attend. The pamper party happens every Sunday. Pamper parties. That was Nygaard's name for these Sunday gatherings. They were a Nygaard tradition, open almost exclusively to female guests. Play volleyball. All you can eat and drink. And then they'll be there all day. And you'll also tell them, come in your swim attire because it's a beach event. So we get them the dress skimpy and sexy and your bikini.

Natasha says for those who didn't have the appropriate swimwear, Nygaard had a stockpile of Brazilian-cut bikinis to hand out. They would eat, drink, drink rum, party, go in the swimming pool, the sauna. The sauna, the sunset, the disco would start, and he would tell everybody, make their way to the disco. And that's where more rum is served. You'll see them be drinking a lot Those good times rolled long into the night. Natasha says when Nygaard had a guest in his room,

a security guard was at the door, blocking entry to others. He goes back and forth all night with different girls. The hunt was always on to find new girls and women to come to the pamper parties. And they had to fit Nygaard's specifications. Daneth Cartwright. I think he definitely had a profile of the type of women that he wanted. A lot of them were very dark-skinned.

So he obviously liked dark skin women. They were very slim at the time because, you know, they'll show you pictures of what they looked like back then. And they could easily be models. They were beautiful young girls. And where did they come from, most of them? A lot of them are from the inner city. to them? A lot of them are from the inner city. So for these girls, being invited is like a treat. Oh my gosh, you look forward to it. You want to go to those parties. For them, getting to leave a home where they probably don't have running water inside, you know, their circumstances differed. Their parents couldn't pay the light bill. They were probably living in darkness.

And you get invited to go to where the rich and famous live, you're not going to turn that down. In fact, one person described his bedroom as bigger than her entire house. But, I asked Aneth, how did these girls end up at Nygaard's private estate in the first place? Okay, so they were mainly recruited by other girls. Some of them were his staff. At one point, there was even a shuttle bus that transported partygoers to and from the quay. And then there were others who were invited through various events. There was a popular nightclub that they would visit and he would take girls with him and they will invite some of the girls to the pamper parties. Oh, you're

beautiful. We're inviting you to a party on Sunday. I have heard of persons being recruited through schools as well. And his store was a place for recruiting some of these girls. Now, there are some high schools that are in the vicinity of where his store was located. That's the store in Marathon Mall, which is right smack in between two large public schools. One of them, a junior high. And what about social media? Oh yes, it was frequently used. In particular, Facebook was used to recruit girls. They would send them messages inviting them to the pamper party. And there was a page that was created specifically for that. As part of our investigation, we obtained hundreds of these Facebook exchanges.

Here's how many began. Hello, how are you? You are invited to this Sunday's pamper party at Nygaard Quay. There will be free food, massages, manicures, jet boat rides, and much more. You are allowed as many guests as you want. However, you are only allowed female guests. Other messages make clear that that wasn't Nygaard's only restriction. You have to be sexy, pretty, and slim due to the fact that we will be scouting for models. And on the rare occasions

male guests were allowed, there were conditions. No men are allowed unless they come in a car with five sexy females. In the Bahamas, I met another young woman who we will refer to as Jane Doe No. 3. She says it was a Nygaard employee who invited her to the key. She was a neighborhood person that frequented the neighborhood like every other day and she told us that we could if we wanted to go to the key to make money for the weekend me and all of the girls decided that we'd all do it. Another Nygaard employee drives her to the quay, along with four others.

I have never been on that side of the island, so it was amazing. I was excited. Never saw so many beautiful palm trees, a lot of waterfront properties. Everything was just luxurious. It was so beautiful, something I've never seen before. Just a luxury. It was so beautiful. Something I've never seen before.

She arrives at Nygaard's estate to find a party in full swing. Saw a lot of people come in there. Those were partying. Those were just walking around. The employee who'd invited her to the key takes her to Nygaard's room. She took me into this area up the stairway. And when I walk into the room, he told me that I could have a seat. He offered me some wine, a glass of wine, which I never drank the whole thing, just a little bit. He asked what I wanted to do when I grew up.

He asked about me signing for a modeling contract. And some other questions, like, it was personal questions, but I can't remember every single thing. Nygaard asked if she had had sex before. She said no. After a few moments of answering questions, I felt really nauseous. I felt sick, like I wasn't myself. He said, let's go into, it was a bedroom area.

It was floral sheeting. I could remember there was a very large mirror in the ceiling. There was a bay view where you could see directly. The room was surrounded by water. He told me to sit on to the ceiling. There was a bay view where you could see directly. There was like the room was surrounded by water. He told me to sit onto the bed. He was pulling on my hand and stuff and I felt so uncomfortable. I was confused. My head started spinning. I felt like I wanted to throw up and it wasn't coming up and he started pushing on me and I started saying stop stop and like I say feeling the way I felt it was more like I was doing a hundred percent

but my body was feeling otherwise I hadn't felt that way before, not ever. I started saying stop, he stopped. So I thought it was the end. He went into an area of the room, pulled out a drawer, and he got something. His back was turned to me. And it was like, you know, you're looking at something, like everything was just spinning and rotating. And he came back towards me.

I had on a sweatpants. He started pulling down on my sweatpants and he took his penis and it penetrated me. He held one of my hands and I screamed stop, stop and stop and it took him about 10 to 15 minutes before he actually came to a complete stop. And he seemed to be very, very angry. I remember at one point in time he made a comment like, why are you acting so afraid as if you don't know what was supposed to happen? Like I was supposed to be a part of this plan that I had no recollection of. And he threw an envelope onto the bed and he ran out of the room in a rage.

I was feeling sick, definitely. I was scared. I was confused. Just like everything was going on. I ran into this bathroom area and I locked the door. And then I knocked on the bathroom door. The Nygaard employee had returned to lead her out of the room. She handed her approximately 200 U.S. dollars. And I was confused. I didn't ask her no questions.

I just wanted to get away from there. I quickly ran out of there. I didn't talk to anybody in my driving room. I didn't talk to anybody in my driving room. I didn't talk to anybody when I ran home. I just isolated myself from everybody. For those who worked at Nygaard Key, like Natasha Codner, exits like these were a familiar sight. When they come down the next morning leaving like 7, 8 o'clock in the morning, they look disorientated, like, shit, what happened? What went down? I can't remember anything. And then you're talking to them.

They just snap at you. Miss, let me out this Aspen gate. Let me out the Aspen gate. I just want to leave. I ain't coming back here no more. And this was whatever. But Jane Doe No. 3 had no idea there had been others like her, and she endured the trauma alone.

Well, the next day I was still sick. This time I actually saw things that happened afterwards, like I had bleeding down below. It was just real awful. I was throwing up. I still felt dizzy. All I wanted to do was lay in my bed. She was 15 real awful. I was throwing up. I still felt as if all I wanted to do was lay in my bed. She was 15 years old.

I have never been with a mom before. It was so forceful. It was something not intended to happen. I think people would say, what do you think is going to happen when you go into a room with someone? But that's not how I looked at it. It would be years until Jane Doe 3 learned of the many others. Today, she says

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thousands of young women and girls were lured to Nygaard's estate. With an invite to a party. With an offer of work. With a chance to be a model. And many came from Nassau communities, like Over the Hill.

Over the Hill is a location. It's a location and a demographic. Nahaja Black is a long-time Bahamian radio host. Her call-in show tackles local politics and current affairs. In British colonial times, Over the Hill was a settlement for freed slaves. It's an area rich in history, but its buildings and streets have fallen into disrepair. So back then, it wasn't as impoverished as it is now. Back then, that was where all of us, you know, as good hardworking Black people would be. But today, Over the Hill is seen as impoverished, the ghetto, because once you've made it, you move out of Over the Hill.

That neighborhood is only a few blocks from the beach and luxury hotels. It's mostly a collection of tiny rundown homes crammed side by side, stretching as far as the eye can see. Listen, it's not a brochure. They never show it to you in the brochure. You will see dilapidated buildings. You will see two and three little houses in a yard, yards that don't have grass, but, you know, dust. You will see outside water pumps, roads that are too small because they were meant for horse and carriage. You will see kids outside running about, some that should be in school, and you would see people who are living paycheck to paycheck. Nahaja had heard rumors about Peter Nygaard's pamper parties when she herself was a teen, some 20 years ago. It wasn't something that was a big discussion other than, oh, well, Nygaard's having these pamper parties and all these little girls

up there modeling and, you know, scantily clad. And I thought it was just like these modeling sort of parties you would see on TV, like E! News, you know, that sort of way. And then later on, you would hear a little bit more about young girls and sex. When allegations of Nygaard's sexual misconduct hit the headlines in 2020, she right away thought of one place. And what's your understanding of Peter Nygaard's connection to the community over the hill?

Oh, using our poverty against us. That's what it is. Him using and grooming and sending people into the ghettos to get somebody's child. How vulnerable are the young women in the Bahamas because of these conditions that you describe? Well, I gather, not I gather, I know, very vulnerable, very vulnerable. I mean, I can tell you stories of myself when I was in school. I remember one of my friends in this public school said to me that she, and she was distraught, and it was the first time I'd ever encountered

anything like this in terms of a decision that we as 15-year-olds would be facing. And she came to me and said, Nahaja, my mom wants me to sleep with her boyfriend so that we can get a new fridge. To this day, that still sits with me. I'm like, no, you can't. No. I mean, people who don't necessarily understand the context and the situation the way you do might ask, where are the parents? Where were the parents in the situations with these young women as young as 14 ending up at Nygaard Quay? How do you answer that question? I think a lot of us who ask that question are fortunate to ask that question.

Because probably you had parents who, and a life that never would have allowed that to happen, to be these decisions. You know what I mean? We have been fortunate and blessed enough to not understand, to not relate. There are mothers who are in those levels of poverty. They were molested as children and it may have been continual and consistent and no reprieve, no help. So the parents are broken children who just became adults and we're asking broken adults who were messed up from children to be good parents. And not all can do that, but a lot have. And they are doctors and lawyers and teachers, bus drivers.

A lot have overcome and they protect their children. And then there's still a good bunch that don't and haven't because it's been so traumatic. And I guess I wonder too about those who are bus drivers or might have multiple jobs and trying to kind of hold things together. Oh, heck yeah. Oh, that happens all the time. When you have to trust your kids in a place where you don't trust your kids to be, but you don't have anyone to watch them.

We've had a lot of issues where, you know, the godparent or the uncle or the brother or the pastor or somebody takes advantage because mommy has to go to work. And we are a tourism nation, so you have a lot of women and a lot of parents who work shifts. First world questions or ideals presented on third world realities presents conflict. The lawsuit alleges that the envelopes of cash given to Peter Nygaard's victims contained more money than most of them had seen at any one time in their lifetimes. That's very common throughout. A lot of them got money and I guess it was hush money, money for them not to say anything. We had instances where the money was rejected

and there are instances when they took the money and went back for more. While many say Nygaard exploited the poverty of the islands, I wondered, did he also take advantage of the country's attitudes towards sex and sexual violence? I'm also learning about consent. How is that talked about? Wow. Okay.

How is consent talked about in the Bahamas? Men, we have to protect men from lying women. That's the whole argument I see here. And also that men in this country can't be held accountable for the fact that a young girl looks like a woman, even if she's not of age. Like, oh, she's so fast. Oh, and fast means fresh and fresh means sexually forward or advanced. Listen, every time I think about these things, it breaks my heart.

We have this issue right now where we have a lot of young girls, 13, 14. Sometimes you'll say, the police will say, you know, they're missing. And we would find out later that they are by some older man's house. And so the story is she by man. This is our vernacular. She by man. She too fresh. She too forward.

Never taking into account that the young girl may have been groomed. One, two, what is the penalty for the man? Why is his face not being paraded on the news? Why is it always the child? If grooming is rarely openly discussed, there's an even bigger taboo around the subject of rape. How is it related to rape, the word hush? Hush him out. Don't talk about it. It is what it is. It happened. You ain't going to get no justice. Hush.

And depending on who raped you, right, you're going to make this a big thing. It's not a big thing. You're going to make it bigger than it is. It saddens me to know how many women will today say that they were raped or sexually abused. And when they told their parents, their parents told them, listen, keep it to yourself. We'll deal with it inside house. We'll deal with it as a family. Or you're telling a lie. Daddy didn't do this to you. What Nahaja says is backed by others in the Bahamas,

including women's rights advocates and sex educators we've spoken to, and the government's own task force, which was created to tackle, quote, endemic levels of gender-based violence. And you have police officers. You can go into the station and depending on who it is in society, if it's some politician's son, if it's some business owner's child, you know, whatever, they won't even take your complaint. In the Bahamas, there's a documented lack of faith in local law enforcement. In the Bahamas, there's a documented lack of faith in local law enforcement. In 2018, a local watchdog reported that the Royal Bahamas Police Force was viewed by citizens as the country's most corrupt public institution and had the highest bribery rate reported across all public services. How much confidence does the average person have in their local police force?

We have confidence that they will, if they need to, they will harass you if you're a minor or a regular citizen. We have confidence that most days they're probably sitting down in their office getting fat and not on the road. But what we aren't confident in is justice. And it's unfortunate because there are good officers. But the issues of so many poor ones, so many officers who are being bought off. Oh, my God. Our police force is not. It needs Jesus. Yeah. Let's keep praying. As is the case in many places, the stigma associated with sexual assault and mistrust of the police can prevent victims from reporting their attacks.

Doneth Cartwright. In general, when people are raped in the Bahamas, they're very hesitant to go forward. While on average, hospitals report treating more than 100 survivors of rape each year, in 2019, police said there were just 37 rapes reported to them in the whole country. In a lot of instances, they were telling me about it. I was the first person that they were telling the details of what happened. For Nygaard's victims, there were even more barriers to reporting. D'Neth says that at his parties, Nygaard flaunted his high-level connections. Yeah, they thought he was very powerful because it wasn't just the police.

There were politicians and various members of parliament. So for them, it was furious of seeing this very powerful man who is so very well connected, both politically and socially. How do you go against him? They blame themselves for having gone to a pamper party. But how would you know? You go to the pamper party and let your guard down because you're so naive. In fact, one girl said,

I saw him on TV and thought he was this person who would protect me, not someone who would try to hurt me. And so that's how it is. Rape is not always someone walking down an alley and someone pulled them to the side. And that's how some of the girls thought rape was. They didn't realize that, look, I am 14. rape was. They didn't realize that, look, I am 14. And even if I said yes, or I said no, but he forced me a little and it happened, then it is rape. They think because they went there, they caused it on themselves. And that's very common. And there was one in particular who was raped before. And because of how the police responded to her, they victimized her all over again. So they were asking questions like, where were you? Why were you there? What were you wearing?

In this, the police might not be alone. When I was in the Bahamas to report on this story in early 2020, I came across some of these attitudes myself. story in early 2020, I came across some of these attitudes myself. I mean, I remember going out for a run one day while I was there, and it was on the front page of the newspapers every day. And there was an older woman on the side of the road selling newspapers. And I asked her, I said, what do you think about this Mr. Nygaard person on the front cover of the newspaper? And she said, oh, those girls, they're all lying. They just want money. Oh, yeah. We encountered that a number of times in the Bahamas. Where does that come from?

Man, that's a great question. And that's one of my biggest disappointments, the lack of women supporting women. say that I would hope that younger educated Bahamians don't share that sentiment from the women that you encountered. One of the things that angers me is that we always, no, you're talking about what the Mohammeds are foreigners. No, I don't have time for that because whilst you're worrying about how we are perceived, the truth is that we have issues and we need protections and rights. However, what always gives me hope is that I have issues and we need protections and rights however what always gives me hope is that i'm not alone i'm not the only one who sees and that says we got to tell the truth what gives me hope and why i love being behemoth is that we are hopeful the processes

that we've been using has failed us and so we need to change and so the goal is to not be hopeless And so we need to change. And so the goal is to not be hopeless and to laugh in the midst of it. But it is the truth that the Bahamas is still fighting with a fake beauty. We call it open secrets. We have this open secret of not protecting our women and children in this country. It's easy to judge us, but not taking into context that we are still struggling with the sins of our past and the forefathers and colonizers and the things that we consistently have to deal with because we have not changed the system of our oppression. So we look good out in the sun, buddy. We look great, buddy. Inside, we're rotting to the core and we need some serious healing and some help. in the sun, buddy. We look great, buddy. Inside, we're rotting to the core, and we need some

serious healing and some help. As we continued investigating this story, it became clear that even if a girl or young woman overcame these obstacles and reported being raped to the police, when it came to Nygaard, it might not have made a difference. Here's Natasha Codner again. The police officers used to come on a daily basis for envelopes, but Mondays would be the biggest day because that's the payout day for the week. It was money in the envelopes because whenever I issue an envelope, we always deal with cash transactions and no checks,

because he said he don't want nothing tied to him. If you didn't catch that, Natasha says police were paid in cash to avoid a paper trail. There's no indication that the Jane Does we spoke to for this episode knew about these payments. But the question is, would it have mattered? I felt afraid of everybody. I just wanted to be by myself all the time. After Jane Doe No. 3's assault, she told no one what happened. I didn't want to keep friends.

I didn't want to talk to boys. I didn't want to do anything. She simply said she had gone for a job at Nygaard Quay. But when a young cousin of hers heard there was a job opportunity, she wanted to go too. Jane Doe No. 3 tried to convince her not to, but it didn't work. Her cousin pushed to go, and she couldn't let her go alone. same routine, sitting down, eating. But this time I started to feel sick again. I went into the bathroom and she, when I came back, she was gone. And I started asking, hey, do you see my cousin? Do you see my cousin? No one seemed to know. I left her, not willingly.

Her cousin is known as Jane Doe No. 4 in the lawsuit. In her account, she says she was approached by Nygaard, asking whether she had ever considered modeling, and he led her back to his room. There, she says, she was raped. According to the lawsuit, when it was over, Nygaard handed her an envelope with 5,600 US dollars. She was 14 years old.

The allegations of Jane Doe's number one, three, four, and the many others who have come forward have not been proven in court. Neither have the allegations made by the witnesses and whistleblowers, people like Natasha Codner. I can speak the truth. I didn't do anything wrong. If anybody asks about it, I can tell them my past. Nygaard, through his representatives, vehemently denies all of it and says his accusers are lying. Lawyer Daneth Cartwright says the Jane Does who first came to her continue to suffer.

Oh my. A lot of the girls, I'm not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, but I'm sure the trajectory that they're on, for some of them, they started doing poorly in school. They never went on to college, even if they had the ability. And some resorted to drinking. There are a few who started taking substance to numb their pain. They're not able to form good relationships, meaningful relationships. And I would want to see the girls receive damages or some kind of compensation for what they went through to put their lives back in order.

And many of them don't want that. And they'll tell you, that's not my motive. I don't want that. I just want to see him punished for what he did. Who is Peter Nygaard? How did a Canadian retail mogul rise to such prominence and power in this tiny island nation? And ultimately, how did a group of girls and young women

without wealth or political influence bring his empire crashing down? Coming up on Evil by Design. He's been a criminal for four decades at least. And he just got better and better and more extreme and uglier and more rampant in his attacks. He said he's richer than God, April. He owns the police. He owns everybody. He owns people. He owns the police. He owns everybody. He owns people. This was the first time a story had been spiked for nefarious reasons that some outside force had intervened.

There were hundreds of people over the years that were knowing participants in this enterprise. I'm pleading to the enablers, stop helping this man. He didn't just only break me, he also built me. Because if that didn't happen to me, I would have never had the heart to put the amount of women that I did together to speak up against you. I remember these like seconds really vividly where I'm looking at his eyes because I was thinking to myself, who is this guy? And I said, I think our dad is really, really sick. We as a society need to look at this and say, what are we going to do differently with the next monster that comes along? Because there will be another monster. There's always going to be a Weinstein or an Epstein or a Nygaard, but how we learn to deal with it faster and better,

or this is just going to go on and on and on and on. If anything you've heard in this episode has left you looking for someone to talk to, please visit cbc.ca slash uncover. We have a number of resources there for those in need of help and support. Evil by Design is a co-production between CBC Podcasts and The Fifth Estate. You can find The Fifth Estate's latest documentary, Thank you. with assistance from Lynette Fortune at The Fifth Estate. Mixing and sound design by Evan Kelly,

with technical assistance from Laura Antonelli. For this episode, special thanks goes to Bob McEwen and Alicia Wallace. Emily Connell is our digital producer. Fact-checking by Emily Mathieu and legal advice from Sean Moorman. Original music by Olivia Pasquarelli. Our senior producer at CBC Podcasts is Chris Oak, and our executive producer is Arif Noorani. That was the first episode of Evil by Design. You can also listen to all episodes from the

series right now on the CBC Listen app and everywhere you get your podcasts. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.