Front Burner - Weekend Listen: Peter Nygard’s son on why he’s a fierce defender of his father's accusers

Episode Date: September 14, 2024

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.” In November 2023, Nygard was found guilty of four counts of sexual assault in a Toronto court after being accused of attacking five women in his downtown Toronto office, and has now been sentenced to 11 years in prison.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 more episodes from the podcast Evil by Design at: https://link.chtbl.com/oKSjIkpB

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 everyone, Jamie here. So this week, former fashion mogul Peter Nygaard was sentenced to 11 years in prison in a Toronto courtroom. This news comes after Nygaard was found guilty in November 2023 of four counts of sexual assault after being accused of attacking five women in his downtown Toronto office. The sentencing took this long because two sets of Nygaard's lawyers quit the

case, leaving the court to adjourn until now. 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 and at least four countries. Nygaard has also been charged for sex crimes in two other Canadian provinces and the state of New York, but he continues to deny it all and has claimed his accusers are lying as part of a vast conspiracy. In his words, the acts he is accused of doing are things that 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 a part of a team investigating Peter Nygaard and defending himself and the CBC's journalism in court. He's also the host of the podcast Evil by Design from CBC Podcasts and The Fifth Estate. And today we want to share an episode with you from the series where Timothy speaks to Peter Nygaard's son, Kai. Once thought to be the heir to the international clothing empire, Kai is now a fierce defender of his father's accusers. Alright, have a listen. The following episode contains difficult subject matter,

including accounts of sexual assault and an attempt at suicide. Please take care. Alright. Is this good here? Great. I think we've got it Kai yeah

we're good to go are you good to go yeah I'm good to go we've been talking about doing this interview for a while I've lost track frankly how long we've been talking about this and there were days when it sounded like you really wanted to do it and days when you were less

sure and I want to know what made today the day why are you doing this I know I'm gonna get attacked I'll get attacked by him I'll get attacked by his supporters and his lawyer for speaking up and that's what happens to everyone. But I think that silence is part of the problem. It's so easy to be silent. And in a way, silence is really saying you're okay with it. I'm not okay with this. I'm not okay with what I've learned. I'm not okay with what I've discovered.

okay with this. I'm not okay with what I've learned. I'm not okay with what I've discovered. And I don't think we're going to get a lot of people coming forward and talking about it, especially within the family. It's been, it's obviously extremely difficult to go against your own flesh and blood and say, Hey, you've taken care of me in a lot of ways. We've had our bonded experiences through our time. I love you as a human unconditionally to a degree. And then when you find out that there's things like rape, these horrible crimes, and you find out that it's not an incident or two, it's a pattern, then you have this choice between doing what is easy, which is sitting back and staying out of it, or doing what is right. And that's difficult. This is Kai, one of Peter Nygaard's eldest sons. Once thought to be the heir to the Nygaard Empire,

he is now a fierce defender of his father's accusers. I'm Timothy Sawa, and this is Evil by Design, Episode 7, Flesh and Blood. As I've worked on this story, there's a photo that stayed with me. It's Kai. He's probably in his late teens, wearing a tux and hamming it up with two glamorous women. He's at his dad's annual Oscar party in Beverly Hills. Kai is tanned, lean,

with close-cropped blonde hair, looking carefree and on top of the world. For years, I've wanted to speak to him, to ask him what it was really like away from the lights and cameras. My earliest memories are not good memories. They're memories of him yelling and big fights and us leaving and things like that. Kai is now in his late 30s, living on the West Coast.

My mother, first of all, was with him for 14 years. She had three children with him. I was the youngest. I lived with him until I was three. My oldest sister was nine at the time when we left. For my mom, the child support was a really big issue. She had to fight with him in court lawsuit to get him to pay child support. My first seven years since we left, we're in therapy. I was in a lot of therapy. Our whole family was in therapy.

It was hard and traumatizing. in therapy. It was hard and traumatizing. And the experience that my mom had with him, she feels that he was doing things that if they were proven, he'd be in jail. He oftentimes had a lot of really negative things to say about my mom. My mom would tell me that she had some really terrible things to say about him, but that she wanted to shelter me from it until I was older. So she never got into the details of what drove her away. I found out later, and it was bad. As a child, though, Kai says he tried to find the best in the situation.

My mindset with him was really one of forgiveness always and to assume the best. When I would go and hang out with him, I thought, well, my dad doesn't like my mom. My mom was really hurt by my dad. I'm going to just stay neutral in this and try to love my dad unconditionally, love my mom unconditionally. When she left Peter Nygaard for good, Kai's mother moved the family to her hometown in Washington State. Kai says that for most of his childhood,

he lived a life largely distant from his father's. I think this is the case for most of the kids is that they don't really see him that much. So we would see him like maybe a spring break or a Christmas break, summertime, go and visit the Bahamas. And that's when the house was just starting to be built out there. break, summertime, go and visit the Bahamas. And that's when the house was just starting to be built out there. And you really spend time with him for sports, maybe for dinner, maybe go in there and visit him in his office for a minute.

But that's really the extent of how deep it was. I want to ask you about life as a teenager as you started to get a bit older. It was an interesting dichotomy. On one side of it, I'm growing up totally normal. We didn't have some big crazy settlement from him. It was very basic. So imagine like a lower middle class environment. My friends don't really know much about the Nygaard stuff. I have a very nice life here. And then I go and I visit my dad. I would go up to Canada. I'd visit Winnipeg, our factory there.

And I would work there. And two completely different worlds. And it was exciting. It was amazing to see the empire that he had built. I had a lot of respect and admiration for the work that he had done. When I was 15 years old, that's when I first found out that I had a younger brother. Obviously a half brother. And so typically I'd spend at least a month or something in the Bahamas and they say, okay, by the way, you have a brother.

He's 10 and he's coming tomorrow. So he shows up in the Bahamas. It's big news. And my attitude and my mindset was, okay, I wish I would have known about this, but I'm not here to be Peter Nygaard's judge and point my finger at him. I'm just going to accept my dad that he didn't feel it was necessary to tell me that I had another brother. And what happened was I started to find out I had all these other brothers and sisters from different moms all over. And then there was another one and another one and another one. So I was just like, over the course of a few years, the quote family had grown from three to like nine or something.

the quote family had grown from three to like nine or something at last count nygaard officially has 10 children with eight different women so what was that like when you learned you had this large family of siblings so it's all about how we react to things, right? So I chose to react to it and say, this is a positive thing. I have more people I can connect with that I can bond with. It wasn't a big surprise after a couple of them because we just started to expect that. His lifestyle of being a playboy was something that he was very seemingly transparent about. Everyone knew about the way that he chose to live his life and the girlfriends that were around him.

And I just thought to myself, you know, I have this flamboyant, pioneering, playboy dad. As Kai grew up, he hoped to work alongside his father. I was very interested in working at Night Guard International and getting really involved. Nygaard International and getting really involved. His sort of idea was that, all right, I have kids. You're kind of with your mom till you're 18. And then you can come and I'll give you this education. I'll give you this Nygaard education. And so when I was 21, I thought, all right, well, maybe it's time to go learn about business, learn about what it's like, the Nygaard Academy, so to speak. So I moved down to Los Angeles and I just basically took his guidance. I said, Dad, what do I do?

You know, here I am showing up reporting for duty, sir. I lasted about three years before I totally burnt out. By the time I was 24, I was a shell of myself. I walked into that situation, confident, happy, vibrant. And three years later, I look at pictures of myself and I look like I'm dying. I've lost weight. I'm not taking care of myself. I look depressed. I am depressed. My self-esteem is shot. And I really had ended up with a quarter life crisis by the time I was 24. I just, I had to step back and just say, what the heck am I doing with my life? This is crazy. What happened though, that what was responsible

for that transition from this happy, vibrant, confident to depression and sadness and all the rest? He's just really difficult to work for. I think anyone would tell you that. He would describe it as him being passionate. I don't describe it as passion. I would say it's anger and anxiety and volatility. Abuse? I would say that when you look back on it, yes, he's verbally abusive.

Yes, he's mentally abusive. Yes, he's emotionally abusive. He is those things. Many people who worked for him just completely had their worlds shattered. At 24, Kai says he stopped working directly for his father, but continued to live in Los Angeles at one of his father's properties on the beach. When Nygaard was in town,

he says they played volleyball together, and he attended dinners Nygaard hosted at his home. Typically, a dinner would have 20 people around the table. So I would say it'd probably be about maybe six guys, including myself, if I was there. And maybe like 12 or 14 women. It was always significantly more women. And they would all be happy to see him. He would be flirty.

And they would all be happy to see him. He would be flirty. It was pretty obvious that there was some intention of some kind of, quote, romantic encounter. Just consenting adults. And again, who am I to, I'm not going to sit there and be his judge. If women show up and they have dinner and they're smiling and giggling and laughing and having drinks and having food with them, then that's just the way he was living his life. I mean, he grew up with Hefner and Playboy as being his like idols. He thought Hugh Hefner was the king of lifestyle. So my mindset was, all right, this guy's doing his thing.

That's cool, man. As long as you're not hurting anyone, then you're good. So I didn't, there wasn't some big sense of that. This guy is doing something illegal that never was presented in any way, shape or form publicly at a dinner or anywhere else. In fact, it was quite the opposite. At dinner, he would get up and make some speech about how if the world was run by women, the world wouldn't have any wars, and women are a superior gender, and women keep families together. And he'd make these speeches a lot by the way he would always talk about how he's against drugs right he would never drink too much he would sip on something but he would never be out of control and if some woman was overtly let's say drunk at dinner or something

he might even ask somebody to have take her home get her home. You know, that's the public persona that I grew up around. Did you ever wonder why the women were there or why they wanted to be there? Well, I think that in Los Angeles, if you want to throw a dinner party and invite a bunch of women over, you can find the crowd that would be up for that for dinner and drinks and maybe some quote, fun, whatever. It's not that impossible. There's a lot of those types of scenes in LA. I never really thought, tried to say to myself, what is going on in her head? Is she here for this or is she here for that? I just figured women are showing up. They know he's an eligible bachelor. He's got resources that he's flaunting. They seem to be having a good time. I'm not going up to that room. I'm not sticking around to try to figure it out.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt always. He's got some girls, some girlfriends. She brought a friend. Looks like he's going to try to get with that girl tonight. Looks like she likes him too. looks like she likes him too. It was years later, at one of these LA dinner parties, when Kai says he got his first glimpse of who his dad really was. And a warning, what Kai's going to tell you next involves a young child. By this time, I'm like 37 years old.

This was 2019, May. And I was living in Los Angeles on my own. I hadn't really spent very much time with Nygaard over the last seven years. I go attend a dinner party, and he has this little girl sitting next to him who's like eight years old. Kai says she was the daughter of another dinner party guest. And he has that girl in his main girlfriend chair directly to his right.

Which is usually how he puts his whatever girlfriend he's trying to get with that night. And I'm watching it. I feel uncomfortable already. I'm sitting there at dinner and I'm really paying attention to this. And he starts whispering in her ear at dinner, leaning over there. And I'm just like, what is this guy doing? Like, why is he acting like this as his girlfriend? And fast forward, there's a transition from dinner to poker, which I wasn't going to stay for. But I kept my eye on him and the little girl while everybody else was kind of getting up and shuffling around and not paying attention. And he brings her over to him, close to him. I see his arm disappear behind her.

I can't see his hand, but I see that his hand would be like right where her, her butt is or her upper thigh. And I see his elbows start gyrating back and forth. Like he's moving his hand. And immediately I got these terrible, like butterflies and anxiety. And I said to the mother, he's feeling up your daughter,

get them away from her right now. Like he's touching your daughter. And she said right now. And I said, yes, get them away from her right now like he's touching your daughter and she said right now and I said yes get him away from her and she gets up and pulls her away and I'm just filled with adrenaline at this moment and I stand next to him and he stands up and we both look at each other and he's getting ready to, you know, tell me some little thing about business or this or that. And I remember these like seconds really vividly where I'm looking at his eyes because I was thinking to myself, who is this guy? Did I just see what I really thought I saw? And that means that so many other things that I've could have maybe suspected, maybe they were real.

Rumors from the past, all of this information was hitting me like an avalanche. And I just left after that. And I walked out with my brother who was there and he didn't see it because he wasn't paying attention like I was. Nobody was. I was the one that really noticed this.

And we walked out and I said, I think our dad is really, really sick. I think he just felt up this kid. And I went home and I curled up into a little ball. And I was just in the fetal position, like almost crying. Because I couldn't, that was when my world was starting to really shatter about who is Peter Nygaard and what is he capable of. he capable of. Nygaard, through his representatives,

strongly denies this incident with the child ever took place. After the initial shock, Kai immediately called a longtime friend of the family, who was also a senior Nygaard employee. I contacted this person who is like the go-to person for confiding. It's almost like the head of HR in a way. Like Nygard is one of his closest confidants. And I said, Hey, listen,

this is what I think I saw. And she was disgusted and horrified by it. And she ended up contacting Nygaard and asking him about it. And he tried to get a hold of me. Kai avoided his father's calls, knowing what was waiting for him. Nearly two months later, they finally spoke. So I said, hey, listen, dad, I was at dinner and it appeared to me that you were feeling up this eight-year-old. And his response was, what a sick person I must be to think that. That I really have something really wrong with me. I must be brain damaged from my mom.

He's the most trusted around women, the most trusted around children. I must be the worst, kind of most disgusting person to even suggest that. And he just reamed me out for about a half hour. Yeah, I got off the phone just thinking to myself, oh, my God, this is tough. Like, what is going on? And in a way, I almost thought to myself, well, am I sick? Is there something wrong with me? You know, so.

Over months, Kai unraveled more and more. I went through all the different stages of grief, right? You have denial and anger and all these things. And your life ends up, my life ended up becoming, it was an ongoing investigation. I had stories coming back to me of rape and horrible things. The more that I looked, and these are people that are extremely credible. He questions his father about what he found. I said, like, what is going on?

He says, you know what? I've heard about these Me Too movements. You got nothing to worry about, Kai. I don't have a skeleton in my closet. They've never been able to get me because I'm like a choir boy, is what he would tell me. I don't want to be here doing this. I don't want to destroy, try to put my dad in jail. But we're talking about rape. And the more that I've looked, the more that I found. And he's right. It wasn't a skeleton in his closet.

It's a graveyard. 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. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix.

I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Well, growing up, my family and I were big sailors. We'd go travel to the Caribbean for sailing. This is Jennifer Gilmore. In 1998, at 19 years old, she met Nygaard in the Bahamas. When I graduated, I wanted to go down to the Bahamas to just enjoy the weather and sail and just enjoy myself before going back to Canada, back to school.

While there, she began taking tennis lessons, and her coach talked eagerly about introducing her to a local VIP. Even in our first tennis lesson, he kept referring to this person as chief or boss and how he has an amazing tennis court on his property and that he would love to take me there to play tennis with him. She accepted the invitation and was soon on the court with Peter Nygaard. I didn't know anything.

I had no idea who he was. I learned when I got there that he was a fashion designer and who he was. On her second visit to Nygaard Quay, she stayed for dinner with Nygaard and his kids who were visiting. That was the night over dinner, again sitting beside him like he wanted, that we got talking and I said my mother was going to head back to Canada.

And he offered me my own cabana to stay for the rest of the summer. He said I could enjoy the beach and enjoy the tennis and that it would be great. And I thought that was wonderful. You know, the property was amazing. I couldn't believe that I would be able to have my own cabana on that property while I was staying there. So I said that would be wonderful. One night there was a party. At the end of the evening, the other guests left, One night there was a party. At the end of the evening, the other guests left,

and Jennifer found she was alone with Nygaard. She says he drugged and raped her. It seemed like forever. I was just in so much pain, I just, I turned myself off. Just, when he was done, I, I went to the bathroom because I was very hurt and bleeding and cut. And then I put my dress on and I went down to my own cabana. I left his room and I stayed there for a few days, because I was really hurt, not just physically, but emotionally, and scared. And I just felt like I put myself in that position. It was my fault, and I should have known better.

I felt dirty. I felt disgusting. better. I felt dirty. I felt disgusting. Over the next few days, she says she was assaulted again and again by Nygaard and, at his direction, by others on his property at the time. He knew everything. Even just walking around on the property, he knew everything. His staff reported to him everything that was going on. He always knew where you were. He had my passport. I had no way to get home. I just turned myself off, almost like pretending it just wasn't happening in a way. I was very, very ashamed. I told him I wanted to go to school, and he got some money and he just kind of threw it at me in Canadian dollars. And it was almost like he was paying me for sex.

And I'm not a prostitute. What he was doing was not consensual sex. He was just doing whatever he wanted. And in a way, it was almost like he was making himself feel better or feel validated that he wasn't doing anything wrong. I think he actually believes that he's never done anything wrong. Nygaard, through his lawyer, categorically denies her allegations and says Jennifer is lying.

Jennifer says she stayed at the Key for about a month, until... He decided that he was going to head back to Winnipeg, and all of a sudden everyone had to pack up and leave. So, me included. His staff, everyone had to leave the property because he was leaving. And I remember sitting outside of his cabana waiting for him to come out so I could ask for my passport back. And so I got my passport and I packed up my bags. It wasn't until more than a decade later that she told someone what had happened in the Bahamas.

I didn't realize that keeping it in for that long was just tearing myself apart. And I told my psychiatrist after lots of therapy what had happened to me. And it was really, really hard. what had happened to me, and it was really, really hard. After I spoke to my doctor, just hearing the words, I couldn't handle the pain anymore, and I just didn't want to be here. Jennifer says she attempted suicide.

And after that, I ended up in the ICU. And when I came to, my two friends were there holding my hand, and I told them what happened to me. And then at this point, I hadn't even told my husband at the time. And then I asked them if they could tell him because I couldn't. I would never even imagine doing anything like that. Again, as a mother, I would never do that to my kids. But at the time, I couldn't handle the pain anymore.

And it hurt too much. You know, I mean, to this day, I can't turn my head off. You know, I just have to shake my head even physically sometimes just to try to get those thoughts out and just try to think of something else. In early 2020, news broke of the class action lawsuit against Nygaard, alleging rape and sex trafficking. Jennifer soon contacted the lawyers and joined the suit herself. More than 20 years after her rape,

she'd be among the first Canadians to speak about her accusations publicly. I'm not scared of him anymore. And I'm doing it for all those girls that he's hurt, and women that he's hurt, myself included, of course. But I just want him to pay for what he did and for him to know that it's not okay, that he's not God and it's not okay for all the years of hurt that he has done to people. The trauma, the depression, it follows me every day. And I know that that, regardless of what happens with Peter, that that will probably never go away. But I just want to be able to ease that pain a bit, knowing that someone didn't get away with it.

And that there was at least some justice. And I think the pain may lessen. During Jennifer's time at Nygaard Key, Kai was there too. Kai was younger. He was maybe 15 or something. And for more than 20 years, she's carried a memory of Nygaard's son. And for more than 20 years, she's carried a memory of Nygaard's son. Peter's cabana, you could, it was like glass, but you could see out completely, but nobody could see in. And he had me on the bed, and Kai was knocking on the door, and I could see him.

And at that point, I just felt, I felt worse off for him than I did for me. You know, there's this kid looking for his dad and his dad's doing these horrible things to me. And we could see him, but he couldn't see us. And I just felt so bad for this kid that he had a father like that. Kai, I want to ask you about something. We spoke to a woman who was at Nygaard Key. This was quite a while ago. I told Kai what Jennifer had told us. Innocently looking for your father while she's being raped.

I'm wondering, when you hear that, what does that make you think? Makes me want to cry. And it also makes me really angry. You know, there's a lot of uh moments in this one i i i think i'm being really strong and that i am strong and then i get hit with these waves of of new information or a story like that or whatever it is and it knocks you down and the only thing I can think to do is to do everything that I can now so that those kinds of stories have some justice at the end of it and that it's not one of these things where we're going to have hundreds if not thousands of women coming forward down the road and

he got away or he's still doing it so those are the kind of motivating stories for me while I'm here so those are the kind of motivating stories for me while I'm here I know this is a hard day for you Kai and I appreciate that you're doing this but I also have to ask like these things have been going on these stories date back 40 years plus I know I heard rumors when I was living in Winnipeg 15-20 years ago like you didn't have to go very far to find someone who had some kind of negative experience with your dad sexually or someone who knew someone who had. How is it that you didn't see something sooner,

that you didn't know about this sooner and couldn't have done something sooner? Yeah, it's a good question. It's a fair question. So first of all, the children, even the mothers have all had a limited amount of exposure to him. So it's totally fragmented. Who knows who's coming and going? If you go to Nygaard Key, it's a giant compound. You have no idea what's going on in another room or if somebody leaves or whatever. Everyone is run in a very militant style. People are afraid to talk. The kids and the mothers, they're not bad people.

You're dealing with a master of manipulation, master of mirrors, smoking mirrors. And his personality, very strong personality, very charming, persuasive, able to convince you of the reality and the narrative that he wants you to hear. I think the experience for most people is that they're living their lives. They get one set of information from him. What are they going to do? They're going to put on their detective hat and start conducting an investigation, asking every person around the house if they know anything. As soon as they start asking that, people go back to him, tell him that's happening. Then he'll jump all over you. I mean, it's not as easy as it sounds.

It certainly wasn't obvious. It was obvious that he was a sex addict. It was obvious that he was a playboy, flamboyant, but that's not illegal. And lots of people have a sexual harassment allegation or pending lawsuit or something that's settled out of court you don't get that much information maybe you heard a rumor what are you going to do with the rumor it's a lot to put on people to say they should have figured it out it went public when the cases went public that's why actually the civil suit was so important because it allowed these voices to actually be heard. It allowed it to come out into print where he couldn't suppress it. And we actually had a chance to read it. That was the significant breakthrough in this whole thing.

Because if that hadn't happened, I don't even know how far I'd be. Part of the reason why I have come out in this way and the actions that I've taken is because these are my own experiences. This is what I saw with my own eyes when I was at that dinner party with the child. And soon, Kai says he learned of victims within his own family. This isn't, he said, she said, this is what my brothers told me. I had one brother that was 15 at the time. This was a long time ago. And he had lost his virginity in the Bahamas because one of these quote girlfriends, or later I found out she was really like a paid sex worker, you know, she was told to go and have sex with him. She was like in her mid-20s and he

was 15. Then we find out later that our younger brother, he had the same thing happen to him. He says Nygaard enlisted the same woman both times. It's the same woman that had statutorily raped my brother, except now she's over 40 and she gets the same assignment. Kai's brothers allege their father engineered nearly identical scenarios, one in 2004, the other in 2018. They say Nygaard flew them from their homes to his properties in the Bahamas and Winnipeg, and instructed the woman to, quote, make a man out of them.

She has since said she was coerced. Kai's brothers were 15 and 14 years old at the time. It's statutory rape. It ranged by Peter Nygaard. He told her to go do it. I've recently spoken to the older of the two brothers. He told me, for him there was confusion and shame, but that he made the accusation publicly

to support all of the women who have come forward. I'm really happy and proud of my brothers for taking that forward. The pair filed a lawsuit against their father in August of 2020. Their allegations have not been proven in court. Through his lawyer, Nygaard told CBC that he is shocked by his son's claims, calling them completely false. In recent months, Kai and other members of the Nygaard family have had help as they grapple with the fallout of the allegations. help as they grapple with the fallout of the allegations. In my practice as a mental health therapist, about half of my clients right now are survivors of Peter Nygaard. Many were sex

trafficked. Others were sexually assaulted. Shannon Maroney currently treats 36 survivors, as well as members of Peter Nygaard's immediate family, including Kai. And she can relate to him better than most. I went from, you know, one day being a respected educator and counselor in my community, a homeowner, a happy newlywed, a volunteer. And the next day, after my husband at the time, my ex-husband, committed these horrific violent crimes, my label was wife of a sex offender. A month after their wedding in 2005, Shannon's husband attacked and sexually assaulted two women at his workplace. He then abducted them, bringing them to the home he shared with Shannon.

Her now ex-husband pleaded guilty and will spend decades in prison. We're all in the same club. The family of a sex offender, there's a club membership that nobody wants. And so I'm privileged to be able to work with them because there is an understanding. And I'm privileged to be able to work with them because there is an understanding. And one thing that, you know, there's a huge misconception, I think, out there that Peter Nygaard's children, that they are spoiled rich kids or something that stood to inherit his business and, you know, had these wonderful lives or something. That's just not the case. I mean, the kids that lived with him in the Bahamas were exposed. You know, they were essentially living in a sex cult.

It's not normal for a father to have all kinds of quote-unquote girlfriends around him that are years and years younger. It's polygamous, of course. It's highly sexualized environment. So let's start thinking, what would that be like? Then we find out things like in the Bahamas, his favorites in terms of the women that he had as sex slaves or as recruiters or whatever role they were in. They had bedrooms, but the kids didn't have their own rooms. He told them that they didn't need to go to university, that the only university they needed to go to was Nygaard University. He was a tyrant. They all had to work for him, but they weren't always paid, and they weren't always paid fairly. And many of them grew up in pretty dire circumstances.

So I think, you know, behind what we might see at first glance, there is a family story there that is very complicated and filled with all sorts of abuse. Shannon says she believes Kai when he says he had no idea about his father. Oh, absolutely. I mean, the challenge too is that no one is one-dimensional, not even Peter Nygaard. So in his relationships with some of his children,

Peter Nygaard could be kind to his kids. He could be fun. There are some good memories. And that creates a bond for a kid that then becomes really, really confusing. You know, who is dad really? And most kids want the love and affection of their parents. All kids want that. So they can compartmentalize. They can dissociate. They can be very innocently blind. Because how would you think that your parent was doing the worst of the worst things?

Why would you let your imagination go there? His two younger brothers, we know through the lawsuit that they filed in that their dad arranged for them to be raped. What kind of effect would that have on them if their father was involved in something like that? Well, how confusing, because I think it was presented to them as, here's the best gift a dad could ever give you. That's a horrible attitude, but it's not one that only Peter Nygaard holds about male sexuality and male prowess. It's distorted and it's wrong and it endangers women and men and keeps people from having healthy consensual sexual relationships. And specific to those two young men, I think how

incredibly brave of them to be able to say that that was wrong, what happened to them. Now that this is out there, what's this like for them? Oh my gosh. It's devastating. You know, when Kai and I talk and the truth is, you know, when Kai and I talk and the truth is, you know, your father is going to go down in history as one of the worst sexual predators there ever was. It is a living hell. And I tell family members, you are allowed to love that person. No one loves what they did. No one accepts what they did. It would be a lot easier if we weren't bonded to people and we could just cut off our emotions. And that's what people on the outside often think, you know, that we would completely

abandon the family members who do these horrible things. But it's really just not that simple. I just try to give them the space to grieve. That's an important part of this, you know, grieving what should have been, what never will be, and the loss of someone that in some ways is much worse than a death, because there's no heaven to picture that person in. Kai says he lost more than his father in this. I lost a family name. I lost a lot of my family members, or at least some of them.

I don't think I'll ever be able to have a relationship with them again because they view me as an enemy now, I guess. I've lost respect out in the world because now I have this shadow around me of his legacy. And, you know, whatever was going on financially, I lost all that. Kai was once listed as president and CEO of multiple Nygaard companies. of multiple Nygaard companies. But he was removed from those positions after Kai says he started to question his father's business dealings

and confront him about allegations involving girls and women. Also, what I've gained is I've gained a lot of clarity as to who I am, what I believe in, what is right. And gaining that has actually, I think is actually worth it because at the end of all

this, man, it doesn't really matter when you die, how much money you have. What matters I think is is did you wrong people? Did you do the right thing? And some of the messages that I've received from some of the victims when they've found out that I'm in support of them and that I believe them and that I'm doing everything I can to help them have been so beautiful and touching. And it makes me believe that I'm on the right track and I'm doing the right thing. I want to ask you, what do you want to see happen to your father? I want to see him in prison.

And I don't want him to get away and hurt more people. He needs to be in jail where he cannot hurt any more women or children and where justice can be felt for his victims. Since news of Nygaard's arrest in late 2020, Kai says he's relieved that his father has been charged and won't be able to flee the country. Though he still foresees challenges in the prosecution of his father. still foresees challenges in the prosecution of his father. It's hard to nail somebody on a sex crime, because it's your word against theirs, especially if you're out there saying that this other billionaire has this conspiracy against you,

and he's funding all of this in order to tear you down, a personal vendetta, which is total BS. That's his way of injecting a shred of doubt into the process. He is, of course, talking about Nygaard's former neighbor in the Bahamas, Louis Bacon. For years, the two ultra-rich foreigners had been locked in fierce legal battles over shared property and environmental destruction. As to why his father built a home in the Bahamas in the first place, Kai has his theories. So the Bahamas thing was always for him to avoid taxes. Canadian citizen, Bahamian resident, is not paying taxes.

But now we understand that it was also a loophole for these sex crimes. I found out over and over again with him, the pattern was that he would say anything to anyone to get them to come down to the Bahamas. And when he got them to the Bahamas, they would either have sex with him willingly, or if they wouldn't do it willingly, he would either force himself physically and overpower them or he'd drug them and he would rape them. He would get his way. And the reason why women cannot report this is that if you're a Canadian woman or an American woman and you get raped, in this case by a Canadian man in the Bahamas, Canada expects you to go to the Bahamas to report that crime. We got to change these rules. Maybe we make the Peter Nygaard rule, but there should never

be a scenario where two Canadians go down to the Bahamas. One gets raped by the other. They come back to Canada and nothing happens. And that's one of the big reasons that he's been able to get away with this for so long, for 40 plus years, because on top of the intimidation stuff, on top of all the suppression tactics that he has, he also is very smart about where he did the crimes. In a statement to CBC, Nygaard says he's dismayed by the actions and comments from his son. He points out that Kai has traveled with him and his entourage of women, and that he's been present at parties he, quote, now condemns. Nygaard also says Kai helped organize some of the parties,

though Kai says his events had nothing to do with Nygaard's womanizing or alleged illegal activity. Kai says he's shared everything he knows with authorities, and says he's been actively involved in the investigations into his father, while helping find and connect survivors to people who can help them. So, I'm very much interested now in shining a light on this whole situation, getting justice and stopping more people from being hurt in the future. And then taking actions to help victims of abusers like my own father. abusers like my own father. What we're dealing with here,

what will go down in history is that we're dealing with one of the most prolific modern day rapists in the history of our recorded time. And that's why I'm pleading to people that if you were raped by him, like don't be scared anymore. Please report it. Report it to the police. Pick up the phone. Because it has to be an all-out blitz right now. I'm also pleading to the enablers.

Stop helping this man. That final plea from Kai strikes at the heart of the question we've been trying to answer this whole series. How did Nygaard get away with it for so long? And the short answer is, other people helped him. Many around Nygaard have been accused of aiding and abetting his misconduct, some even active participants. While there were those who had no choice, others had more options and could have left,

but didn't, and continue to stand by him. Coming up on the season finale of Evil by Design. There were hundreds of people over the years that were knowing participants in this enterprise, all the way from transporting to paying, to computer records, to everything you can think of

that would be involved in hurting innocent people. From the outside, we might look and say, well, these women were free. They weren't being held in chains. And they are being held in chains. They are being held by invisible chains. I will say that Peter Nygaard is the most prolific sexual offender that our world has seen to date. He far exceeds Jeffrey Epstein. He far exceeds Bill Cosby.

He exceeds anything that I think our world has seen so far. 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, Peter Nygaard, The Secret Videos, on YouTube. This podcast is written by producer Ashley Mack,

associate producer Alina Ghosh, and me, Timothy Sawa, 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 Caroline Bargut. Emily Connell is our digital producer. Original music by Olivia Pasquarelli.

Fact-checking by Emily Mathieu. Legal advice from Sean Moorman. Our senior producer at CBC Podcasts is Chris Oak. And our executive producer is Arif Noorani. Okay, that was an episode from Evil by Design. You can listen to the entire series right now anywhere you get your podcasts. For more CBC Podcasts,

go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.