Uncover - S9 "Evil By Design" E8: The Enablers

Episode Date: March 24, 2021

Nygard now sits in a Manitoba jail cell, awaiting extradition and a possible criminal trial. But what of the many others who have been accused of helping him along the way? This is Uncover: Evil By Design. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/uncover/evil-by-design-transcripts-listen-1.5886427

This is a very strange and frustrating story. To have your family member stolen and murdered, then missing. I'm Connie Walker and this is Missing and Murdered, Finding Cleo. It's such a mystery, such an impossible task. Please, help us find her. Finding Cleo. If you'd like to hear more, you can find the full season wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast.

The following episode contains difficult subject matter and accounts of sexual assault. Please take care. and accounts of sexual assault. Please take care. On the evening of December 13, 2020, police officers spotted Peter Nygaard peering out the window of a grey stucco house in Winnipeg. Members of the surveillance team stationed outside later confirmed that he looked like his photo,

with a blue open-collared shirt and long white hair. With a warrant out for his arrest in the United States and the Canadian police closing in, Nygaard's time was running out. Authorities on both sides of the border agreed Nygaard was a danger to the community, prone to witness tampering, and a flight risk,

who needed to be detained as soon as possible. The next day, officers moved in and arrested him. Peter Nygaard appeared in court this afternoon, shackled and disheveled. He didn't say anything. The indictment revealed multiple charges of sex trafficking and racketeering in the U.S., Canada, and the Bahamas. The FBI's investigation had finally confirmed what many already knew, that Nygaard's criminal conduct had affected hundreds of victims,

and that his predatory behavior spanned decades. In the weeks that followed his arrest, Nygaard's defense lawyers fought to free him on bail. The proceedings play out on newscasts across Canada. Nygaard's legal team laid out a lofty bail plan that included monitored military-grade surveillance cameras surrounding his property and a 24-hour guard inside his home. His lawyers had argued his age and the risk of COVID-19

put his health in jeopardy behind bars. The prosecutions say Nygaard is a flight risk and they are concerned he has undisclosed money and the ability to access large sums of cash through the Nygaard companies that he could use to leave the country. On February 5th, 2021, the media descended on the courthouse

as Justice Sean Greenberg of the Manitoba Court of Queens bench was ready to make her decision on his request for bail. Nygaard survivors around the world held their breath. On video camera from Headingley Correctional Centre, Peter Nygaard didn't seem to understand he was being denied bail. The justice says she believes Nygaard is a flight risk,

has not been completely forthcoming about his financial situation, and did not have confidence that Nygaard is a flight risk, has not been completely forthcoming about his financial situation and did not have confidence that Nygaard or those directed by him would not tamper with evidence or witnesses while out of jail. Nygaard now sits in a Manitoba jail cell awaiting extradition. But the charges against him make it clear. Authorities don't believe he did it alone. Authorities don't believe he did it alone. Nygaard relied on his company's assets and employees,

and many more on his payroll you wouldn't expect. While he sits behind bars, one key question gets louder and louder. What about the many others who've been accused of helping him along the way? I'm Timothy Sawa, and this is the season finale of Evil by Design. Episode 8, The Enablers. According to the criminal and civil cases against Nygaard, there's a long list of his employees who knew or even participated in their boss's criminal enterprise. Household managers, accountants, drivers, bodyguards.

But there was a different kind of employee, one who was closer to him than most. Those like Celebrity Harvey. I've been hiding for 15 years. All this bullshit that's been going on needs to be exposed. She told us that for a long time she was afraid for her safety. But she now wants you to know what she knows about Peter Nygaard

and those who enabled him. So, I don't give a damn about protecting no fucking body that's a fucking predator. She's one of two people you're going to hear from who Nygaard called his girlfriends. Because I was Peter's woman that he would have with him every morning, or at least every night, when all else fell, like when he had nobody because he didn't like to be lonely. He wanted, you know, somebody to keep him warm and keep company. because he didn't like to be lonely.

He wanted, you know, somebody to keep him warm and keep company. Young women like Celebrity were those you'd often see on Nygaard's arm walking red carpets, sitting by his side at fancy dinners and accompanying him to corporate events. We would have to be at dinner, though, every night. And he had to be presentable for dinner every night, especially if his friends were over, you know, with the ladies that live in the house. So we would have to be there.

Girlfriends often lived and traveled with Nygaard full-time. But the criminal indictment emphasizes girlfriends were paid to be there, out of corporate funds. And according to a lawsuit, these women were paid based on their ethnicity, physical appearance, and the level of sexual conduct they would engage in with Nygaard. Celebrity lived with him in the mid-2000s in his beachside Los Angeles home. I would either go to the beach,

like go all the way down to Venice or Santa Monica, enjoy my day, go to the city, go shopping. The family members, they ran the house with the housemaid and the chef. I just want to ask you about sort of the daily routine in the house. What was a typical day living in that house when Peter Nygaard was around? In the morning, taking care of Peter, making sure Peter had whatever he needed, making sure he had his daily fixes, you know, because he needed it every morning, every day. What do you mean by daily fixes?

His daily fetishes, sexual fetishes that would get him off and help him start his day. He would definitely get up and start checking, like, emails and eat breakfast and definitely lots of things that would be, like, be like fiber protein things that he knew he needed a person to have a healthy diet for to perform certain things for him so um after breakfast would be like the dungeon he had it exactly set up like a jungle like you'd be like in a rainforest somewhere, you know. And that's where he would go into his zone. I feel like it's more ritual for him. And I don't know what type of power that he receives off of doing these type of, I don't know. I mean, I know that it makes him feel alive and powerful.

So you're talking about sex acts then? Sex acts, yes. But some of the sex acts was very inhumane. It's something that a movie director couldn't even freaking write because they would be like, man, ain't nobody going to play this that dang movie role. That type part. That's how foul and vile it is. It's something that's on a whole other level of sadistic.

So the other girls, they would look at me like his girlfriend. I was like, no, I'm not his girlfriend. I'm paid to be here. I'm the host. We're not naming this second woman, as she's told us she's still terrified for her safety. But the parts of her story she agreed to share include that she's a former model from Canada, who was in her 20s when she met Nygaard. And although Nygaard also called her his girlfriend, she says she always rejected the label. He's my boss. Nothing more, nothing less. I never had to hold his hand. I never kissed him. There was no

love letters. He's the boss. It's very impersonal. It's like he just wants to have sex with everybody. And as soon as he does, then they go, you know what I mean? On to the next one, right? And was your relationship sexual with him? No, it was not. I did not have sex with him. I was sexual with him, but I didn't have sex with him. She says she worked as a hostess for Nygaard's events in the Bahamas, on and off, for six years, from the mid-90s to the early 2000s. While there, she says Nygaard demanded she sleep in his bed and was expected to perform sexual acts.

And on at least one occasion, she says Nygaard also instructed her to have sex with another guest. Well, I know that when I was in the Bahamas, that he ordered three of the girls and myself up to one of the top bedrooms because he had a guest there from like a soap opera on TV or something. The criminal indictment alleges that Nygaard forced girlfriends to provide sexual favors for friends and business associates. And I was like, I don't think I want to go up there. He goes, go up there and make them happy. I didn't go up there. The three girls went up there and I just saw like a little space to sit. So I go up there. He goes, go up there and make them happy. I didn't go up there. The three girls went up there,

and I just saw like a little space to sit, so I just sat there. When I saw them come back down walking, I joined them. So I just said I got lost. And when he says go up there, is the expectation is that they're to have sex with whoever's there? Well, yeah.

I don't assume they're playing poker up there. Both she and Celebrity were required to attend parties that Nygaard threw at his properties. Sunday was the pamper party, but sometimes we had parties on Saturday and stuff like that, you know. And a lot of people really wasn't particularly his friend. They was around him because he had a lot of women around. So a lot of guys would come to the parties for the women, to buy the women. It was basically like an auction. It was an auction, but the women didn't know they was getting auctioned off, and they didn't know that they was, you know, it was basically like a silent auction.

It would be through a similar kind of trade that the Canadian model and hostess met Nygaard for the first time. One day in the mid-90s, she and her modeling manager were traveling from Canada through the Bahamas when he accepted a dinner invitation for the both of them at Nygaard Quay. When the meal was over, she says her boss at the time drew her to another part of the estate, an artificial grotto. I opened the door to the grotto and there was like a full-blown orgy going on. Like everybody having sex with everybody. And I was just in shock. So I closed the door.

And I just sat on the bench and I just waited. My boss came out and he had a towel wrapped around him. And I was like, what's going on? He was like, oh, you know, I traded you to Peter for three girls. Traded you? He traded me, yeah. My boss's exact words. Never happened before to me.

It was 100% a surprise to me. Like, he traded me for three girls. I was trying to wrap my mind around it. Traded me for what? Traded me for photo shoots? Traded me for, you know, on TV stuff? Like, what did you trade me for? But it dawned on me very quickly that he traded me to Peter

because I saw him having sex with two of his girls. I was like, I didn't make the deal. Whatever deal you made, you need to pay him. I'm not paying for anything. Like, I don't know how you introduce somebody to stuff like that. I guess that's how, right? As we've heard of Nygaard's parties, the guest list of young women needed constant refreshing. And while Nygaard had many recruiters outside of his inner circle,

his so-called girlfriends were integral to his operation. Celebrity and the hostess say they never recruited for him. But they saw how it was done. but they saw how it was done. You have these recruit girls that look nice, dress nice, got nice cars, all these things, you know, anything that another younger, impressionable woman would want that may look at you and say, well, girl, how'd you get that?

Well, girl, this is how I got this. You know, this is what I do. So basically it's all bait to send other women out into the world to attract other women to bring them to Peter's house so they can have their pick of the litter. More than a decade earlier, the same tactics were being fine-tuned at Nygaard Key. Some of the girls that were already there when I was there would go out and recruit them. Girls on vacation in the Bahamas that were like hanging out on the beaches or in the town or at the casino. And what happened when they brought girls or women with them? Peter was very happy. He showed them favor.

He had a safe like upstairs in his bedroom and he had like petty cash there. So he would show them favor. All of a sudden they would have money. So he was paying women to find other women? No, he was rewarding them when they found women. it's a survival mechanism. We hear that and we all want to think, I would never do that. I would never do that. I have morals. I have values. I would never put someone else in harm's way.

But we're not in that situation. Toronto therapist Shannon Maroney currently treats more than three dozen women and family members involved in the Nygaard case. Many of them women he called girlfriends. And, you know, I had one woman say to me, she said, if someone else, some other girl came in or was brought in, at least that night it wouldn't be me. And this is in fact one of the saddest elements of these pyramid schemes, trafficking rings, is that women are pitted against one another. Of those Nygaard girlfriends who have come forward, many say they had originally been victims, including celebrity. By the time she was 17, she had fled her abusive father and was homeless by herself in Los Angeles. It was then, she says, she was recruited for a group of powerful,

well-connected businessmen. Well, some people would just recruit me. They just saw me out in public and said, hey, you look like you run track. I like the way your legs are shaped. And they start asking me questions about college and why I'm not going to school right now. I'm like, well, I have to pay bills. I work right now. So they lured me and were like, oh, well, I could give you a scholarship. I can help you go to school. I could do this. I could do that. Basically, they're buying your body. They're buying you. You don't even know you're being bought. It's a process. Okay, so you go through one,

and then if you're good enough to pass that one level or that one person, then they pass you around, and they call their buddies up. Hey, I got this girl. After a few years of this, Celebrity was brought to a dinner party Nygaard threw at his Marina Del Rey estate. Our first initial meeting, he grabbed me by my booty and he said, ooh, nice toilet. I kind of giggled. I didn't know what that meant. I'm like, maybe that's his, you know, I knew he had accents.

So I'm like, he's from out the country. That's the way they say booty. It was in the mid 2000s and she was in her early 20s. I just was going with the flow. And before I knew it, dinner was over, things was winding down. Peter's asking me, you know, about where do I stay, you know, and I'm like, well, I really don't have a place to stay. So he's like, well, you well, what do you want to do? You can model with my company.

So I'm just excited because I'm like, yo, this is the opportunity. But then she says he led her up to his room and raped her. He's telling me, calm down. You said you need a place to stay. You can stay here with me on the beach. Don't worry, we'll get you set up tomorrow. I'll have you sleep in here with me tonight. When I tell you I had to sleep in the bed with Peter,

the first night when he raped me, I was, first of all, I couldn't sleep. My eyes were open looking at the ceiling, thinking what was above the ceiling, because it was a damn mirror above the bed so now my imagination is running like oh my god everything is on camera he videotaped us he's a pervert he's a freak you know these are things that's running through my mind so the next morning comes he makes sure I eat I'm not understanding why he wants me to eat and why he wants me to eat a certain diet. I know now, looking back, like, okay,

his fetish, what he was looking for, I didn't know that that's what he was asking. Nygaard's various fetishes are detailed in a civil suit filed against him. It was sex acts like these that Celebrity described earlier as vile and inhumane. I didn't know that he was basically getting my diet together so he could ask me to, you know, defecate on him. He wanted me to have a clean bowel movement.

I was able to give that to him. Where a lot of girls, they were on cocaine, which is a laxative, so they couldn't defecate properly. So that's why he didn't like a lot of girls. On first hearing what Nygaard wanted, she says she ran away. But finding herself in a desperate financial situation, she was lured back. She would go on to stay with him for two years.

And in staying, Celebrity wasn't alone. I've been working to help them understand their own experiences, where they were first sexually assaulted, and then they were not able to get out of the situation that they were in. They were trapped by shame. They didn't want to go back to their families. By financial coercion. All sorts of ways that Peter Nygaard was able to keep them in his realm

and working for him in his ring. Some believe that they did have bona fide jobs and that also that he loved or cared about them. And so there's a lot of deprogramming, you might say. And as you work with them and this deprogramming starts to play out, what's that like for them? It is devastating. It's empowering and everything in between, but it's devastating first. realizing that he didn't care about them at all, that he used and abused,

and then that they somehow, quote unquote, allowed this to happen to them, is incredibly shameful. You know, and that's also kind of a microphone-in-your-face question to ask, why didn't you leave? Why didn't you understand what was happening? And 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. For the two women we spoke to, it took years before they broke free.

It was in the early 2000s when the Canadian hostess stayed at Nygaard Quay for the last time. It was then that she says Nygaard drugged and raped her. So then in the morning I wake up, and I'm face down down and I feel like I woke up in hell. I feel like my hair's been pulled. I'm bleeding. My anus hurts. My body hurts. My jaw hurts.

I just paralyzed. I just did not know what to do. I don't know what happened to me. I got up and I realized what he did to me. I got up and I realized what he did to me. She says when confronted, Nygaard threatened her life if she told anyone. She escaped the key to a hotel in Nassau. She says members of Nygaard's staff tracked her down more than once, but eventually she made it to the airport. I went to the custom agent and I was like, oh, you know, I'm almost home. I'm almost free, right? Just petrified. And the custom officer says to me, oh, Mr. Nygra is looking for

you. I was like, yeah, yeah, I know. No problem. You know, I just have to go home. I'll be right back. You know, he knows. Don't worry about it. Here's my ticket. I have to get on this plane. Then I actually got on the plane. I was like, oh. Then halfway through the flight, I'm thinking, can he turn this plane around? He has so much money. What's going to happen to me? She left and never went back, but says she always looked over her shoulder.

Nygaard denies all of the allegations against him, including those you've heard here. He says they are all lies and part of a conspiracy meant to destroy his reputation. For Celebrity, she says it was a woman attending a party at the L.A. estate who saw the situation she was in and offered her somewhere else to stay. Even though I was moving out,

I still wanted to trash the place. And I was going to spray paint in the middle of the street and put all of Peter's business out there because I was so upset. What did you want to write in spray paint on the pavement? Peter eat shit. Peter eat shit. I was going to get a goddamn microphone and scream it loud all over the goddamn neighborhood. Peter eat shit all up and down y'all street. So I spoke to a woman who's actually helping with therapy with some of the women who are in your situation. She says she uses the term sex slave in this situation rather than girlfriend. What do you think about that?

I think that is a proper term. Even though that term is harsh, and the people that have actually been sex slaves, it's a trigger for us. But it's something that we have to become comfortable with because it's actually a part of our healing process. To overcome and know that that is not what our future is. And to forgive ourselves that we even allowed ourselves to be put in that type of situation. Me and this person had a special connection, a special attachment.

I was loyal to this person. This person betrayed me on all levels. But not all girlfriends were like celebrity. There were others whose experiences with Nygaard were a world apart. There's also a group of people that are considered girlfriends or workers that assisted him, knew exactly what was going on. They were not coerced. They were just profiting from it. They knew exactly what was going on. They were not coerced. They were just profiting from it. Lisa Haba is one of the lawyers representing the women in the class action lawsuit against Nygaard,

alleging rape and sex trafficking. And for those that were profiting from it without being a victim themselves, without being coerced to do so, their sheer greed and manipulation of the situation makes them accomplices to sex trafficking at an international level. Hi, my name is Sulin Medeiros. I'm from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and I'm your next cover model for Performance Auto and Sound magazine. In the fall of 2020, a lawsuit was launched against Instagram model Sulin Medeiros. a lawsuit was launched against Instagram model Sulin Medeiros. In it, an unnamed woman accused Sulin of, quote, knowingly and actively recruiting young women

for Nygaard to rape. Lisa Haba also represents this plaintiff, who was 18 when she says Nygaard raped her in 2010. There's enablers like Sulin Medeiros, who was never raped by her own admission in a book she published recently. From what she's gathered, Lisa believes Sulin was not just being paid to stand next to Nygaard. She was a voluntary participant who received money to traffic other women to Peter Nygaard. The plaintiff in the lawsuit told the CBC that she'd befriended Sul Lin after seeing her star in a music video for R&B singer Chris Brown.

She says Su Lin then lured her to Nygaard Key and told her she had to have sex with Nygaard. The way it was so effortlessly done with me and so planned out well, it wasn't her first rodeo. That's just no heart. No, no feminine, like, she's not even a woman in my eyes. She's a demon. The suit alleges Su Lin was, for many years,

considered Nygaard's top girlfriend, based on her ability and willingness to lure women to Nygaard. Sue Lynn first established herself as a girlfriend while Celebrity was living with Nygaard in Marina Del Rey. That's the last contender. It was just me and her, left in the house. What was her role in all of this? Besides being, just being his girlfriend and being like, you know, eye candy, she gets his other women for him.

Not just any woman, like Brazilian, woman that's looking for a modeling career, woman that wants to be an actress, woman that's look up to her because she's a video vixen, she's a model. She's worked her way to the top to some degree you know so that's why Peter kept her around that was her position and that was affirmed when it was just me her left in the house and she didn't have to sleep with Peter see their type relationship was like she knew it was monetary because he would cut her off. She wanted to like surpass all the other girls, like make it to another level with him. Like she didn't like nothing about him. To be honest, she didn't like nothing about him.

All she liked the fact was that he was a billionaire and he had a lot of money and he could help support her lifestyle. Breast implants, booty implants, lip injections, cheek injections, whatever she wanted. Drive the Ferrari for the day. Here's $1,000, go shopping. Here's $10,000, go do this, whatever. You can ride the private jet. She was in it for the lifestyle, for the luxury.

Although Sulin's case hasn't been decided in court, and her lawyer said she, quote, vehemently denies these false and salacious allegations, others have made up their mind, calling her Nygaard's Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell being the woman charged with aiding and recruiting for Jeffrey Epstein. With 2.6 million Instagram followers, she fits the bill as the glamorous, most visible of Nygaard's alleged accomplices. But Sulin is just one of potentially

dozens of enablers, and they weren't all recruiting girls and nightclubs, or chauffeuring victims to and from the neighborhoods of Nassau. They were everywhere, and they weren't necessarily on the ground. There was a different kind of enabler, those in corner offices at the highest levels in Nygaard's own companies. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell.

I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. So one of the questions we're asking is, how did this stay secret for so long? And I mean, you worked at the company for a number of years. Why didn't you say something sooner to someone who could have done something? Because there would have been nothing

would have been done. All the employees saw that Nygaard always had complete control and he always won. Pamela Erickson worked at Nygaard's L.A. office for nearly two decades, working her way up to director of marketing and PR in the U.S. So what role did the very senior employees and executives at Nygaard play? Well, naturally, if there was any claims from women, they of course knew of it. So they had knowledge, and they did keep it confined to their inner circles. Pamela says she witnessed company resources used to make allegations against Nygaard go away. If there was something in the press, we always saw that it disappeared or they dropped it

and we never knew why, but he made it known within the company that it always gets dismissed. She remembers opening a letter one day from an attorney in New York. She remembers opening a letter one day from an attorney in New York. For instance, that one was about aggressive sex or aggressive assault. So it was, from my understanding, handled and paid. So when I would open any kind of documentations or letters directed to Nygaard, I was told who to give it to. And they would handle it. And that's all I knew. So senior members of the Nygaard company were aware that women were being paid to be silenced?

Oh, yes, absolutely. Pamela says she herself was asked to participate in cover-up attempts in the late 2000s. Nygaard sued an employee who went public with accusations of mistreatment. And a Finnish newspaper that reported negative comments from the lead actors shooting the film Into the Blue in the Bahamas. According to the article, Jessica Alba described a party at Nygaard Key as gross on a press tour, saying, these girls are like 14 years old in the jacuzzi, taking off their clothes. Pamela says she was pressured to swear false affidavits in both cases. And I said, no, I will not sign it. And I kept getting calls, please sign it,

please sign it. I said, no, I'd be lying it. And I kept getting calls, please sign it, please sign it. I said, no, I'd be lying and I'm not going to sign it. How did this affect your standing in the company and with Peter Nygaard? Yeah, you feel retaliation. You feel every day you could be fired. You feel that your job is in jeopardy and you feel that fear and it's intense and it gets more intense every day because you are not compliant. While Pamela says she refused to sign either statement, she later saw a declaration with her signature in the second lawsuit saying, quote, the events hosted at Nygaard Quay were not perverse, shocking, wicked, or in any way indecent. Pamela says Nygaard kept his employees in fear of the consequences if they spoke out against him.

if they spoke out against him. Nygaard would make examples of people and then tell everybody they had no case. He would even say, I don't know why anyone tries to sue me. I'll drag it out in litigation. They can't afford the attorney fees. So we were always intimidated and controlled in speaking about anything. And it was clear as a directive of Nygaard in the company that we don't speak to the press. We do not speak to attorneys. We're not allowed to speak to anyone. It sounds like what you're describing is there was a corporate machine that protected him.

Is that fair? Yes, the executives would protect Nygaard. And they know it, and the entire company knows this. So if you said something about Peter Nygaard, you wouldn't be just taking him on. You'd be taking on his company. Yes, and he had power. His money seemed to always help him escape from any court case. In recent court proceedings, we saw an example of the culture of protection and secrecy that Pamela describes. Within weeks of a subpoena issued in February 2020 by U.S. authorities to Nygaard's

companies, Greg Fenske, a longtime senior executive, deleted corporate records before the FBI could get them. When Fenske recently put his name forward as a surety in Nygaard's bail hearing. He was questioned about this. Fenske admitted to deleting more than a thousand company documents and emails after a grand jury subpoena was issued for company documents and said he didn't understand that the court order was to ensure nothing would be deleted. Justice Greenberg denied Nygaard bail, in part because of, quote, the obvious control which Mr. Nygaard has over Mr. Fenske, and Mr. Fenske's own willingness to break rules.

She also said it appears that Nygaard continues to use his employees to facilitate deception. Lawyer Greg Gutzler also represents the women in the class action lawsuit. Greg Fenske has been perhaps one of the top three enablers and probably the number one enabler in the last year or so. He has been instrumental in deleting evidence. Greg Fenske has not responded to my attempts to talk to him. There are also other allegations being made against the most senior Nygaard employees. Among the executives named in different lawsuits is longtime employee and friend of the Nygaard family, Tina Tulacorpi. Tulacorpi is absolutely instrumental in covering up many of Nygaard's sex abuse cases.

She has been instrumental in keeping women quiet. In addition to the lawsuits, Tina Tula Korpi's name has come up again and again in the course of our reporting. and again in the course of our reporting. I first heard of her more than 10 years ago from the initial whistleblowers in Winnipeg coming forward about sexual misconduct at Nygaard companies. Our sources said Tina put pressure on them to stop talking to the CBC. You may also remember she was the executive who,

according to a former Nygaard videographer, coached a woman into making a statement claiming Nygaard was nothing but a gentleman. Tina denies this, but the videographer, coached a woman into making a statement claiming Nygaard was nothing but a gentleman. Tina denies this, but the videographer said the woman appeared to be making the statement against her will. And when Nygaard's son Kai witnessed what he believed was his father inappropriately touching an eight-year-old girl, he said he told a longtime friend of the family and a senior Nygaard employee. It was Tina, and Kai says nothing was done about it.

Tina says the story Kai recounted isn't the same he told her. She says back then his story was vague, and she told Kai that if he was worried, he should speak to Nygaard and the girl's mother. Tina says she talked to Nygaard too, but didn't say if anything came of it. I called Tina to ask about the many allegations against her. So you're repeatedly described as one of his chief or primary co-conspirators and covering things up and allowing this to happen. What do you make of that? Who would say that?

Well, it's been in the lawsuits for sure. How can people say that about me? I think that anybody who would know me would know that I just, to me, covering what up? That's sad. That's very hurtful for people to say that. I'm just wondering what your reaction is to all the allegations that have come out now about Peter Nygaard. First of all, I'm incredibly, I'm having a very hard time in terms of he lived a hedonistic lifestyle he never apologized for it he was proud of it it was his choice

you know it is a lifestyle choice for some people I guess but the things that he is being allegedly accused of, I have a hard time seeing that. I can't. That's very difficult for me. And why I'm struggling and why I'm talking this way is because we have over 1,600 people that lost their jobs. We all lost our jobs. Yeah.

And I feel that if there was something like that going on then we would have somehow had an awareness to that i his mother was my best friend and um that's really who i spend my time with and then his sister but in his private life I don't other than what we all saw which was his lifestyle choice I don't I didn't have a personal relationship with him in his private life so to speak if that's the right way of saying it so it is a shock

I yeah it was an absolute shock in terms of him being tough I can you know attest to that that's for sure as a boss but um no it's horrific the allegations are horrific and um i have a hard time seeing it and yet you know if there is to be if there is a victim then they need to find their justice and In a later statement, she said she is, quote, devastated by the allegations against Nygaard,

and that the women's horrific stories have shaken her to her core. Tina's not the only one being accused in lawsuits of helping Nygaard. Perhaps the closest to him of the alleged corporate enablers is Angela Dybourne. Lawyer, Lisa Haba. Angela Dybourne is the niece of Peter Nygaard. And as a member of his family, she obviously has been his life for a very long time. But she also was an employee of Nygaard International, his company. Angela Dieborn was in charge of the facilities at Marina Del Rey. Angela was in charge of communications when Peter Nygaard throws a pamper party, each of the invited guests has to

do a check-in. And at check-in, she would take down their name, their physical statistics, and those numbers and a picture would be taken of the individual coming in, be sent to Peter Nygaard so that he could pick his next victim from whoever was at the party that night. She was aware not only of the raping of various women and children, but she also helped cover it up quite a bit. And we have multiple instances where she was responsible for doing cleanup duties, if you will, making sure that the girl felt that she either couldn't report or wouldn't report it. And most notably, we filed a lawsuit against her on behalf of one of our brave clients, April Telek, who has come forward publicly. So when Angela left, I just thought,

okay, she's off for the night. And he showed me around and I said, where am I staying? And he said, here. And he said, here. April Tleck, who we heard earlier in the series, alleges it was Angela Dybourne, her former friend, who drove her to Nygaard's Winnipeg warehouse, leaving her to her uncle, who held April against her will and raped her. In an affidavit sent to the CBC, Angela says she wasn't in Winnipeg when April says she was raped, so she couldn't have driven her to the factory. The allegations against her have not been proven in court, but I called Angela to ask her about them. She says any suggestion she lured anyone to be raped or helped cover up any crimes is

hurtful and untrue. She adds she feels sick about all of it. According to the two civil lawyers, the true number of Nygaard enablers goes well beyond the four we've reported on here. Greg Gutzler says in a corporation the size of Nygaard's, many others had to be involved. I would venture to say that there were hundreds of people over the years that were, quote, employees of the Nygaard companies that were knowing participants in this enterprise. They helped him in every possible way. From the very beginning, he would have employees of the company that would be recruiting and luring girls and women to various locations under the fake premise of a modeling contract. And they would be involved in making travel plans

for them, get the plane ticket, and then physically pick them up and drive them to certain locations. They would be engaged in accident intimidation. They were the highest executives down to just regular folks in the accounting department. Well, Peter Nygaard uses companies sort of as a personal bank account, if you will. Peter Nygaard threw these pamper parties. The employees are paid for, the food and beverages are paid for, the entertainment was paid for, everything was paid for by the company. And it was done under the guise of presenting it like it was a marketing event for the company. When in reality, what was being done is the company resources were being used to facilitate a recruiting ground.

It's hard to imagine why anyone would turn a blind eye to Nygaard. Or worse, actively help him. But Lisa Haba and Greg Gutzler have their theories. First and foremost, they received financial compensation for what they did. These were opportunists that were doing it out of sheer greed. It was avarice. They would cover up sex abuse. They would intimidate people. They will hide assets. They will break the law because they wanted money.

So they were directly benefiting. They were profiting. They were profiteers from a sprawling sex trafficking venture. adventure. What's it been like for you, Greg, to hear these kinds of stories and live this as you have for the last many months? It has completely changed my perspective in so many ways. To hear about people who go through something as unbelievably tragic and violent and terrifying, where dignity and trust are lost in a flash. They are people who trust you and they trust nobody. They have been subjugated. They have been destroyed. And you know what?

They came through so, so strong, but they still bear the scars of things that are unspeakable. I was a human trafficking prosecutor and a sex crimes prosecutor for a very long time before I went into civil litigation. And I can tell you that the amount of evil I've seen has, you would think it's probably pretty stunning. I mean, I truly walked out of that job thinking I had probably seen the worst of the worst and there wasn't

much more out there that could shock me. This case shocked me. Some of our clients have cried themselves to sleep for decades. Some of our clients have literally never had a relationship since the rape happened decades ago. We've had clients that have said that they literally don't feel safe leaving their house. And that's not from last year. That's from decades ago. I will say that Peter Nygaard, in my opinion, 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. Nygaard joins a growing list of men who use their power and money to abuse women and girls and cover up their crimes. Their survivors often ignored or interrogated,

while the systems that protected the predators thrived. This case actually stands for the proposition that evil, money, power, and corruption prevailed over innocence, truth, and dignity because we lived in a world whose philosophy was who has the money and the power can corrupt and they will win and people who don't have that can be crushed they can be used they can be assaulted they can be raped and that was the way the world worked and so i think we need to as a society as a world elevate truth and dignity above money and power. Shannon Maroney. We have to be absolutely dedicated to changing the standard and changing what we admire, changing what we praise. You know, one of the women that I work with, she said, you know, it's just so sad.

You think of all the good he could have done. You know, he had money, he had power. Think of the thousands of lives he could have positively influenced. Instead, he ruined. This case, and others like it, also make clear that predators require the help of some, and the quiet complacency of many others.

They were willing to sell out human dignity and destroy people. And those people are the ones, the people who were destroyed, our survivors who were very very brave, they're the ones that text Lisa and me at three in the morning saying, I'm scared. I don't know who else to turn to. Peter Nygaard will never be held accountable. His co-conspirators will never be held accountable. That's what they say and believe.

And you know why? Because for 50 years, they were right. 2020 was Nygaard's year of reckoning. But the path to his arrest began years earlier in the Bahamas. Well, my hope was back then that someone would come out and say something and it didn't have to be me. Jane Doe No. 3 was 15 years old when she was raped by Nygaard. Years later, despite her fears, she shared her story with lawyers, investigators and journalists. And I probably just have to say something.

I want to do it not only for me to get some type of closure, but I want justice to be served for other and upcoming victims so that they would feel protected and feel like they have got justice for something no matter how long ago it was, that they would believe in themselves. She did what she set out to do, inspiring women from around the world to come forward in the months that followed.

I hope that he is convicted. I feel more comfortable with my friends, my family, my nieces, my daughter, that the perpetrator's off the road and you could now, I feel safe about myself and about them being around. Now, she hopes to make a career of keeping predators off the road. I actually wanted to be a five-star chef when I was in school, but after the whole situation, I decided that,

hey, I want to be a police officer because I want to protect my friends. I want to protect my family. I want to protect kids on the streets who believe, hey, this happened to my aunt, this happened to my mom, and there was no justice served. This could actually happen to me. So I want to be one of the 10 people to be able to protect those kids. When Jane Doe No. 3 spoke to us in the early months of 2020, she was one of only 10 women in a lawsuit against Nygaard accusing him of rape. At the time, he was a

powerful and wealthy businessman at the helm of a company worth hundreds of millions of dollars, with an army of lawyers and executives protecting him. But he'd been locked in a battle with his billionaire neighbor, which led to the fight with a group of environmentalists. And as his grip on Bahamian politics and society loosened, young survivors came forward. And eventually, that spark led to a wildfire. First, the FBI got involved. Then Nygaard lost control of his company, and eventually it went into receivership.

Women in Canada, the U.S., and elsewhere started talking publicly about what Nygaard did to them, while dozens more added their names and stories to the lawsuit. Late in 2020, Nygaard's criminal case against me and the CBC was stayed, and in February, the last of his many civil suits died too. After more than a decade of investigating Peter Nygaard, I've seen him go from one of Canada's richest men to losing virtually everything. His company, his family, his money, his power,

and now his freedom. At 79 years of age, with the prospect of a long and complicated legal process ahead, Nygaard may never be free again. His arrest and incarceration last year was met with a collective sigh of relief by his many survivors, whose numbers continued to grow almost by the day. At last count, more than 115 women from six different countries, with allegations spanning nearly 50 years, have said enough is enough. 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 listed a number of resources for those in need of help and support. We'd like to thank all of the survivors who throughout this series have shared with us incredibly difficult and painful stories. We are grateful for their courage and trust. 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. Thank you. and legal advice from Sean Moorman. Original music by Olivia Pasquarelli. Additional material from City News, CTV News and Global News. Our senior producer is Chris Oak.

Our executive producer is Arif Noorani. And Leslie Merklinger is senior director of CBC Podcasts. For The Fifth Estate, Catherine Clark is our senior producer. The executive producer is Cecil Rosner. And Kathy Perry is the executive director of current affairs and investigative at CBC News. We'd also like to thank Bob McEwen, Caroline Bargut, Jeff Turner, Tina Verma, Cecil Fernandez, Evan Agard, Austin Pomeroy, Gabby Hagariles, and Stefan Oprishko.

Thanks for listening.