Uncover - S9 "Evil By Design" E9: Nothing Sticks

Episode Date: March 10, 2022

New criminal charges have been laid against Peter Nygard. New survivors have come forward. And much older allegations have surfaced. But for accusers in Nygard’s hometown — some who were among the most vulnerable in society — justice seems as far away as ever.

Say I love... This video is a message from a little boy named Salman. He disappeared five years ago in Syria during the war to defeat ISIS. He still hasn't been found. My name is Poonam Taneja. I'm travelling to Syria to find out what happened to Salman and the thousands of children like him, lost in one of the most dangerous places on earth.

From BBC Sounds and CBC Podcasts, Bloodlines. Listen 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. OK, bye-bye. Please take care. It's a warm evening in October 2021, and I'm at an airport in Toronto following a tip. Two men in dark suits emerge from the terminal doors with a frail-looking man in a wheelchair. He's wearing a black hoodie pulled up over his head, baggy black pants, and a surgical mask covering most of his face.

His escorts steady him as he struggles to stand. Walking with a hunch, he shuffles towards the open doors of a waiting black van. As the man climbs in, the sleeves of his hoodie pull back just enough to reveal a pair of silver handcuffs. This is Peter Nygaard in his first public sighting since his fall in 2020. We have some breaking news for you. Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygaard has been arrested. Reports say the Canadian businessman is facing sex trafficking and racketeering charges in the United States. American authorities want him extradited. The case involves dozens of women,

some of them girls. It's more than a year since Nygaard lost it all. His international clothing empire, family, and his freedom. Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygaard has agreed to fast-track the process of extradition to the U.S., where he's facing charges including human trafficking.

In late 2021, Nygaard's case was in court in Winnipeg, where he agreed to head to New York to face charges of sex trafficking. Mr. Nygaard, just to acknowledge the consent to committal, and I understand that you voluntarily executed it in his presence. Is that correct, Mr. Nygaard? That's correct, yes. Afterwards, his lawyers spoke to media outside the courtroom.

All that was conceded today was, because of this low standard, there is sufficient evidence to warrant a consent to committal on the one charge. In other words, just because Nygaard has agreed to go to New York to face charges there, doesn't mean he's admitting to anything. More than 100 women have come forward. Is Mr. Nygaard saying they're all lying? You know something I'm not going to get into? You know something I'm not going to get into? As in the past, Mr. Nygaard denies any allegations of criminal conduct. That same morning, there was breaking news out of Toronto. The Fifth Estate has learned, I'm just going to read from our CBC wires,

that Toronto police have charged Peter Nygaard with multiple counts of sexual assault. According to sources, Nygaard faces nine counts in total, six women, one of whom was a minor at the time of the alleged assault. The charges were laid on Wednesday, including six of sexual assault and three of forcible confinement. This is significant, major, breaking news. and three a forcible confinement. This is significant major breaking news. Charges against Peter Nygaard, Toronto police coming forward,

the nine counts in total. Nygaard was facing his first criminal charges in Canada in more than four decades. So now the Minister of Justice not only has to determine whether Nygaard should be extradited to the U.S., the minister will also have to decide if he should stand trial in Canada first. In the last three years, Nygaard has been charged with contempt of court in the Bahamas,

sex trafficking in New York, and now multiple counts of sexual assault and forcible confinement in Toronto. He is literally, in my mind, a one-man wrecking ball of all that society holds dear. But what about his hometown, where he lived and worked for decades while he grew his sprawling

multinational business? What bothers me the most right now is that society thinks, oh, Peter Nygaard perfected everything in the Bahamas. No. He perfected how to get away with all of this in Winnipeg. I'm Timothy Sawa, and this is Evil by Design. A lot's happened since we ended the series, so we're going to give you an update

and a deeper look at new allegations against Peter Nygaard at home in this bonus episode, Nothing Sticks. You know, as an Indigenous woman, well, Indigenous girl, I think it would be impossible to say that any of us were not born into trauma in the 70s. But I took life as it came. People always describe me as the human version of Tigger. I just bounced through life, and I've always got this silly little grin and a joke ready. That's just who I am.

Serena Hicks may be known as Tigger, but when I met her recently in Winnipeg, she wasn't joking or grinning. She wasn't happy with me, and she let me know it. She felt our coverage so far had focused too much on Nygaard's behavior around the world, and not enough on where he got his start in Winnipeg. She had a point. It's one of the reasons we kept investigating his time there. Having to know that there's these faceless people out there that contributed to him getting away with all this in Winnipeg, yeah, it pisses me off. Him getting away with all this in Winnipeg?

Yeah, it pisses me off. Serena started working in one of Nygaard's stores as a young woman in Winnipeg in the early 90s. At the time, she had a month's old baby. Right from the start, she says the store's manager was full of compliments about how good she looked in Nygaard clothes. At 20, to feel professional. It was so amazing. After a few months, Serena says the manager told her

Peter Nygaard wanted to meet her personally. And one day, he turned up on site. And she said, hey, you know, can you just go clean out the change rooms? And I did. I saw that, you know, I opened each change room and was like, oh, gosh, you know, can't people just put things on the hangers?

And then I was in there and then Peter Nygaard was behind me. And. Nygaard forced Serena into one of the change rooms. While he raped her, she says the manager was just meters away. There's no way that she wouldn't have heard how violent it was. And you could hear change being counted. And her hand off the counter. And all this violent stuff is happening to me

and there's no way you couldn't hear it and you know I thought about this little baby who I was providing and I thought God mom's not coming home.

And I thought, I can't believe I am alive. How am I alive? And then when I got out, I realized that I was full of bruises and marks. And marks where I fed my baby. Never breastfed him again. And I just, I couldn't. Because not only was it so violent, but I had these marks of the violence. And I had the memory of those coins being counted. The sound of her closing the till. Based on experience, Serena believed reporting the rape to the Winnipeg police would get her nowhere.

I was Indigenous already, so I knew as a young woman going to the police wasn't safe. We were never believed. We were always tossed aside. Did he know that Indigenous girls were vulnerable? Hell yeah, he did. You're in Winnipeg. Winnipeg's history will speak of that. There's no way he didn't know that. In 1980, Peter Nygaard made news for something other than a celebration of his growing business. He had been arrested and charged with rape. The charges were stayed, though, when the woman decided not to testify in court. For the next 40 years, this would be known as the first time the Winnipeg

police had Nygaard in their sights. Until now. I joined the force in 1955, and this is the graduation class. What was that day like for you? Well, it was a great day. I was finally on the force. This is Des DePork. He retired as the superintendent of the Winnipeg Police Service Crime Division in 1986. He's 89 years old now. We're sitting together in his living room on the outskirts of Winnipeg. And he's telling me a story that before today, he's never made public. This was an incident in the late 60s. I received a report from a young lady of a sexual nature.

My recollection is she was a young lady, I'm guessing around 18, maybe a little older. And I believe she worked for Mr. Nygaard in his factory. In 1968, Peter Nygaard was a new face on Winnipeg's bustling garment-making scene. At that point, I knew very little about him. I only knew what I'd read in the papers, and he was getting a lot of publicity about his rise to fame. But other than that, that was my first contact with him.

His company, Nygaard International, had only been incorporated in Winnipeg the previous year. As a result of the investigation, Mr. Nygaard was charged with a sexual offense. The matter was proceeding through the court process, and at that time, I believe Mr. Nygaard had yet to enter a plea. But in the interim, the young lady, the complainant, she approached the Crown Prosecutor and withdrew her complaint. As a result of that, our investigation was finished. There was no more to go. And Mr. Nygaard was deemed to be innocent. To this day, DePork doesn't know why the young woman withdrew her complaint.

Well, it's not usual, but it does happen. You know, people say, why? Well, I can think of a number of reasons. First of all, the complainant has been through a very stressful situation. She's now called upon to appear in open court and retell the whole story, which is another layer of stress. The other thing is sometimes they get peer pressure from their family, they get peer pressure from their friends, and in some cases, it's out and out threats. And of course, there's also the other thing is sometimes there is financial compensation.

I never interviewed the complainant after, so it's a big question mark. Because of Des Deporque, we now know that police in Winnipeg were aware of Nygaard more than a decade earlier than that 1980 rape charge. In both cases, the young women accusing him of rape decided not to pursue the charges in court. Why? Nygaard built this power. He was like a king. He had the money. He had the buddies that could support him.

And this girl that I worked with and their family, they feared Peter Nygaard. Joy Smith is a former Winnipeg member of Parliament. She spent much of her life helping local women and girls who were being trafficked. In 2000, she was approached for help. Well, I had a particular incident where one of the staff members who worked for Nygaard at the time

told me about a young girl who had been raped. And so I met with the girl and the family. The family was furious and eventually confronted him themselves. And as it turned out, Peter Nygaard persuaded them not to go to the police and not to report, and he gave them $250,000 to keep quiet.

And, you know, I could never understand initially why they would agree to that. But as they explained to me, Peter Nygaard made them feel that they couldn't win anything anyway. He had the money and he'd fight them and their lives would be ruined. He was in full power mode. He was the king. He could do anything he wanted. So the family, sadly and reluctantly, did accept the money and kept quiet. To this day, the girl in this story, who is now a woman, is keeping quiet.

She won't speak to me or the police. But would it have made a difference if she had? to me or the police. But would it have made a difference if she had? After listening to Evil by Design last year, another woman came forward. How you doing? Here we are. This woman has kept her story a secret for nearly 40 years.

She's still afraid. So we've agreed not to identify her. What you're hearing are her words, voiced by an actor. When I first came to work for him, I knew nothing about his reputation or anything. It was a shock because all of these executives that walk proudly with authority that commanded respect, all of a sudden, Nygard is coming. Nygard is coming. The entire building goes into a state of absolute panic. Adult men are running around like frightened ladies and waiting. They're panicking. Everything needs to be perfect. And when that individual arrived, it was as though, you know, he made his entrance up the spiral staircase with his lifts on and his chest puffed out. The spectacle was truly the people surrounding him. In 1983, she was 18 years old and working her first professional job at Nygaard's Winnipeg office.

My desk was visible. And, you know, he would just travel past my desk constantly, constantly throughout the day. And one day, finally, he just came and sat on my desk and I was having a cigarette. And he leaned over and he said, you know, I really want you to be my girlfriend so badly, but you can't be my girlfriend if you smoke. And I recall just taking a long haul off that cigarette and just right in his general direction, and I thought that would get rid of him.

But it was like something in his eye went, ha, she's a fiery one. And so I inadvertently drew attention to myself. Over the months, I was constantly expected to stay over time for no reason at all. So I was kept working very, very late. And I was very well aware of the fact that there were no more buses and that an employer had a duty to pay for your cab fare home. And time came, you know, okay, I need approval for my cab. No, I'm going to drive you home. And that's when it started. And I was still living with my parents. That's how young I was.

And it was, you know, quit smoking. You can be my girlfriend. You're sexy. And I just got the heck out of that car really quickly and ran into the house. But then he knew where I lived, you know? And so things just started getting weird. And then all of a sudden your parents are saying, you know, there's some guy with a Finnish accent trying to disguise his voice. And he's calling here asking for you. And it was a few times, actually, before I realized that's who it was.

It's just unsettling. The harassment and stalking had been going on for months, when she finally decided she needed to go to the police, before it became more serious. Stanley decided she needed to go to the police before it became more serious. And it was a very uncomfortable conversation for both the detective and myself because he was bewildered. He informed me that he had a look into Peter Nygaard's file and he said his file is ten and a half inches high. Nothing sticks to this man. I don't know what's happening.

You have to get out of there. But he was afraid for me. Like he said, you need to quit. I don't know what's happening. I can't explain this. I can't protect you. Please, quit. I wish I had, but I thought I could handle it. She was a single mother, relying on her salary alone. So she tried to tough it out. But Nygaard's behavior was relentless. I was so stressed that what had previously been thought of as chronic bronchitis that was being treated, my doctor sat me down and he said, what's happening? And he brought up an x-ray and he said,

my dear, you have been hyperventilating so much you have distended your diaphragm. And that's what I knew. Nothing was going to get better. Shortly after she gave her resignation, Nygaard raped her. The woman decided that reporting the rape would be pointless. She'd already learned the police couldn't help her when she'd been stalked and harassed.

There would be no consequences for Peter Nygaard in his hometown. That was 1984. But for many of the survivors assaulted in Winnipeg, like April Tleck, it doesn't feel like anything has changed since. The Winnipeg justice system, they don't look good.

I don't know how they can sleep with themselves with the number of people who have come forward and the history that this man had. How is this still happening? I mean, back then it was a different time, it was a different era, and it's disgusting that it was able to go on the way it did for so long. But how can it keep going on now?

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. This is CP Railroad. We're on Sutherland and Schultz in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Nadine Moustous and I are walking down a bleak Winnipeg street. There are potholes, a turned over shopping cart, abandoned looking buildings on one side and a rail yard on the other. It's the afternoon and it's quiet right now. But Nadine tells me that after the sun sets,

this street could become busy and dangerous. A lot of girls that were in care, a lot of us were out here. A lot of them are not here. A lot of girls that were in care, a lot of us were out here. A lot of them are not here. A lot of them got murdered. So I'm one of the fortunate ones. In the 1990s, this was a place where men could buy and abuse children. This was a kiddie track. This is where I would come a lot of times when I was on the run for survival, prostitution. They should actually call it pedophile track because that's what it was. Nadine came here as a way to survive.

From 18 months I was put in a foster home. I don't know why, I don't know how. I'm still looking into that because it was part of the 60s scoop. She had been in and out of foster homes and institutions filled with abuse for most of her life. Because back then when you ran away, you had 30 days to stay AWOL before they would release you from that institution. So I forcibly got myself released from that institution, and I was running away, and then my social worker put me in another institution, and I stayed there for about a year, and I did the same thing.

Winnipeg has a long and broken history with Indigenous people. There are countless examples where the institutions and authorities that many take for granted for protection and care have failed them. This is something Nadine experienced firsthand on the streets as a child. When I first started out there, I was 11. And the younger I was, the more richer the men were. There was a lot of seats. Now I can identify a couple of those guys.

Politicians or cops. A lot of rich businessmen. There were also men from the provincial legislature. And one of the times, one of the suits took me into the ledge in the basement and gave somebody a fucking blowjob in the basement of the ledge, and I remember that. And I blocked it out. On multiple occasions, Nadine says it was members of the Winnipeg police

who were abusing her. There was one time I got pulled over with a trick, and because his brother was a cop, There was one time I got pulled over with a trick. And because his brother was a cop, they let him take me. They didn't arrest him. They didn't take me out of that situation. And they let him have his way with me. And I was a child out there.

I got charged numerous times for prostitution as a child. Arrested, brought before the courts. And it was on my record. One day, a wealthy-looking man in flashy clothes found her on the street. He pulled up in a black jay war with his leather jacket, blue jeans, cowboy boots, and a white button-up. And I didn't know who he was because I was a child. Like, all I knew at the time was the street. And so he picked me up, we negotiated, we went around the block,

and then he drove me to the compound. The man assaulted her. Months later, he came by a second time. I think it was in the same summer. He drove me to his compound. We went inside the warehouse part, and he locked the door behind us. And I was thinking, oh my God, he's going to do something to me. Like, my instincts just, like, heightened.

And then he took me into his bedroom, and he locked the door. And then I started panicking because I knew like something was up. And I'm a little girl, like I don't know what the hell this guy's gonna do. And so he told me to take off my top. He had his pants unzipped and then he pulled something out of his pocket and he put it on his

hand. I didn't know what it was and he made me, he forced me to fucking take coke. I just remember feeling scared after, like I don't feel right, what the fuck is this? And yeah that was my first introduction to that drug. And I was 13. As a trafficked child living on the streets of Winnipeg, Nadine had no idea who that man was when he assaulted her. But decades later, when Nygaard became international news... Reports say Nygaard was arrested last night and is now in custody in Winnipeg. He has been under... More than 50 women have accused Nygard of sexual assault,

claims that date all the way back to the 1970s. Nadine made the connection. When this Nygard hit the media, I was just like all nonchalant. I'm like, oh yeah, he's a fucking pervert. He used to pick me up on kiddie track. And then it dawned on me like, oh my God, this guy is a fucking, he's a predator, he's a pervert. Nadine met with authorities in 2020. It took a lot for me to go to the police because they were the ones that were criminalizing me for it for years. She was one of at least eight women to report Nygaard to the police in Winnipeg.

We interviewed four of them for this podcast, including April Tleck. You first heard from her in episode four. I reached out to the Winnipeg police and had, I think, two, maybe three lengthy discussions on the phone. And then the detectives flew out to Vancouver to interview me and my mother on camera. And I thought, oh my goodness, stuff is going to happen. Finally, it's going to happen. Casey Allen is another of those women. I phoned the Winnipeg cop shop and said, I'm coming in and I'm pressing charges.

And they seem surprised and ill-equipped, as they have been all along. You go in and one of them goes into the next room to tape and record it. You don't see the cameras or the mic. And then they review. The only follow-up question they had was how much had I been drinking. That's it. That was the only clarification they wanted. The biggest lack of respect I have been shown throughout this process by the justice system in Manitoba is a lack of communication.

I certainly didn't get the sense I was supported. Victim services, you get voice messages. So you flay your soul in front of strangers and they hold that in their hands and you put it out there, and nothing comes back. Several months passed before the women heard about the results of their complaints to police. Then, one by one, they received phone calls from prosecutors in Winnipeg. He will not be charged here.

I know this isn't the answer you were looking for, but we only pursue cases we think we can win. And that just broke my heart, man. It gave me no faith in the justice system. We asked the Crown Prosecutor's Office in Winnipeg why nothing was happening. They declined to talk to us. We asked the police chief for an interview.

Also, a no-go. But he did provide a statement. Finally, official confirmation. After a 10-month investigation that involved reviewing 15 files, eight cases were referred by police for potential prosecution. In the end, no charges were laid.

Makes me want to shut down. And I did shut down. And I was like, I gave you guys everything I told you. How it looked inside, the car that he drove, what he was wearing, what happened i said that should be clarification enough they said we need concrete evidence we can't go by historical because it's historical and then they said one significant point is because I didn't know who he was at the time. But now I know who he is and now I'm saying something.

So they have a contradiction right there. How was I supposed to know who he was? I didn't know until after, until my flashbacks and stuff were coming back to me. or coming back to me. I knew the second I gave my statement, nothing was going to happen. I knew I was going there to hear, no, we're not taking this case any further.

Who the heck wants to have him charged here? And it traced back that he had all these people in his pocket, all these people covering up for him. There were pictures of him in the papers all the time with politicians. There were so many powerful people that he was photographed with. It feels to me like Winnipeg is rewarding Nygaard in a way for keeping us quiet for so long

with the intimidation tactics that he used. What message does that send to other victims of sex assault and to other predators? Oh, guess what? Keep them quiet long enough, it'll go away. In an earlier episode, we told you about the milestone Peter Nygaard's company celebrated in 2018. It was its 50th anniversary in Winnipeg. We now know this was also the 50th anniversary of his very first rape charge in the city.

And eight years earlier, the CBC had broadcast its first documentary about Nygaard, revealing widespread workplace abuse and reports of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct. Still, Winnipeg embraced their hometown hero.

My guest on the runway today really needs no introduction. Internationally acclaimed fashion mogul Peter Nygaard joins us today. Welcome back to Winnipeg. It's so nice to be home.

Well, we're so happy to have you here, and you're celebrating a big year because this is 50 years for your success now, I guess. I can't believe it. It's been 50 years. It just went by like that. The women he'd attacked in the city watched on as 1,800 people attended a gala in his honor. The Winnipeg Free Press called it a party that would rival any Hollywood bash. Among the celebrities and dignitaries, country star Tanya Tucker, Winnipeg's mayor, and the current premier of Manitoba, Finnish hockey star Timo Solani sent his regards by video.

Now the man of the hour, please, ladies and gentlemen, welcome Peter J. Nygaard. Mussolini sent his regards by video. Living in Winnipeg, it's impossible to miss that Nygaard had friends in high places. That wasn't lost on the women he raped either. It helps explain why so many women didn't feel safe reporting him there. Perhaps they feared what's now happening to the other survivors attacked in Winnipeg

who decided to tell their stories to authorities. Survivors like April Tleck. When you tell your truth, which is the truth, there's no reason for us to lie about this. When you tell it, and someone listens and hears you and believes you, and the justice system going to bat for you and doing the right thing, finally making this man be held accountable for what he did, it is huge.

Which is exactly how it's playing out in Toronto right now, where Nygaard is currently in custody, charged with raping six women there. So bravo to those Toronto peeps who got this going and my survivor sisters out there. It's a big, big win for them. It's a big win for all of us, really. It's a big win, the acknowledgement of what he's done to so many. And on the other side of that coin, when you tell your truth, which is the truth, and you have a massive body of evidence

and corroborators, and you're not supported, it's like getting gutted all over again. It's really horrible. Serena Hicks is now looking towards the courts in New York for healing. That's where a civil class action lawsuit has been launched on behalf of survivors everywhere. I'm hoping that when it happens down in the States

that I can stand outside that courthouse. I don't need to hear guilty, because I know he's guilty, but I just need a place to stand and... and say I'm a survivor at that point. and say I'm a survivor at that point. Because so far I've not been fully surviving this. Give me that opportunity to stand inside a courthouse and say I'm a survivor now. I'm a survivor now.

For Nadine Moustous, nothing will take the sting out of how let down she feels by her city and the authorities she hoped would help her find justice. Self-care is essential right now. But so is getting all these memories, all these flashbacks, all these predators that did that to me as a child. A lot of the predators I can't remember, but the ones I can. After night guard makes me want to shut down because those charges didn't go through. What makes me think the other ones are going to go through?

Like this city holds a lot of fucking secrets and a lot of men in this city have done it to women for years. Indigenous girls, Indigenous women. And they've gotten away, and this is another way that the justice system is just letting it fucking get away with it. The survivor who was raped by Peter Nygaard in 1984 after trying to get help from the Winnipeg police hopes to find meaning from the Winnipeg police, hopes to find meaning in the failures.

I don't want this to bring my city to its knees. I don't want the shame of that man, the stain of that man to be what defines this city. I want how we overcame this to be our legacy, not what he left behind for us to clean up. I want this city to be able to forgive itself and to recognize that what happened, not in a punitive fashion, not in a vengeful way, look back and dissect how this Frankenstein was stitched together so that we never recreate another one.

Today, Nygaard has been sitting in a jail cell, first in Winnipeg, and now in Toronto for more than a year. He applied for bail again in Toronto, and again, it was denied. He's also waiting for Canada's Justice Minister to decide, will he face the Canadian

charges first, or be sent to New York, where he's accused of sex trafficking? Nygaard continues to deny all of the allegations against him, saying they are all lies and part of a conspiracy to destroy him and his reputation. I recently spoke to one of the women in Toronto whose case has resulted in charges. On the very day she got that news, it was an emotional conversation. She told me for decades it's felt like she's had an internal wound that just wouldn't heal.

Until now. Hope for that same kind of justice in Winnipeg has evaporated. The survivors there may never get to know how that feels. 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. There's a new three-part premium documentary TV series based on this podcast. Evil by Design, Surviving Nygaard, tells the stories of those who survived Peter Nygaard. There's a new three-part premium documentary TV series based on this podcast.

Evil by Design, Surviving Nygaard, tells the stories of those who survived Peter Nygaard. Uncovering decades of sexual assault, the series investigates the culture that kept it hidden and explores how whistleblowers finally helped bring him down. Watch Evil by Design, Surviving Nygaard, streaming now on CBC Gem. This episode was written and produced by Ashley Mack and me, Timothy Sawa. Our associate producers were Sarah Melton and Eunice Kim. With assistance from Scott Anderson, Lynette Fortune and Rachel Ward at The Fifth Estate. Mixing and sound design by Evan Kelly and Graham MacDonald. Thank you. Additional material from CTV News and Global News. Araf Noorani.