Extradition hearing for Peter Nygrd fashion mogul wanted in the US on sex trafficking charges to open in Canada

TORONTO â€" He cast himself as the “quintessential self-made man,” the son of an immigrant family whose drive and vision had “created a standard of excellence” for women’s fashion while funding a life of fame and luxury.

Now Peter Nygård, the Canadian retail mogul whose multimillion-dollar women’s fashion empire and jet set life imploded last year amid allegations of sex trafficking and other sexual misconduct, faces extradition to the United States to face charges that could land him in prison for the rest of his life.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested Nygård in Manitoba last December at the behest of U.S. officials seeking to try him on racketeering and sex trafficking charges involving dozens of alleged victims in several countries over a quarter century. The extradition hearing is set to begin in Winnipeg on Friday.

The 80-year-old retail mogul, who founded the women’s fashion company Nygård International in 1967, denies the allegations. He was not granted bail and has been jailed since his arrest.

Nygard’s lawyers, asked to comment, responded in an email noting that the hearing Friday would be streamed with a 10-minute delay and that there would be a media availability afterward.

Nygård stepped down as chairman of his company in February 2020 after federal and local law enforcement authorities raided his firm’s corporate headquarters in Manhattan as part of an investigation into the sex trafficking allegations.

Nygård International filed for bankruptcy in Canada and in the United States the following month. At the time, the company operated around 170 stores in North America and 6,000 more shops inside department stores. It employed more than 1,400 people.

Nygård, who was born in Finland but grew up in Manitoba, promoted his penchant for hedonism. He cast himself as a playboy, rubbing elbows with the glitterati, attending Oscar viewing parties at the Beverly Hills Hotel, often showing up with younger women on his arm. He kept a home in the Bahamas, a 22-bedroom, Mayan-inspired playground dubbed Nygård Cay.

He boasted that he had turned back the clock with stem cell injections, and once claimed that he was even drafting laws that would make such procedures legal in the Bahamas. He was photographed with world leaders and celebrities and awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal by Canada’s governor general.

“Most people talk about Peter J. NygÃ¥rd … in terms of the classic rags-to-riches story,” a biography on the NygÃ¥rd International website once said in describing how the son of Finnish immigrants had built a women’s clothing empire from scratch. But that story, it continued, “overlooks another side” of the fashion magnate â€" that of the “hard driven man” who had created one of the most recognizable fashion labels in the Canadian marketplace.

The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York alleges there is still another side to NygÃ¥rd that has been overlooked â€" and covered up.

In a nine-count indictment filed in December, prosecutors accuse him and others of using company “funds, employees, resources and influence” to recruit dozens of victims â€" some of them minors â€" in Canada, the United States and the Bahamas for his sexual gratification, and that of his friends and business associates.

They allege a scheme that began in 1995, under which Nygård targeted women and girls from “disadvantaged economic backgrounds and/or who had a history of abuse” and controlled them through “threats, false promises of modeling opportunities and other career advancement.”

Prosecutors allege that some victims were plied with illegal drugs without their knowledge and sexually assaulted. They claim that Nygård kept them under “constant surveillance” or restricted their movements, obstructed witnesses from reporting his crimes and paid others to provide false statements and affidavits.

Prosecutors also allege that he used company funds to pay for so-called “Pamper Parties” at his properties, where he lured women and girls who he would sometimes call “girlfriends” into his orbit with free food, drinks and spa services. Some, they allege, were paid for sex â€" and their silence â€" with company funds.

Nygård was denied bail in February, after his lawyers argued that keeping him in jail during the coronavirus pandemic constituted a “death sentence.”

Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Shawn Greenberg said in her decision that she was “concerned” he might “tamper with witnesses” if he was released because he had done so before and that she did not believe he would “comply with an order that he contact victims or witnesses.”

Greenberg also found that a NygÃ¥rd company executive who offered to put up what he said was his property as collateral had deleted more than 1,000 documents after a grand jury in Manhattan subpoenaed company files â€" and that the property had been purchased with NygÃ¥rd’s money.

“It was deceptive to mislead the court as to the ownership of the house,” Greenberg said, “and it is a deception that was obviously manipulated by Mr. Nygård.”

She said denying bail was necessary to ensure “public confidence in the administration of justice.” The pandemic, she said, was not “a get out of jail free card.”

An appeals court upheld that decision in March. The Supreme Court of Canada has declined to hear an appeal of those decisions.

Nygård has sued media outlets that investigated allegations of sexual misconduct against him. He was charged with rape in 1980, but the charges were dropped after the complainant declined to testify.

Canada grants the vast majority of extradition requests from the United States. Both sides can appeal a decision, which could draw out the process for years. If Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal decides to commit Nygård for extradition, the ultimate decision on “surrender” falls to Canada’s justice minister.

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