Lawyer says Peter Nygard should serve less than 2 more years behind bars for Toronto sex assaults

Peter Nygard’s lawyer wants a Toronto judge to sentence the disgraced fashion mogul to just under two years’ jail time going forward, after he was found guilty last fall of four counts of sexual assault.

“The goal from my perspective is to have Mr. Nygard remain in the provincial system,” Winnipeg-based lawyer Gerri Wiebe told Toronto Superior Court Justice Robert Goldstein Thursday, on the final morning of Nygard’s two-day sentencing hearing.

The recommendation accounts for the 83-year-old’s age, declining health and what the lawyer described as the “harsh conditions” of Nygard’s time in custody so far, which she called mitigating factors.

Court heard Wednesday Nygard is largely confined to his bed and has a long list of health concerns, including glaucoma, Type 2 diabetes, chronic pain and incontinence, and has struggled to get adequate care while in custody.

The defence recommendation is based on a sentence of two years each for three assaults on women in their 20s, and two-and-a-half years for another involving a girl who was 16 at the time. The charges relate to incidents dating from the 1980s until the mid-2000s. 

While those lengths add up to an eight-and-a-half year prison sentence, Wiebe said a term that long would be “crushing” for Nygard, and asked the judge to reduce it to six years under the court’s principle of ensuring sentences aren’t excessive.

The lawyer also asked that Nygard get credit for his time in custody since he was initially arrested in Winnipeg in 2020 under the Extradition Act on sex-trafficking and racketeering charges in New York — not just his time in custody in Toronto since he was arrested on those charges in 2021.

That would lead to Nygard serving less than two more years in jail — and allow him to stay in a provincial jail, rather than going to a federal prison.

Wiebe said that “fairly unusual” request was needed to ensure fairness, since there’s no guarantee time served in Canada would be credited to the U.S. court system once Nygard is extradited there.

She also provided a number of other ways the judge could calculate a similar sentence for Nygard, including by giving him enhanced credit for time served.

Found guilty by a jury on Nov. 12, Nygard’s sentencing was delayed in part because his two previous defence lawyers, Brian Greenspan and Megan Savard, withdrew from the case earlier this year. Last week, Nygard lost a bid to have the hearing pushed back again.

Nygard again appeared in court next to his lawyer during the hearing on Thursday, wearing a black Canada Goose parka with a hood over his head and paper shields largely obscuring his face. Court heard he wears those around his glasses because of an eye condition that makes him sensitive to light.

Prosecutors’ recommendation ‘simply unjust’: defence

Prosecutors asked for a much longer sentence earlier in the sentencing, recommending the judge give Nygard 15 years in prison for a pattern of attacks Crown attorney Neville Golwalla said Wednesday were “predatory.”

Wiebe on Thursday called that proposed sentence “simply unjust.”

“You can, and are able to, give meaningful effect to the principles of sentencing without taking away any hope of emerging from prison from Mr. Nygard,” she told the judge as she finished her submissions.

Nygard, who once led a multimillion-dollar clothing empire, was found guilty on four counts of sexual assault. He was acquitted of a fifth count, as well as a charge of forcible confinement.

Justice Goldstein reserved his decision until next week. Nygard will be sentenced on Friday, Aug. 2.

Crown attorney Golwalla called the defence argument “a difficult proposition to reconcile,” because it suggested Nygard should be given a shorter sentence due to poor conditions at the Toronto South Detention Centre — but also suggested he wanted the shorter sentence so he could stay in the same facility.

Wiebe said that facility is at least “the devil he knows,” where staff are familiar with his needs, while incarceration in a federal prison “would likely be worse” for an elderly prisoner with significant health issues.

She said the court should also consider the content of the 17 character reference letters submitted on Nygard’s behalf, written by people including lawyers, business associates, Nygard’s former girlfriend, a former model who worked with him and his dentist.

The letters described Nygard as a generous, compassionate man who financially supported many charities, sports teams and other causes.

Many who wrote letters asked Justice Goldstein for leniency as he considers how long Nygard’s sentence will be.They spent lots of time with Nygard over the years, they said, and never saw or heard rumours of inappropriate or non-consensual behaviour involving women or underage girls.

Manitoba trial on sexual assault charges delayed

Nygard is also facing charges in Manitoba, Quebec, as well as the charges in the United States that first brought him into custody.

His Manitoba trial on sexual assault-related charges has been delayed in part due to Greenspan’s resignation as his defence lawyer in that case, as well as the Toronto one.

Nygard also faces one count of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement in Quebec.

In May, Manitoba’s highest court dismissed Nygard’s application for a judicial review of his extradition order, finding there was no reason to interfere with the order issued by the federal justice minister.

None of the criminal charges against Nygard in Quebec, Manitoba or the U.S. have been tested in court, and he has denied all allegations against him.