Sex assault case against Nygard either defies 'coincidence' or defies 'common sense,' court hears

The similarities of the independent testimony of five women who all say they were sexually assaulted by Peter Nygard  "defy coincidence," which is why the one-time Canadian fashion mogul must be found guilty, the Crown argued on Tuesday.

The closing submission by Crown attorney Ana Serban after nearly six weeks of testimony came hours after Nygard's lawyer Brian Greenspan had told the jury the opposite — that his client should be acquitted because the prosecution's case was based on evidence that's untrustworthy and defies "common sense."

Nygard has pleaded not guilty in Ontario's Superior Court of Justice to five counts of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement. Justice Robert Goldstein is presiding over the Toronto jury trial, which began in late September.

Court has heard from each of the five complainants that from a period of the late 1980s to around 2005, each woman ended up in Nygard's private bedroom suite in his downtown Toronto building where they say they were attacked and sexually assaulted by him.

'Simply not credible'

Nygard has testified that he doesn't recall four of the five women, nor remember having any interaction with them. But he has also insisted that any of allegations of sexual misconduct and sexual assault attributed to him could not have happened because he would never engage in such activity.

Serban told the jurors that the blanket denials of Nygard, who spent five days in the witness box, do not leave you with reasonable doubt.

"His evidence is simply not credible," she said.

Once Nygard's evidence is rejected, Serban said, the jurors are left with evidence from five women who "independent of each other, describe similar features of how they met Peter Nygard, how they came to be invited to his office building and how he sexually assaulted them in his private bedroom suites."

She said they also provide descriptions of Nygard's office building and his private bedroom suite.

"These similarities defy coincidence," she said. "Peter Nygard is guilty."

Nygard evasive, Crown says

Serban laid out multiple reasons why the jury should reject Nygard's evidence: she said Nygard was evasive; internally inconsistent; that he framed his testimony in absolutes and certainties; and that his memory was unreliable and selective.

She pointed to Nygard evading a question about whether one would provide incentives to a person one was trying to hire, as a complainant had testified that after briefly meeting Nygard on a plane, he had offered to give her a new job and triple her salary.

"I recall this was asked about eight different times in eight different ways and we still don't have a straight answer," Serban said.

One of the women had testified she had gone to a Rolling Stones concert in December 1989 with Nygard the same night she says he sexually assaulted her. But Nygard denied he was at that concert, something Serban suggested was inconsistent with his testimony that he would attend key events. (Nygard told court he wasn't a big Rolling Stones fan and therefore wouldn't have considered their concert a key event). 

"That's ridiculous," Serban said. "Members of the jury, he was at that concert."

She also pointed out how Nygard had said he didn't remember ever having sex in his private bedroom suite yet admitted there were condoms in the room.

Serban went through the testimony of each woman, acknowledging that some did make the odd mistake about facts. But taken overall, each woman, she said, with the many details they provided, made their evidence as a whole "credible and reliable."

Complainants' testimony defies reason, court hears

Greenspan, in his closing submission, told the jury that they need to carefully consider the totality of the evidence presented by the Crown and reflect on the "fatal flaws and lack of testimonial trustworthiness" of the five complainants.

Greenspan said if the jurors consider the many aspects of the evidence "that defy reason and common sense,"  their "duty will be clear."

"You will recognize that Peter Nygard must be acquitted because the prosecution has utterly failed to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."

Greenspan also did a brief overview of the testimony of all five of the women, posing the question to the jury whether the evidence the complainants presented was possible to have occurred.

Greenspan suggested that despite Nygard's inability to recollect the women, some of the details they testified to in court could have happened. For example he said some of their evidence about how they initially met Nygard on flights could be possible.

But other details court heard were either unlikely, impossible, absurd or pure nonsense, Greenspan said.

"What never occurred were the sexual assaults described by each of the complainants," he said.

'Contradictions and innuendo,' defence says of Crown's case

The Crown's case, Greenspan said, was based on "contradictions and innuendo" and that the Crown would often advance a position that "simply makes no common sense."

Revisionist histories of events had been advanced as if they presented a clear picture of events 18 to 35 years ago, Greenspan said.

Greenspan also suggested that some of the women had been motivated to testify against Nygard because they had joined a U.S. class action lawsuit against him.

"Gold digging runs deep," he said about the fourth complainant to testify, who has also joined the class action lawsuit.

Referring to the testimony of another of the women, who said they had been taken on a tour of the building by Nygard, Greenspan said she had described his office building to include "a non-existent grand sweeping staircase leading up several floors."

"A figment of her imagination," he said.

He said she got other details wrong, about hallways and showrooms that "simply don't exist."

"This imagined journey is not merely flawed recollection or result of the passage of time. It's Alice in Wonderland."

On Wednesday the judge will make his charge to the jury after which they will begin their deliberations.