The sex crimes trial of embattled billionaire Frank Stronach will move to Toronto. Legal counsel for Stronach briefly appeared via video link before a Brampton, Ont., courthouse Monday morning for a procedural hearing to update the list of sexual assault charges he faces.
Both Stronach’s counsel and the crown agreed to move the case to Toronto because of a lack of court resources in Peel, and because many of the incidents are alleged to have occured in Toronto.
In June, Stronach, 92, was charged with five sex-related offences involving three complainants. Since then, other alleged victims have been identified. Stronach currently faces 18 criminal charges — including sexual assault, indecent assault, rape and forcible confinement — involving incidents with 13 women allegedly taking place between 1977 and this year.
Stronach insists he is being smeared by individuals seeking financial gain. His lawyer Leora Shemesh has criticized the extensive media coverage being given the allegations before they have been tested in court.
But Stronach has actively fed interest in the story by insisting he can prove his innocence. “We have a lot of data which totally will prove those things are lies,” he said during a Fifth Estate interview, adding he feels sorry for his accusers because they are likely motivated by poverty. In another interview, he suggested the allegations he faces are being used to attack his reputation by opponents of his political ideas, which include a plan to force all Canadian employers to mirror the profit-sharing culture he put in place at Magna.
The allegations threaten his reputation as the ultimate success story. In 1954, the native of Austria emigrated to Canada, where he eventually started a small tool-and-die operation that morphed into Aurora Ont.-based Magna International Inc. Despite critics who considered the billionaire grossly overpaid, Stronach has been widely celebrated as the driving force behind Magna’s growth into a multibillion-dollar global auto parts manufacturer. He is a member of both the Order of Canada and the Canadian Business Hall of Fame.
According to Magna spokesperson Tracy Fuerst, the company has significantly enhanced its governance practices since Stronach stepped down as chair in 2012 and is currently cooperating with the police investigation by conducting a targeted internal review of records to identify harassment allegations aimed at Stronach. To date, the review has found just one settlement related to a harassment allegation against Stronach and a now bankrupt Magna spinoff company.
After giving up control of Magna and a subsidiary in return for a buyout worth over $1 billion in cash and assets, Stronach founded The Stronach Group, a horse racing operator that was the subject of a recently settled dispute between his family members. As part of the feud, which resulted in a split of family assets along with Stronach’s departure from the company with agricultural assets, a niece tried and failed to force The Stronach Group to disclose any documents related to harassment claims that might exist against her grandfather. When asked if the company was cooperating with the police investigation, a spokesperson did not respond by press time.
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