WARNING: This story refers to sexual assault allegations and may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it.
An Ontario judge could render her decision today on whether Frank Stronach is guilty of any of the sexual assault charges against him, four months after the Canadian businessman went on trial in a Toronto courtroom.
In April, Ontario Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy said that she would return to court on June 19 with an update on the progress she’s made with her decision, which could include a ruling or a ruling with reasons to follow.
The 93-year-old founder of auto-parts giant Magna International faces five counts related to three female complainants. Those counts include indecent assault for one of the complainants, sexual assault for another complainant, and sexual assault and indecent assault for a third complainant.
Yet when the judge-alone trial began in February, Stronach was facing 12 counts related to seven female complainants, whose allegations included sexual assault and the historical charges of rape and attempted rape.
Throughout the trial, following the testimony and cross-examination of some of the complainants, the Crown withdrew a number of charges, saying there was not sufficient evidence to sustain findings of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt on those particular counts.
Molloy said near the end of the trial that she would be finding Stronach not guilty on two charges related to one of the complainants.
That several of the charges were discarded has raised some questions by legal experts about the initial strength of some of the prosecution’s cases and whether enough was done beforehand to anticipate potential problems.
The allegations against Stronach dated back almost 50 years, spanning the period between 1977 and 1990. Two of the initial 12 counts — rape and attempted rape — were considered historical charges, as they were abolished when the Criminal Code was amended in 1983 to create the offence of sexual assault.
All of the initial seven complainants testified in court, offering an emotional account of the sexual offences they say they experienced at the hands of Stronach.
Stronach didn’t testify in own defence
Many of the women told similar stories — meeting Stronach at Rooney’s, the Toronto restaurant he owned at the time, and then accepting an invitation back to his Harbourfront condo. It’s there that they allege he sexually assaulted them.
Two of the seven complainants alleged they were attacked in other locations — one woman claimed Stronach raped her in a hotel, while another said he attempted to rape her in a midtown Toronto apartment.
Meanwhile, Stronach is set to face another trial in Newmarket, Ont., next year involving six complainants after the case was split into two proceedings.
Stronach, who was in court every day but never took the witness box in his own defence, has denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty to all charges. He spoke rarely to the media outside the courthouse, mostly repeating the same refrain that “justice would prevail.”
Of the three remaining complainants, one alleged that Stronach had groped her in his Toronto Harbourfront condo. The woman said she had gone to meet him for dinner to discuss why she had been fired as a waitress at his restaurant, Rooney’s. She claimed Stronach invited her to his condo, which is where he allegedly attacked her.
Stronach also faces sexual assault charges related to another complainant, the last woman to testify, who alleged that Stronach raped her in his Toronto condo. She told court she had agreed to go back to his condo following dinner with him at a nearby restaurant.
A third complainant told the court that Stronach had invited her to a midtown Toronto apartment, and while there he bent her over the arm of a chair, lifted up her skirt and tried to rape her.
While Stronach still faces an indecent assault charge related to that complainant over the alleged incident, the Crown withdrew the attempted rape charge.
Several charges withdrawn at trial
It was just one of a series of charges that the Crown ultimately decided not to pursue during the course of the trial.
For example, the prosecution decided to withdraw the charges tied to one of the complainants who had also alleged Stronach had raped her in his Toronto condo. Those charges were withdrawn after Molloy and defence lawyer Leora Shemesh had expressed repeated frustration over the complainant’s inability to focus on the questions and her interruptions of Shemesh during cross-examination.
The Crown suffered another blow during prosecutor Jelena Vlacic’s closing submissions, when Molloy told the court she would not be able to convict Stronach on the two charges related to the first woman to testify.
Molloy said the testimony of that complainant, who alleged she had been raped by Stronach in his Toronto condo, was “fatally flawed” and “not even remotely reliable.”
Shemesh, in her closing arguments, echoed that theme in relation to all of the remaining complainants, arguing that the overall sexual assault case against her client had been built on “fabricated, disingenuous and unreliable evidence” and plagued by a “reckless investigation by police.”
She suggested that details the complainants initially relayed about their alleged assaults had either changed once they came to court or new details had emerged.
Shemesh also argued that poor and incomplete note-taking by police from pretrial meetings with complainants and Crown prosecutors was “unacceptably negligent,” and she raised the issue of whether some complainants had been improperly coached.
But Vlacic, in the Crown’s closing submissions, fired back that the women’s allegations were solid and believable.
She went through the testimony of the complainants, arguing that any apparent inconsistencies were not central to the core of the sexual assault allegations.
