Peter Nygard is under arrest.
The 79-year-old Finnish-Canadian former fashion executive was taken into custody on Monday (December 14) and arrested in Canada after being indicted in the United States on nine federal counts, including counts related to racketeering and sex trafficking, People reported Wednesday (December 16).
He was taken into custody amid allegations that he had engaged in inappropriate, illegal conduct with both “adult and minor-aged female victims” within a 25-year span from 1995 to 2020, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
The indictment alleges he and others who worked with him drugged and sexually assaulted some victims for the “sexual gratification” of himself and “his friends and business associates.” These actions happened in the United States, Canada and the Bahamas, according to the allegations.
He’s also accused of targeting minors and women from “disadvantaged economic backgrounds” who had suffered abuse in the past.
The indictment claims he forcibly sexually assaulted, drugged, and coerced victims “into sexual contact,” often leveraging the inticement of jobs in the modeling and fashion industry to “lure victims into Nygard‘s orbit and keep them there.”
He’s being held in a jail in the Canadian province of Manitoba, and plans to seek a bail hearing as soon as next week, according to the New York Times.
The arrest comes nearly a year after his office in New York was raided amid sex-trafficking allegations. He stepped down as chairman of Nygard International back in February.
“Mr. Nygard vehemently denies all the allegations and expects to be vindicated in court,” his Winnipeg-based lawyer told Reuters.
