Frank Stronach's lawyer says alleged sex assault victims were tainted by Crown, will seek stay of charges
The Toronto sex assault trial for Canadian business titan Frank Stronach, one of the country’s richest men, was pushed into unsteady territory before it even started by allegations the prosecution improperly coached female witnesses who are set to testify against him.
Witness preparation meetings between prosecutors and the complainants two weeks ago potentially tainted witness testimony to such a degree, Stronach’s lawyer argued in court Thursday, that a motion to stop the trial for an abuse of process will be filed.
Judge Anne Molloy agreed there was enough behind defence concerns to allow his lawyer, Leora Shemesh, to call a police officer to the stand to testify about the meetings with the complainants — while the issue of a possible stay of proceedings will be addressed later, perhaps at the end of the trial.
“I want to emphasize at this stage, I am not making any finding that the Crown attorneys in this case acted improperly in any respect,” Molloy said in making her ruling in the Superior Court of Justice.
“However, there’s enough information from the notes that we have and the fact that so many witnesses added new information or changed their statements from before that I believe an air of reality is established on the basis of the information in the record now.”
The trial, alleging 12 sex attacks against seven women from 1977 to 1990, was originally set to start Tuesday and was then pushed back to Thursday after a delay was announced Tuesday, after Shemesh filed a new defence motion.
Stronach entered a plea of not guilty to all charges in June during pre-trial hearings.
Now 93 years old, Stronach became a household name for Canadians who watched his dazzling rise as the head of an auto parts manufacturing company he built from almost nothing to become a multi-billion-dollar success story.
Stronach wore a dark suit and sat beside his lawyer at the defence table. He arrived at court with a male minder, shuffling slightly, but looking healthy for his age.
This is the first of two trials Stronach is expected to face this year after two sets of headline-grabbing charges against him in 2024.
The indictments were filed separately and will be heard at separate trials, based on where the alleged incidents happened. After the Toronto trial concludes a second trial is expected later in the year in Newmarket, Ont., north of Toronto, where the headquarters of Magna International is located.
Together, Peel Regional Police alleged 18 offences involving 13 female complainants. The court has placed a publication ban on the identities of the women and they are referred to only by initials in the indictments.
Stronach has repeatedly denied all the allegations.
Stronach was writing a weekly column for National Post at the time he was charged. The column has been suspended.
Crown attorney David Tice argued Thursday against Shemesh’s motion to question the police officer who took notes of the preparation meetings with the complainants. He said it was not necessary as prosecutors already provided detailed summaries of the meetings to the defence.
“There’s no basis … to show that there’s any Crown misconduct at all. In fact, the record shows proper witness preparation,” Tice said.
Molloy allowed Shemesh to question Peel Regional Police officer Gabe Di Nardo who worked on the investigation and took notes of some of the Crown’s meetings.
At issue were pretrial preparation meetings in January, over Zoom, with a complainant in the case and Crown prosecutor Jelena Vlacic.
Asking Di Nardo about this meeting, Shemesh focused on differences between the complainant’s 2024 videotaped statement to police and a separate and almost contemporaneous email statement, such as her memory of crying.
According to the officer, the complainant wanted to make sure a detail in her email would be part of her case, and the officer’s notes indicated she was told “YES” in all capital letters.
There was discussion also about the witness’s statement that she had no memory of how she got to a bed, which prompted the following guidance from the Crown, as related in the officer’s notes: “The area they may focus on is anything you may have told (Stronach),” Vlacic said. “They could ask if you kissed him or undressed him or did he think it was okay because he drove you (afterwards).”
Di Nardo said he reassured the witness, who began to cry, and that Vlacic told her, “I know there are things that you don’t remember. I know that could be because of trauma.”
Shemesh also noted the word “omission” in Di Nardo’s notes about what the complainant said, and Di Nardo agreed Vlacic first used that word to describe the memory of crying. The notes say the witness asked, “What other omissions did you register,” which Shemesh suggested meant the witness was looking for clarification from the Crown about what is appropriate or permissible to say.
This claim, that the Crown may have coached or tainted the witness’s testimony, is the crux of the abuse of process motion that is to be argued after the evidence is heard at trial, for which the defence will seek a stay of the charges.
Di Nardo testified for the rest of the day’s hearing, answering questions about the complainants’ statements to police and prosecutors.
The trial will start next Thursday and is expected to last four weeks, with Molloy presiding.
In 2022, Molloy was the judge at the emotional trial of mass murderer Alek Minassian who killed 11 people and injured 15 others in a deadly van rampage attack in Toronto.
• Email: ahumphreys@postmedia.com | Twitter: AD_Humphreys
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