MANDEL: Accused sex abuser Frank Stronach doesn't need to take stand
· Toronto Sun
WARNING: Graphic details
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So it looks like we won’t be hearing directly from auto parts billionaire Frank Stronach on allegations he sexually assaulted numerous women.
There’s no reason to take the risk. Not when it appears you’re so far ahead.
Since his high-profile trial began almost four weeks ago, his lawyer Leora Shemesh has surgically sliced away at the dozen charges faced by the 93-year-old founder of auto parts giant Magna International. By Monday, even before she opened her case for the defence, she’d been so effective that the beleaguered prosecution conceded it didn’t have enough evidence to prove five of the 12 counts against Stronach and would not be proceeding with charges involving three of the seven original complainants. He has pleaded not guilty to them all.
So if there were any inclination to call her famous client, with all its inherent dangers — who can forget the disaster of narcissist Peter Nygard on the stand? — there’s no longer any need. The Crown’s case appears to be in free fall.
‘One mystery witness’
Asked how many witnesses remained for the defence, Shemesh told Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy on Tuesday that she had two officers lined up and “there is one mystery witness … hopefully, if she shows.”
“She” is clearly not the man on trial.
This week, Stronach’s lawyer has been calling employees from his past to further pull apart the already tattered stories told by the four remaining women who have testified Stronach sexually assaulted them decades ago.
The first complainant told the court she was in her early 20s at the time and working for a short time as a groom at Stronach’s Beechwood Farms in Aurora. In July 1981, she’d gone out with two co-workers to celebrate her birthday at Rooney’s, Stronach’s club, when her boss bought them champagne. Later on the dance floor, she alleged he forced his fingers into her vagina while she tried to push him away.
The next thing she remembered, she testified, was looking up at a mirrored ceiling and “being raped” by Stronach.
But during a gruelling cross-examination, Shemesh accused her of being a “storyteller” whose account has evolved over the years as she’s related it to the media, police and the court. She originally told police the attack happened in 1980 — but later learned Stronach was out of the country — but now is almost positive it was 1981 because she recalled her fiance sent her flowers.
Conflicting details
To bolster her evisceration of the witness, the defence lawyer called that man who denied ever being engaged to her, said he wasn’t in Toronto in July 1981 and didn’t think he’d ever sent her flowers.
Shemesh called loyal former staff from Stronach’s equestrian barn who insisted the woman had never worked there.
Jennifer Jackson, his former personal assistant who has been in court to support him, maintained that she helped decorate his Harbour Castle condo where the assault allegedly happened and there was never a mirrored ceiling in the bedroom.
Shemesh then called Matthew Proulx, the novice Halton Regional Police constable who took the woman’s sexual assault report when she first came forward in 2015 spurred by the Bill Cosby charges and #MeToo movement.
According to Proulx’s testimony, the complainant told him it had happened in July 1980 — not 1981.
“The complainant could not recall if consent was given,” the officer wrote in the occurrence report. “However, advised police that if she was of sound mind at the time, she would not have consented to having sexual intercourse with Stronach and at the time, Stronach was her employer and in a position of authority.”
There are only a few witnesses left but the Crown’s troubles continue.
Shemesh will then argue for a stay of proceedings that would throw out whatever remains of this battered case, with allegations that some of her client’s accusers may have been coached by the prosecutors.
And through it all, the accused can afford to maintain his silence.