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EVIL BY DESIGN

Episode 4: “A Thursday Night in November”

Timothy Sawa: The following episode contains difficult subject matter and graphic accounts of sexual assault. Please take care.

Sound Clip: [Sounds of traffic]

Timothy Sawa: I’ve driven by this factory, on Notre Dame avenue in Winnipeg, probably hundreds of times. Nothing special, just a cluster of buildings, including a warehouse, and a showroom. It's looking pretty tired these days. This former Nygard factory has now shut down, after the business’s recent financial decline. The Nygard companies were nearly 50-million dollars in debt, to as many as 350 creditors around the world. In March 2020, a judge ordered that the companies be taken out of Nygard’s hands and his properties be put up for sale, including these on Notre Dame Avenue. The real estate photos provide a rare peek inside: Most show a typical industrial space; garages with one of Nygard’s signature Excalibur cars, meeting rooms and workshops. As I’m scrolling through the photos I suddenly stop. There are three showing Peter Nygard’s so-called executive suite. A floor of shiny black tiles, a modern kitchen and a giant bed covered with white sheets. Though I’ve never been inside, I know this room. It’s been written about since the 70s as the Winnipeg home of this playboy businessman. Remember that office bedroom housing a sectional sofa that transformed into a bed and a panel of switches that “locked doors, dimmed lights and cued romantic music all under a mirrored ceiling”? It’s this room. And for April Telek, it’s one she’ll never forget.

Sound Clip: [ominous music]

Sound Clip: [April Telek] [sighs] That invitation to Winnipeg, was a huge turning point in my life. It impacted me in more ways than I thought it could or would. Yeah, it changed my life…forever.

Timothy Sawa: In 1993, April was a 20-year-old aspiring actress and model, who was representing Canada at the beauty pageant, Miss Asia- Pacific Quest. But there was the question as to whose clothes she would wear? Who would be her sponsor? As it happened, April had a connection to one of Canada’s biggest clothing labels, a friend, who was related to Peter Nygard.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] I was about to travel to the Philippines for the first international competition, they felt like it would be a wonderful idea for a Canadian girl to be representing Canada in every way. And I thought that was a fabulous idea. In November,1993 I got a call from Peter himself and he said he thought that I would be great as the model for his signature line and that I should come to Winnipeg.

Timothy Sawa: April had actually met Peter Nygard before this phone call while visiting her friend and Nygard relative, in California. During that trip, April stayed at Nygard’s Marina Del Rey estate, in a self-contained apartment, or what they called then, an ‘Executive Suite.’ But back then, nothing bad happened.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] So, I arrived in Winnipeg, it was a Thursday night in November.

Timothy Sawa: When she arrived for the modelling job, April says she was met at the airport by the friend who’d introduced her to Nygard.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] We went to one of the factories in Winnipeg where she did some work and I walked around the factory and I was in awe of the space, it was an incredible place, huge. She finished her work and we went to dinner-- I was told that I'd be staying in the executive suites in Winnipeg, and to me, that was the same as what is considered the executive suites in Marina Del Rey and in Marina Del Rey it's a self-contained apartment. After dinner we arrived at the Notre Dame warehouse and it became clear quickly that it was different than what I had anticipated. Peter arrived with his chauffeur and the first thing he said to me was, ‘wow you're better than I remember’. And initially I just thought ‘oh good, yay. He's very pleased that I'm going to be doing this modelling for his signature line’. I honestly didn't-- I honestly didn't think anything more than that because up to that point in my life, I had never had a professional experience where I felt compromised or taken advantage of, so I was still excited.

Timothy Sawa: But April says her friend, Nygard’s relative, soon left and she was alone with Nygard.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] And Peter shows me around a little bit throughout this suite and very kind, small talk, and I said, ‘okay so where will I be sleeping, where is my suite?’ and he said, ‘oh here’. And I-- ‘no-- with you? No.’ And he said, ‘well what did you think was going to happen?’ And I said, ‘I thought I was coming for work’… and it was pretty obvious to me at that point that he was expecting more, and I said, ‘I am not going to sleep with you tonight, I will not sleep with you tomorrow, I will-- that is never going to happen.’

Timothy Sawa: When April contacted me with her story, it was a turning point. In the long time I’d been investigating Peter Nygard, we’d heard rumours there were Canadian victims, who were attacked long before he settled in the Bahamas. But April was the first Canadian woman who was willing to put her name out there and say, ‘I believe these women and girls from the Bahamas. Because Nygard did it to me too.’ I’m Timothy Sawa. And this is 'Evil by Design', Episode Four: 'A Thursday night in November'.

Timothy Sawa: April Telek is in her forties now, with long, reddish brown hair. She’s sitting in her lush backyard in North Vancouver, which is alive with flowers. She grew up just blocks from here, in a neighbourhood she likes to call ‘Pleasantville.’ April’s been an actress for more than twenty years, working in Hollywood and Vancouver. Maybe you’ve spotted her in the TV shows ‘Hell on Wheels’ or ‘Supernatural’.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] You know, when you have kids you write-- kindergarten, what are your wishes, what are your dreams? To your child, you know, and all the way from, from kindergarten I think or maybe even grade one, it was always actress and model.

Timothy Sawa: She says it feels a little crazy now, but when she was thirteen years old, her parents allowed her to travel to Tokyo to live and work as a model.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] It was a different time, it was extremely safe, there was like a 1% crime rate in Tokyo at the time and I learnt the whole subway system before I even got on the plane, like through the books. I felt fairly confident.

Timothy Sawa: After a while abroad, April’s career would take her back home and into beauty pageants, which is how she found herself back in Nygard’s orbit and alone with him in that Winnipeg suite...

Sound Clip: [April Telek] He was very nice to begin with, he was just chatty and kind and flattering, and then once I said, ’I'm not staying here with you, that's not going to happen’. I had never compromised myself, I was not going to compromise myself. So, I made it very clear I was not going to stay there with him, and he said, ‘well what did you think was going to happen? Look, I'll take care of you, and you take care of me, we take care of each other.’ And I said, ‘No, no, no that's not the way it works’ and it became the cat chasing the mouse really very, very quickly. I went to the bathroom and there was a phone in the bathroom and I phoned the airline to ask about getting a flight out that night and there was no flight from Winnipeg to Vancouver until the Tuesday, the following Tuesday. So, I-- I didn't quite know what to do. But I went back out into the living room which-- there was this bed that comes out, it’s this sort of, this half circle. I'm just sitting there and he-- he starts like, actively pursuing me physically and I-- no, no, you know and I..[sighs] I didn't go hardcore with defence right away because I thought I'd just talk my way out of this. You know, I'm a smart girl, I've been in this business my whole life, I can figure out a way to handle this and I tried with talk and everything and then he pulled his-- he exposed himself, and he wanted me to give him oral sex. And, [crying] I fought with him for a bit, and I said, ‘just let me go, just please, I'm just going to leave, I don't need to stay here, I don't want to stay here—I’-- and he said, ‘I can't let you go’, and I said, ‘what do you mean?’ and he said, ‘I can't risk you telling somebody’. And I said, ‘I'm not going to tell anybody’. That to me, that line—‘I can't risk you telling anybody’-- made me so scared that I wasn't going to make it out of there, unless maybe I comply… [sighs] ..I was terrified of him.

So I-- I gave in to-- [crying] I was pushing him away and stuff but it didn't end. But I-- turned away and tried to crawl over the couch away from him and grabbed me by my hips and pulled me… I kicked him but I didn't-- [sighs] and then he flipped me around and obviously wanted to have sex with me, and I was fighting, saying no, and I didn't know what would happen if I fought too hard so I just lay there and let it ha-- happen.

Timothy Sawa: April beat herself up for years, about the fight she did- or didn't-put up. But she realizes now, 30 years later, in those terrifying moments, she was actually paralyzed by previous trauma.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] Oh my god, I've never told my mother this [crying]. When I was fourteen years old, I was out with some friends and a boy that I was 'dating' and we all ended up going to this boy’s apartment and anyway we were kissing and he wanted more and I said no, and he punched me in the face and so I lay there and let him have sex with me, which is not sex, it was rape. So when, when I was in that situation in that suite, with Nygard I think that the fourteen-year-old girl came back and she just and she just lay there and let it happen. [sighs].

Timothy Sawa: April has had to tell the story of her time in that Winnipeg warehouse a number of times. She says she was held captive for up to two or three days. She knows the doors were locked. She knows she was repeatedly assaulted. But because whole chunks of time are missing from her memory, April believes she was also drugged, slipping in and out of consciousness:

Sound Clip: [April Telek] I do have flashes of pornography on TV, he played videos of him having sex with women.

Timothy Sawa: At one point, an employee came into the suite with food and drink.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] I don't know why I didn't say anything verbally to this man that came in with the breakfast, but I pleaded with him with my eyes, and I remember being wrapped in a blanket and Nygard was completely naked just walking around, and I pleaded with this man with my eyes, but I didn't ask for help.

Timothy Sawa: Then, April decides she has to do more. While Nygard was sleeping, she crept into the bathroom, the one with the phone. But the threats Nygard had made throughout the ordeal came flooding back...

Sound Clip: [April Telek] He had told me all kinds of things like, while I would say ‘please just let me go, I'm not going to say anything to anybody I swear to you, I would never’ -- and he would say, ‘you have to be careful, because you drive right?’ ‘Yeah’—‘it's winter, your car could just go off the road’.

Timothy Sawa: April didn’t call the police herself. Instead, she called Nygard’s nephew Kris Nichol- also a friend -who April knew lived in Winnipeg.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] When I spoke to Kris on the phone I said, ‘can you phone the police?’. Kris said to me, ‘you can't phone the police, you cannot call the police, I will come and get you’. I said, ‘I'm in trouble here, I need to get out of here, can you please do something, I don't know what to do, there's no way for me to get out, the doors locked with a key,’ and he said, ‘I'm coming to get you’, and I will never forget Kris saying to me, ‘if I have to drive my truck through the glass of the suite, and if every shard of glass falls into my uncle, so be it, but I will get you out of there’, so I-- I just ended that call and I left the bathroom and very quietly tried to gather what I could gather. I basically put on my coat and I guess I grabbed a purse or something, a bag-- I don't recall what it was I took with me, but I had no shoes. I assumed the door was locked to the suite because it had been locked the entire time that I had been there. And I looked up and I saw the key in the lock. I’ve held onto this thought all these years that it was the guy who came in with the food, and that he heard me or that he felt I needed help and he put the key there. I don't know for sure, I don't know, but the key was there. And I opened it and I got out. And now I'm in this warehouse and it's night and it's dark.

Then I see the light of a flashlight and I thought that it was Nygard but it was a security guard and he says, ‘where you going, what are you doing?’ and I don't know how or why I got very calm and very pragmatic with him and sort of bossy and said ‘I need to leave’. And he said, ‘does Mr. Nygard know you're leaving, I need to call Mr. Nygard’, and I said, ‘he is asleep, do you want to keep your job? Don't wake that man up.’, and he listened. And he led me to the door, and I was out. I was out in Winnipeg in November and it was-- I remember hearing that it was -29C with the windchill.

Timothy Sawa: After a few minutes, Kris pulled up and April climbed in. But April’s parents in Vancouver had no idea if she was safe or in danger and reported her missing. Worried that April hadn’t called them after arriving in Winnipeg - which she always did on her work trips - they called the RCMP and a constable came to their house. While he was there, April’s parents finally got a call from their daughter.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] I told them that I had been in a bad situation, that I had gotten out and I was safe now, and that was basically the extent of it at that point and I believe it was then that the constable here in Vancouver called and dispatched police officers in Winnipeg, who a short time later arrived to Kris's apartment with a social worker.

Timothy Sawa: But before they did, she says Kris said it wouldn’t help to go to the police.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] He said, ‘he's richer than god, April, he owns the police-- he owns everybody. He owns people.’

Timothy Sawa: Out of fear, April says she never told the police that she’d been raped.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] I basically said to them that I was fine, I was okay, because I was scared again. I was scared and I kept thinking about the story about-- you know, it's wintertime and you could just go off the road, and so I just said, no I'm okay, I'm fine.

Timothy Sawa: April’s allegation is disturbing. It’s also painfully common. Because Nygard is accused of luring many women to his places of business under false pretenses and then assaulting them. And April was far from the first.

Sound Clip: [Sounds of late-era disco].

Sound Clip: [KC Allen] So, we went clubbing, a couple of girlfriends and myself, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, not all those days. But we loved to dance. It was, sort of, ending of the era of disco. It was fun. It was really not about meeting boys or drinking; it was really about just getting out together and dancing all night.

Timothy Sawa: It’s Winnipeg in 1979, and 17-year-old KC Allen has recently graduated from high school. KC was striking. I can say that because I’ve seen the photos from her modelling days. She was 5' 11'', blond, with deep-set, dark brown eyes. And there was a sense of fearless certainty about her.

Sound Clip: [KC Allen] You know, I'd grown up overseas with a lot of freedom and with fairly bohemian parents. So, yeah, I had been given a lot of headway to go my own way. And yeah, I had a certain level of confidence in my ability to do things.

Timothy Sawa: Living in Winnipeg in the seventies, KC was bound to be a little more worldly than her classmates at the prestigious Balmoral-Hall School for Girls.

Sound Clip: [KC Allen] I had a very typical peaceful Midwestern suburban life until I was 10. My parents decided to take our family on a big adventure and we moved to New Zealand. We shipped over our VW bus and we spent close to four years, traveling around, camping. And my education at that time was very spotty. And it was it was very interesting and very challenging. And then when I was 13, we moved back to Winnipeg.

Timothy Sawa: At seventeen, KC makes the most of Winnipeg’s club scene.

Sound Clip: [Sounds of late-era disco].

Sound Clip: [KC Allen] Peter Nygard went to a lot of nightclubs and the nightclub we like to go to - my girlfriend and I - was called Bogart's and he would be there any of the nights all the time that she and I would have been there. And it's hard to miss him. And, you know, he was circling. He was sort of a shark buying drinks, checking everybody out and being very unsubtle about it.

Sound Clip: [Sounds of late-era disco].

Sound Clip: [KC Allen] Everybody knew who this man was. You know, if you had a daughter at the time, you would have probably wished she would stay away. The Finnish community in Winnipeg knew he was not their stellar member. He had started early and this was his modus operandi. And I guess, you know, it's like all these donators and generous patrons, they're giving away enough money. And they're making Winnipeg look good. And they're being the hometown success story.

Timothy Sawa: I used to live in Winnipeg back in the 2000s. It’s a prairie Canadian city that often gets a bad rap - known mostly for its bitter winters, hungry mosquitoes and for being the butt end of several jokes on The Simpsons.

Sound Clip: [Clip from The Simpsons] That’s it, back to Winnipeg!

Timothy Sawa: Ok, sure, the city certainly doesn’t have the same cosmopolitan reputation as Vancouver to the west, or Toronto to the east. But those who call it home, they like it for its tree-lined neighbourhoods with homes middle-class families can still afford and its friendly laid-back attitude. Having lived in Winnipeg for more than a decade, I remember hearing tons of stories of Nygard’s mistreatment of women privately, but publicly, he was still celebrated as a business success. And those rumours began long before I moved to town.

Sound Clip: [KC Allen] I would say that he had a level of notoriety and he enjoyed that level of notoriety, he played that to the hilt… We all knew he was trouble.

Timothy Sawa: Today, KC’s recalling her teenage impressions of Nygard, while sitting in the courtyard of a colonial-style house in her adopted home of Savannah, Georgia.

Sound Clip: [KC Allen] He was flamboyant. He was a show-off. He was, by the standards of the Midwest, he was gauche and nouveau riche. I'm not sure at the age of 17 that I was aware he was a predator, but we all knew that he was pushy and bad news and not somebody you really wanted to be seen with or be with.

Timothy Sawa: But after one long night of dancing at that favourite club, Bogart’s, KC was ready to go home. Her friend wanted to stay...

Sound Clip: [KC Allen] He overheard us talking and offered me a ride. And I accepted a ride home. Rather than driving me home. Peter took me to his office complex. I kept telling him, ‘no, you got to turn left here. Oh, you missed that turn. Here's a good opportunity for you to go back’. And he just disregarded it and at the time said, I just have to quickly stop by my office to get something. And I don't have any recollection of how-- from entering the building I ended up and I think it was a few stairs up into his private executive bedroom suite.

Timothy Sawa: KC says she’d been taken to Nygard’s warehouse, on Notre Dame Avenue. The same suite where April says she was raped 14 years later.

Sound Clip: [KC Allen] It was a bedroom, but it wasn't because as I recall, he had a couch that converted somehow. And I remember a circular bed and I remember there being an animal skin, a fur like a fur bedspread or like a real fur. And I was revolted by that. That left an impression on me. I don't remember what happened next. Other than he threw me on the bed, pinned me using his forearm across my throat, ripped off my underwear. I would've been wearing a dress and raped me. With me fighting as hard as I could. And I'm five foot eleven. But he's strong. And he was practised at it, clear to me that this was not his first time.

It wasn't date rape. It wasn't. 'Oh, come on. Please, please, please.' 'No, no, no. Come on.' It was full on, fast, brutal, physical rape. I mean, that-- I'm a big girl and I struggled, but he you know, he was accomplished. He was good at being a rapist.

Timothy Sawa: When the attack was over KC had no other option but to rely on Nygard once again.

Sound Clip: [KC Allen] I ended up clothed, my underwear back on, in his car with him driving me home. Because now we're in the middle of a warehouse district, it's my only way to get home. He did all the talking and I had the sense from my memory of that time that he was trying to feel me out, trying to determine the level of risk I posed to him. The level of anger I was harboring, you know, to see what I would do next. But I got home, and I went in, it was late. I lived with my parents at the time and I did not tell anybody in my household about what had happened. So, the reason I never told my parents at the time was that I truly believed my father would have done something drastic. And I was protecting my dad and my mom. If you tell your father, you have to be prepared that he's going to want to do something with that. And I wasn't prepared to put my whole family into turmoil.

Timothy Sawa: But she did tell a few people she could trust.

Sound Clip: [KC Allen] I let some of my closest friends know that something had happened to me with him. I did not go into the detail of it. But pretty much everybody in my inner circle was aware that something bad had happened at his hands, at Nygard's hands to me.

Timothy Sawa: April also couldn’t bring herself to reveal the whole story, all at once, to those closest to her.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] I didn't tell my parents that I was raped, I told my-- my sister and my aunt but when the constable came to take my statement, once I was home in Vancouver, my parents were doing what they thought was the best thing at the time and I agreed and they thought it was best that I didn't press charges because I was just at the beginning of my career as an adult you know and Nygard said at one point that ‘I will ruin you’. My dad was so scared that he was going to do something to me or to my family, and-- and I know that it was because they believed that it was the best choice at the time, but I took that advice and I did not press charges at that time.

Timothy Sawa: After her rape, KC didn’t go to the police either. And soon, she says, she’d be given good reason for not pursuing charges. In January 1980, Nygard was charged with the rape of an 18-year-old woman in Winnipeg. It was an accusation Nygard denied. But, KC had been hopeful at the prospect that he would finally go to jail.

Sound Clip: [KC Allen] I felt nothing short of joyful. I felt relieved that he hadn't gotten away with what he did to me. I guess I'd been carrying a burden of guilt about not saying something to the authorities. But I was just tremendously thrilled when somebody stepped up and actually took it to the police. Yeah, I felt vindicated. And I was so thrilled that she had the chutzpah to do what I had not done.

And, you know, I was hoping that maybe I would get a chance to testify on her behalf. And I think that it was not going to be heard in court until the spring. It was all over the press. We all knew that he was being charged with rape. So out of the blue, I get a phone call on my parents’ landline from Peter Nygard. Clearly, he was terrified at this point that I was going to contribute to this young woman's case. And Peter offered me money. He said-- I don't remember how he did, and it wasn't very subtle, but he offered to quote unquote, help me with some finances. And he didn't bring up the rape case against him. And when I said no, I did not want his money, he offered to pay for my college education. And then when I said no, I did not want his money to pay for my college education, he offered to buy me a new vehicle. And I said no to that, too. And I was so offended that he thought I would accept money, you know, or a car. Who do you think I am, you know? To me, him offering me a car, cash or my college education, verified that he thinks of women as hookers, basically it's all hooking to him of one type or another. It's just the price tag that's different and the amount of persuasion he has to use.

Timothy Sawa: The phone call was a rare opportunity for any survivor: a chance to confront their rapist, uncensored and uninterrupted.

Sound Clip: [KC Allen] But the joy and the beauty of that moment for me was he couldn't hang up on me. And I yelled at him for so long I lost my voice. I called him every expletive I know alphabetically. And so, I had my day in court or at least my hour in court with that man. Not face to face, but I managed to say to him everything I thought of him and what he had done to me. And I'm very pleased that I had the opportunity, such as it is.

Timothy Sawa: It was a victory for KC, but her hope that Nygard would see justice was soon crushed. She heard from friends that the rape charge against him was stayed, after the alleged victim wouldn’t testify in court.

Sound Clip: [KC Allen] She had declined to follow through with her charges. And I just was devastated. Just devastated. And I think that it kind of supported my worst fear about pointing a finger at a powerful, wealthy man. They have the ability to make such things go away. And it just confirmed my worst suspicions about dealing with a man like that. I felt further disinclined to go forward. And I was 18 then, you know, I was not equipped to be the one to stand up and be that person.

Timothy Sawa: Nygard wouldn’t face another criminal charge for forty years.

Sound Clip: [Theme Music]

Timothy Sawa: That call to KC would not be the last time Nygard got back in touch with a woman accusing him of sexual assault. It’s a pattern I’ve noticed in the years I’ve reported on Nygard. In April’s case, “reaching out” came in the form of a delivery to her doorstep in Vancouver. It was just weeks after she says she was held against her will-- and raped.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] Nygard sent a box of clothes to my parents’ house I think to try and shut me up, which I thought was disgusting, and I mean-- I'm assuming that's what he was trying to do. But I-- pfft. No, thank you.

Timothy Sawa: While April never spoke to Nygard again, she looked for accountability from someone else: her friend, the member of Nygard’s family who had left her in that Winnipeg warehouse.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] Once I was home in Vancouver, I said, ‘how could you do that to me? You set me up’, and she said, ‘what do you mean I set you up?’, and I said, ‘he raped me - he did all these things’ and she said ‘April, I saw the tape. It didn't look like you fought too hard’. And I--oh god-- I can't believe that a woman would say that to another woman. I can't believe that there's a tape. I was so scared of charging him then because it would be used against me. I was never a willing participant. [Crying].

Sound Clip: [Theme Music]

Timothy Sawa: Neither of Nygard’s family members involved in April’s allegation agreed to be interviewed, but they and Nygard’s lawyer did respond in writing. Jay Prober provided what he says is evidence and testimonies that prove it was impossible for April to have been “held captive” in the Notre Dame property. He says it was always too busy for her presence to go unnoticed. He went further, claiming April has, quote, “jumped on the perceived money train,” and is a “purported actress who is now playing another role.” Prober also sent a statement from the Nygard relative who April says set her up to be raped. In it, she says documentation - like her daughter’s school records, and immigration paperwork - demonstrates she wasn’t in Winnipeg in November 1993, and therefore couldn’t have driven April to the factory. Though she mentions these documents as evidence, she failed to share them. She also says she didn’t arrange April’s modelling trip, but confirms the trip happened. Nygard’s nephew also confirmed the trip occurred, adding that it had been paid for by the Nygard company. In Kris Nichol’s statement, he said April was fully clothed and composed when he picked her up that night. Adding, quote, “She certainly made no mention of her having been raped or drugged or locked up or about any misconduct by Peter Nygard." He claims April said she was there on a modeling assignment and was bored, and that his uncle totally ignored her. He also says that he never told April that his uncle "owns" the police. April was particularly disappointed in what Kris had to say.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] I was really sad actually, if I'm honest, about reading Kris's affidavit, because I've never said anything negative about him. He, in my mind, saved me and I know that he is not immersed in the family business. That was really quite heartbreaking to me. But there was clearly no modeling assignment at the end of the day because otherwise, if I was there doing work for them and none of this had happened, I would have done the work. There would have been photos. There would have been stuff documented.

Timothy Sawa: And if there was no modeling and they flew you out there, then what happened? And that question is not being answered by their affidavits.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] That's right.

Timothy Sawa: In a later phone call, the other Nygard family member who April had considered a friend, also denied April’s allegation that she’d seen a video of the assault. April has since filed a lawsuit against her, accusing her of conspiring with Nygard, and luring April to be raped. It hasn’t been proven in court and the woman denies it all. Nygard’s lawyer, Jay Prober, also disputed KC’s allegation.

He then dredged up a defence Nygard and his representatives have used over and over since his first accusers came forward. That Louis Bacon, Nygard’s former neighbour in the Bahamas, has coached and paid women to lie as part of a vast conspiracy to destroy Nygard’s reputation and business. When April and KC first heard this defence, they say that’s part of what motivated them to come forward. Because there is an obvious flaw in that defence; they told people they were raped long before Louis Bacon and Nygard started feuding. We called several of KC’s friends, past and present, to verify this. It checks out. Same with April. I’ve spoken to that RCMP officer who met with her and her family all of those years ago. He confirms her story. And a friend she told at the time, does also.

Sound Clip: [KC Allen] There's so much corroborating evidence. I don't care what his neighbor and he are doing in a pissing contest over the beach. Women don't just come forward and make this stuff up. It's the most painful, ruinous, publicly excruciating accusation to make.

Timothy Sawa: KC and April eventually joined a class action lawsuit launched against Nygard in early 2020. It alleges rape, kidnapping and sex trafficking. The suit began with mainly Bahamian women, almost all of whom say they were raped while they were minors, some as young as 14. More than 80 women have now come forward to the lawyers.

Sound Clip: [KC Allen] In reading the complaints, it strikes me that he just got better and better and more extreme and uglier and more rampant and more audacious in his attacks. I'm doing this because I want to help the other women, I want to be a spokesperson for other victims. I want justice and I want people to know that it's not a shameful thing to be raped and talked about and talk about it publicly. It's not a joy either. But no, I'm just indignant, absolutely indignant. If this were a poor man, he would have been in jail decades ago, decades ago. He has hid in plain sight, making a spectacle of himself and calling himself a playboy. No, he's not a playboy. He's a child abuser.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] Nygard’s defence that he's been using with saying that all of his victims are tied to his billionaire neighbour in the Bahamas was a huge part of this and my need to come forward also because I have no ties to the Bahamas. I have no ties to that neighbour. I have no ties to any-- anybody that he has used as part of his defence. This was completely separate so him using that as his defence all the way along, consistently-- well what are you going to use now? When I found out that there was this case against him now and I heard that the victims were as young as they were, and I read the details of the things he had done to other women, I felt an immense amount of guilt over the fact that I had not charged him at the time, and felt like I could have perhaps prevented some of that from happening to other women and girls, children but-- I have a thirteen year old daughter and I don't want there to ever be any confusion, I do not feel shame about what happened to me, and that is something that women of sexual assault deal with all the time. We feel that we don't have power, that we don't have voices and I wanted to give weight to these other people's stories.

Timothy Sawa: After we originally reported KC and April’s stories, they told me they were finally ready to go to the police. And they said several other Nygard victims contacted them after hearing their stories, saying they too would report their assaults. We’ve confirmed there is now an active criminal investigation in Winnipeg. KC and April have a shared sense of purpose today - but it’s come after many hard years. The trauma of the assaults has stayed with them, affecting their lives in various, unanticipated ways.

Sound Clip: [KC Allen] You know, you don't have an opportunity to know what your life would have been like had you not been raped. It's not like it's a controlled laboratory study, KC without rape, KC after rape. But in hindsight now, reading what he had done to all those women over the years, systematically, it did cause me to reflect on how much choice did I really have after having something like that happen to you. I've had four marriages. I moved all over the world. I don't know that you can retroactively point the finger at any particular thing in your life as a failure point or a trigger. But it would be very fair to say that I've had trouble feeling safe in any one place or with any one particular man.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] So, for a very long time, after I came home from Winnipeg, I had very vivid, very bad dreams and years later I was in a long term committed relationship with a man and I-- he would wake me up because I was punching him in my sleep. I was getting physically aggressive in my sleep and in my dream, I was trying to fight with Nygard, and I was always losing-- I was always losing and then one day I won in my dream.

Sound Clip: [Theme Music]

Timothy Sawa: Since we first interviewed April and KC, Nygard was arrested and faces sex trafficking and racketeering charges in the U.S. I followed up with April to see how she was feeling.

Sound Clip: [April Telek] I’m in shock. I’m in awe. I am super happy right now. Like I said, I don’t care how that man goes away, I want him to go away. If he is finally held accountable for what he did to even one of us. If it’s not charges that even cover my situation, it doesn’t matter to me, I will be happy. It has been far too long that he has been allowed to be free, to let this happen to anybody else. So, this is pretty exciting, what a wonderful thing to wake up to.

Timothy Sawa: KC wants to know what can be learned now that Peter Nygard has been exposed.

Sound Clip: [KC Allen] He's been a criminal for four decades at least! And how did that happen? We as a society need to look at this and say, what are we going to do differently with the next monster that comes along because there will be another monster! There's always going to be a Weinstein or an Epstein or a Nygard. But how we learn to deal with it faster and better. Or this is just going to go on and on and on and on.

Sound Clip: [Theme Music]

Timothy Sawa: Today, Peter Nygard sits behind bars, indicted and awaiting trial. Yet the question remains: How did he get away with these alleged crimes for so long? It’s been more than 40 years since KC’s rape. With Nygard’s predation dating all the way back to the 1970s in Winnipeg, was there a chance in the decades that followed to stop him before he adopted the Bahamas as his second home? Could the dozens of young women and girls he’s accused of raping since then, have been spared? Or was the spell he cast over Winnipeg, held in place by the prosperity he offered, too strong to break?

Sound Clip: [Theme Music]

Timothy Sawa: Coming up…

Sound Clip: [Catherine Mitchell] Definitely people knew who Peter Nygard was and what Nygard International meant to the city.

Sound Clip: [Bev Suek] People tell women to stay away from Peter Nygard. It's so well-known in Winnipeg. It's always been known in Winnipeg.

Sound Clip: [Paul McKie] What he said essentially was, ‘I'm not going to be the publisher that sends hundreds of Nygard jobs out of the city.’

Sound Clip: [Joanna Full] It still affects me, making me dirty, somehow. Making me feel that I should have done something. But I don't know what.

Timothy Sawa: If anything you’ve heard in this episode has left you looking for someone to talk to, please visit cbc.ca/uncover. We have a number of resources there for those in need of help and support.

Sound Clip: [Theme Music]

Timothy Sawa: Evil By Design is a co-production between CBC Podcasts and the fifth estate. You can find the Fifth Estate’s latest documentary, ‘Peter Nygard: the Secret Videos’ on Youtube. This podcast is written by Producer, Ashley Mak, Associate Producer, Ilina Ghosh and me, Timothy Sawa. With assistance from Lynette Fortune at the Fifth Estate. Mixing and sound design by Evan Kelly. With technical assistance from Laura Antonelli. For this episode, special thanks to Bob Mckeown. Emilie Quesnel is our digital producer. Fact-checking by Emily Mathieu and legal advice from Sean Moreman. Original Music by Olivia Pasquarelli. Our Senior Producer at CBC Podcasts is Chris Oke. And our Executive Producer is Arif Noorani.

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Transcript: Evil By Design Episode 4

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