WARNING: This article may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it
Embattled billionaire Frank Stronach says he pities the women whose allegations of rape, assault and forcible confinement are the basis for the 13 sex crime charges against him.
Speaking publicly for the first time since he was arrested in June, the 91-year-old Stronach told The Fifth Estate he did “nothing wrong.”
“We have a lot of data which totally will prove those things are lies,” Stronach said in an interview in Toronto on Tuesday. He did not elaborate.
“But I feel sorry for the women that made those charges,” he told co-host Mark Kelley.
One of those women also spoke to CBC News on Tuesday, relating in vivid detail her 1980 story that led to charges against the Canadian billionaire.
WARNING: Video contains distressing details | As a woman accusing Frank Stronach of rape publicly details her allegations, the billionaire businessman speaks for the first time to CBC’s The Fifth Estate. Stronach says he has nothing to hide and that his accusers are after his money.
“I could see him lying on top of me,” said the 65-year-old woman, who CBC News is calling Leigh; as she asked her real name not be published to protect her privacy.
“It was rape. It happened. It was happening to me. I saw it happening.”
Leigh is one of 10 women who allege they were assaulted by Stronach. While the most recent allegations are from 2024 and 2023, according to police charge sheets, others date back to 1977.
The alleged incidents took place in Toronto and several communities north of the city in York Region, including Aurora, home of Magna International, the auto parts company Stronach founded.
In 1980, Leigh, then 20, worked as a horse groomer at one of his stables in Aurora. She was invited to a party at Rooney’s, a downtown Toronto bar owned by Stronach at the time.
There she says Stronach, then 47, assaulted her on the dance floor, and that she later woke up in a waterfront apartment bedroom with no knowledge about how she got there or where her clothes were, staring at her own reflection in a ceiling mirror.
“I could see my face in the ceiling, and I could see him on top of me, and he was having sex with me, raping me,” she said.
She quit her job at the stables and walked away from horse riding and equestrian care — her passion from when she was a small child.
“He took away my joy in working with horses, because at that time it would always keep coming back to me, and back to me, and back to me,” Leigh said. “It just didn’t have the same lightness and energy about it. He took away my fire.”
Leigh said she was gripped with humiliation and shame and so did not tell police until 2015.
“I didn’t even realize how many women this might have even happened to. I knew it probably happened to others,” she said. “We’ve held it in for so long.”
It took almost a decade — after Toronto police handed her complaint to Peel Regional Police — before Stronach was charged.
A Toronto Police Services spokesperson said the service would not discuss complaints now before the courts.
CBC has previously reported that Peel police began investigating allegations against Stronach after they were approached by York Regional Police for assistance.
Both York and Peel police have declined to comment on the handling of the allegations.
Stronach, and his newly hired lawyer Leora Shemesh, say he is innocent of the charges filed against him.
“It’s a lie, it’s a lie, it’s a lie,” is how Stronach said the allegations against him will eventually be regarded.
Stronach said he could not discuss the specific charges. When asked about the allegations and the possibility he could be sentenced to prison time if found guilty, Stronach answered by discussing what he calls an “economic charter of rights” for Canadians — an idea he has talked about for decades.
As his lawyer Shemesh looked on, Stronach raised complaints about the state of Canada’s economy, what he sees as regulatory over-reach by governments, and suggested economic hardship may be a motive behind the allegations he is facing.
“Women might say ‘Look that way we can collect some money this way or that way.’ OK. it’s poverty, it’s poverty, that’s what the problem is,” he said.
“There’s no question that’s quite clear. It’s quite clear,” Stronach said when pointedly asked if he believed the women who brought complaints against him are looking for a payout.
When he was arrested in June, Stronach was represented by high-profile defence attorney Brian Greenspan. Recently, however, Stronach changed lawyers and hired Shemesh.
Stronach said he always wanted a female lawyer to represent him.
“I think a woman has a better understanding for women than a man,” he said.
Shemesh said she will argue Stronach’s “charges should not be heard in Peel region but instead in the various communities and jurisdictions of which the allegations are said to have been committed.”
Stronach’s case is scheduled to return to a Brampton Ontario Court of Justice on Oct. 7.
If you would like to pass information to The Fifth Estate, reach our tip line at [email protected]
For anyone who has been sexually assaulted, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services via the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. If you’re in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.