(Toronto) Ontario businessman Frank Stronach, charged earlier this month with decades-old sex crimes, now faces eight additional charges, police announced Wednesday.
Posted at 4:43 p.m.
Sonja Puzic
The Canadian Press
Police in Peel Regional Police, a suburb of Toronto, said the 91-year-old billionaire was re-arrested Wednesday to be formally charged with six counts of sexual assault, one count of attempted rape and one count of indecent assault against a woman.
Police did not immediately provide details of the charges, saying only that investigators “had identified additional victims.”
Frank Stronach, founder of the automotive supplier Magna International, was arrested for the first time at the beginning of June. He was then accused of one count of rape, one count of indecent assault against a woman, one count of false imprisonment and two counts of sexual assault.
Court documents related to these initial charges indicated that the businessman was accused of sexually assaulting three different complainants in Toronto and Aurora in events that allegedly occurred in the 1980s.
His lawyer, Brian Greenspan, said at the time that his client categorically denied the charges against him.
“He looks forward to the opportunity to fully respond to the accusations and maintain his reputation, both as a philanthropist and as a model of Canadian business,” wrote Mr.e Greenspan in a statement.
Until 1983, the Canadian Criminal Code made a distinction between the offenses of “indecent assault” and “rape” (forcible penetration). These charges are now grouped under the charge of “sexual assault”.
Before the new charges against him were laid on Wednesday, Mr. Stronach was scheduled to appear at the Brampton courthouse on July 8.
Born in Austria in 1932, Frank Stronach became one of Canada’s richest people after starting the small company Magna in his garage in 1957. He later grew it into one of the largest automotive parts suppliers in the country. world.
He also founded “The Stronach Group”, a company specializing in horse racing, and “Stronach International” in 2018, a company focused on organic food and “electric micromobility” (bikes, scooters, boards, gyrowheels).
He resigned as president of Magna in 2011 and founded his own political party in Austria the following year.
