'It's a lie,' billionaire Frank Stronach says of 13 sex crime charges filed against him
CBC
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.
"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see him lying on top of me," said the 65-year-old woman, who CBC News is calling Leigh; as she asked her real name not be published to protect her privacy.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.
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