Former employee says Frank Stronach groped and kissed her at his waterfront apartment
A former waitress at the Toronto nightclub owned by business tycoon Frank Stronach testified at his sex assault trial of being groped and kissed by the billionaire in his waterfront apartment in the 1980s.
In vivid and often emotional testimony Tuesday morning, the witness — the second of seven women accusing Stronach of unwanted sexual aggression — told of an unexpected dinner invitation from Stronach to find out why she had been fired from her job at his nightclub led to an even more awkward stop afterwards to see the view from his condo.
She said her meeting with Stronach happened in the winter of 1983 or 1984 when she was 20 or 21 years old. Stronach was 50 or 51 at the time.
She said Stronach was polite at dinner. After they ate, he told her he had arranged for his driver to take her home but wanted to first show her his harbourfront apartment nearby, she said.
The invitation “was awkward,” she said, and made her “uncomfortable,” but he had been respectful over dinner, so she agreed.
“I felt like, you know, he was being like a fatherly image,” she said on the stand. “I didn’t think that I would have a problem.”
They took an elevator to the top of the building, or close to the top, and into his condo where she saw large windows looking out towards the waterfront: “It was night, so there were stars, and it was beautiful.”
On the stand, the woman then appeared to struggle to contain emotion; her jaw clenched, her eyes closed. She was asked if she wanted a break.
“I want to get this over with,” she said quietly to Ontario Superior Court Judge Anne Molloy, who sat near her.
“Just take a moment, take some deep breaths, and just talk when you’re ready,” Molloy told her.
The witness said that Stronach took her coat and asked if she wanted a drink, which she declined. He became friendlier and flirty.
“As soon as I got in, the hair on my neck went up and my heart was pounding,” she said. “It’s not like he said or did anything, but I was afraid.
“I felt the nicer he was, the more afraid I became because, as a woman, it was just a vibe that made me very uncomfortable.
“His intentions had changed from dinner to that condo,” she said.
“I didn’t get that fatherly vibe anymore.
“I felt that he was now under the impression that I owed him a favour.”
She testified that she said she needed to leave.
“He got my coat for me and helped me on with the coat. And when I turned around, he had me by the lapels or my arms or my shoulders or whatever.”
He then leaned in to give her a kiss on both cheeks, and she pulled back, she said.
“I went up against the wall and he had me there and he slowly did the European kiss there. And then he was touching me, he was going up and down and asking me to stay…. He wasn’t ready for me to leave yet.
“If I wasn’t 100 per cent sure before I got to the door, I knew exactly why he wanted me to stay,” she said. “Sex. He wanted to be intimate.”
Why did she think that, she was asked by Jelena Vlacic, one of two prosecuting Crown Attorneys at Stronach’s Toronto trial.
“Because he was groping me,” the woman said. Stronach’s hands were touching her breasts, she said.
“I was terrified.”
She said she then “kind of wiggle my way out of there,” and “when he finally released, I literally just got out of there as fast as I could.”
Stronach, now 93 years old, became a famous business titan and one of the country’s richest men through Magna International, a hugely successful auto parts manufacturing company he founded.
He faces 12 charges at the Toronto trial that started last week and is accused of sex attacks against seven women from 1977 to 1990.
Stronach has denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The court placed a publication ban on the identities of the complainants. The woman testifying Tuesday is identified as A.S. in the indictment.
A.S. testified that after the incident, she was called by Magna to arrange a job interview. She went and was hired as a receptionist in the executive suites.
For about six years she worked for Magna and related Stronach companies and said she liked the job and had no further aggressive interaction with Stronach.
She said she called police to report her allegations after seeing a news report in 2024 on Stronach being charged for sex assaults which included Stronach’s denial and statement that the other complainants were lying and he hadn’t done anything like that.
Under cross-examination by Stronach’s lawyer, Leora Shemesh, A.S. was asked about her prior statements to police suggesting she felt she should only be a witness at the trial and raised the possibility he didn’t realize how terrified she was at the time.
A.S. said she was meaning that she didn’t feel she was confined by Stronach.
She also agreed that she liked her Magna jobs, didn’t complain about Stronach’s behaviour during her time of employment and didn’t recall telling anyone at the company of her experience.
Shemesh also questioned her about the reason she was fired as a waitress at Rooney’s in the first place. She told the prosecutors she was shocked by the sudden firing and called Stronach to ask why. Stronach returned her call and invited her to dinner to find out why.
She said Stronach told her a manager thought she was selling drugs, which she denied doing. Shemesh questioned her about the fuller answer, that she was having trouble with some men at the club. The witness said the guy was a drug dealer who was hitting on her.
The cross examination, which started to get fiery before the lunch break, is scheduled to continue in the afternoon.
This is the first of two trials Stronach is expected to face this year after he was charged with two sets of similar charges within weeks of each other. A second trial is expected later this year in Newmarket, Ont., north of Toronto, where the headquarters of Magna is located.
The trial continues Tuesday afternoon with further cross examination of the witness. The trial is expected to last four weeks.
• Email: ahumphreys@postmedia.com | Twitter: AD_Humphreys
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