Billionaire businessman Frank Stronach, accused earlier this month of sex-related offences, on Wednesday was arrested again and charged with six counts of sexual assault, one count of attempted rape and one count of indecent assault on a female.Cole Burston/The Globe and Mail
Magna International MG-T founder Frank Stronach was charged with additional sexual-assault counts on Wednesday, weeks after he was first arrested on alleged crimes dating back to the 1980s.
He now faces 13 counts, after being arrested and charged with criminal allegations that include attempted rape, indecent assault on a female and six sexual assaults, police said on Wednesday.
“Investigators from the Peel Regional Police’s special victims unit have identified additional victims and additional charges have been laid,” said police spokesman Tyler Bell-Morena. Police did not provide any details about the new counts.
In an e-mailed statement to The Globe and Mail, Mr. Stronach’s lawyer Brian Greenspan said his client “denies and will vigorously defend these further untested allegations.”
Canadian businessman Frank Stronach arrested, charged with sexual assault
Mr. Stronach walked out of a Peel Regional Police station early on Wednesday afternoon wearing a dark suit and accompanied by two men and a driver before departing in a dark grey Cadillac.
On June 7, Peel Regional police laid five charges against Mr. Stronach as part of a sex-assault investigation. Investigators say those alleged attacks took place in 1980, 1986 and 2023. The charges included allegations of rape, indecent assault, forcible confinement and two counts of sexual assault.
Mr. Stronach, 91, founded the company that became Magna International in the 1950s. It became one of the world’s largest auto-parts makers, and today employs 179,000 people in 28 countries.
He departed Magna 14 years ago and has “had no affiliation” with it since, company spokesperson Tracy Fuerst has said. Forbes magazine in 2018 estimated Mr. Stronach’s wealth at US$1.5-billion, but no longer includes him in its rankings.
On Tuesday, The Globe published a first-person account by Jane Boon, an author who says that Mr. Stronach had sex with her when she was 19 and he was 54. Ms. Boon, who has not complained to police, says the incident happened in 1986. Mr. Stronach, she alleges, drove her to Magna’s corporate guest house in Markham, Ont., after a social event at his Toronto restaurant, Rooney’s.