A former stable boy for Canadian billionaire Frank Stronach claimed he sexually assaulted her in front of staff before raping her in a company-owned condominium.
The founder of Magna International has been charged with 18 charges, including rape, forcible confinement and sexual assault, against 13 women dating back to the 1970s.
The most recent arises from an incident that occurred in February of this year, just a month before the death of his wife after 60 years of marriage.
The 92-year-old claimed he had recently been sexually assaulted by a woman who accused him of demanding oral sex in a locked car, but one of his alleged rape victims says he could finally be about to face justice.
“That other women had come forward and that I didn’t have to face this alone was a relief,” she told CBC. The fifth power.’ And it made me think that, maybe, something can change this time.”
Automotive billionaire Frank Stronach, 92, has been arrested and charged with 18 charges, including sexual assault and rape, against 13 women, some of them in February of this year.
An accuser, who called herself ‘Leigh,’ claims he raped her in 1980 while she worked as a stable boy at his stables north of Toronto.
The woman, who was named ‘Leigh’, was a 19-year-old stable girl at Stronach Stables north of Toronto when her friends persuaded her to celebrate her 20th birthday at their Rooney’s nightclub in 1980.
Stronach reserved a table for himself at the Toronto hotspot and recognized his young employee, ignoring her protest that she didn’t drink before leading her to the dance floor.
“He was hugging me very, very tight, I was trying to get away,” she told the show.
“And then she reaches into her skirt and pierces my pantyhose.”
He said he later came to at a company condominium on the Toronto waterfront with no idea how he got there.
“I was on my back, looking up at the ceiling, and I could see myself on the ceiling,” she added. ‘I could see it above me. He was having sex with me. Rape me.
‘I was really scared. Since he was a rich guy, he couldn’t afford for people to say things about him and stuff like that. I thought they were going to leave me at the port.
Stronach created North America’s largest auto parts maker after emigrating from his native Austria in 1954, with revenue last year of $43 billion.
Stronach was named a member of the Order of Canada, one of the country’s most prestigious honours. Shown here with Stronach are his wife, Elfriede (far left) and their daughter, Belinda (center).
Stronach, pictured with the late Queen Elizabeth, has a number of racecourses among his business interests.
Stronach has “spent his entire life committed to the betterment of the Canadian community and industry,” according to his lawyer.
He was a friend of Queen Elizabeth, ran for the Canadian parliament in 1988, and was awarded the Order of Canada in 1999.
“Everyone is afraid of Frank,” one employee told the show’s makers.
You can pay whoever you want. So it’s like, after you’ve worked for him, you learn the things he does and everyone fears him.’
Jane Boon revealed how she was attacked by the then 54-year-old chief executive when she was 19.
Stronach’s friend Bill Clinton wrote a glowing testimonial when he created a new political party in a bid to become Austria’s leader in 2012, telling her he was “proud” of their friendship.
“I am proud of the vision he has shown throughout his business career,” he added.
Leigh went to police with her allegations in 2015, but it wasn’t until June this year that Peel Police laid charges in June this year.
“I never heard a response from the police again. Not a phone call, not an email. Nothing,’ Leigh told the program.
Other women began going to the police and author Jane Boon went public. your account of how the then 54-year-old man had ‘abused his power’ to have sex with her when she was a 19-year-old intern.
She was a high school student when Stronach interviewed her for a Magna scholarship to study engineering at the General Motors Institute in Flint, Michigan.
The following year, he invited her to an “after-party” at Rooney’s after seeing her at the company’s AGM and beckoned her to join his table when she arrived.
She claims he pressured her into eating a couple of alcohol-marinated strawberries before insisting she was too drunk to drive home.
“As if on cue, Stronach’s driver arrived and was told he had had too much to drink,” he told airmail.news.
‘Stronach said he would take me to the guest house and the driver would deliver my car there.
“He turned to me and said, ‘Jane, give him your keys.’
Stronach took her to the company boarding house, where they had sex.
“It was a horrible abuse of power,” he recalled. “To put it bluntly, a 54-year-old CEO should not be flirting with 19-year-old co-op students who work for him.”
Stronach was ousted from the company he founded in 2010 and spent years fighting his daughter Belinda for control of his empire.
In recent years he has spent more time at his Aurora restaurant, Frank’s Organic Garden, where staff described him as uncomfortable and predatory and at least one of them is among his 13 accusers.
“Frank, with one of the girls, took her aside… and then he hugged her goodbye and grabbed her by the ass,” a former employee told CBS.
“With the one girl who was taken to the private dining room, when she came out, I could see on her face immediately that something had happened to her.”
He also recalled that another colleague returned crying after being invited to dinner to discuss “future job opportunities” with Stronach.
She claimed that the billionaire instead took her to the car park of a nearby Walmart, sexually assaulted her and demanded oral sex.
“The doors were closed,” the former employee recalled. ‘She couldn’t escape.
Stronach alongside Carmen Stamboli at the Miss Vienna pageant in 2014, two years after she launched her unsuccessful campaign to become Chancellor of Austria
Staff at his restaurant north of Toronto told CBS that “everyone is afraid of Frank.”
An alleged victim says she is hopeful justice will catch up with Stronach, who was photographed leaving an interview with Peel police earlier this year.
Stronach has claimed that he is the victim of a conspiracy and that what happened in the locked car was “backwards.”
“I knew this would happen,” he told the show. ‘Every time you change the system, they will attack me.
‘My thing is that I am above everything. We have to improve the law, we are moving away from what a free society means.
“What I’m most sure of is that I haven’t done anything wrong,” he added.
“I created a system where it will be very difficult to prove that I did anything wrong.”
Stronach is free on bail but must answer to the charges when he appears in a Toronto court on Nov. 4.
Leigh said she felt suicidal after the alleged attack, left the stables and permanently distanced herself from her life’s passion.
“It took away the joy of working with horses because at that point it always came back to me and came back to me and came back to me,” she explained.
‘It just didn’t have the same lightness and energy. He took my fire away.’