Billionaire Frank Stronach’s new lawyer wants sex assault case to be heard in York Region, not Peel
Stronach’s new lawyer says Peel police took over the investigation to ensure fairness as Stronach had donated money to the York police chief, but that Peel lacks the jurisdiction to hear the matter.
Auto parts magnate Frank Stronach, one of Canada’s wealthiest people, has changed his legal representation just two months after he was charged with multiple sex-related offences.
pc28¹ÙÍødefence lawyer Leora Shemesh confirmed to the Star Friday that she has been retained by the billionaire founder of Magna International, replacing high-profile lawyer Brian Greenspan who must still bring a formal application to the court asking to be removed as counsel.
Shemesh said one of her first orders of business will be to seek to have the case heard in York Region. The 91-year-old lives there and the company he founded is based in Aurora.
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Peel Regional Police have charged Stronach with 13 criminal offences, including sexual assault and historical charges of attempted rape and indecent assault on a female. Court documents allege the assaults happened as far back as 1977 and as recently as February, and involve 10 alleged victims. None of the allegations stem from anything that occurred in Peel, but rather York and Toronto.
Shemesh said Stronach has been a “very loyal supporter of police in York Region,” and may have made a charitable donation to the police chief — “which many people do.” It’s her understanding that Peel took over the investigation in order to ensure fairness and transparency, which “maybe was a good thing.”
However, “it doesn’t mean he needs to be tried in Peel,” she said. It will be up to the Crown to persuade a judge why the case should proceed at the courthouse in Brampton, not the one in Newmarket.
“People are entitled to be tried in the community in which the offences are alleged to have occurred, and that’s a long-standing tradition and rule in our criminal justice system,” she said Friday. Several police forces investigated various allegations, including Toronto, Halton, York and Peel.
The case has been adjourned until Oct. 7.
Last month, one of the complainants told the Star that when she was 20 in 1980, Stronach, then 47, sexually assaulted her on a dance floor and later in an apartment on Toronto’s waterfront. Shemesh, who has reviewed disclosure, repeated what Greenspan said, that her client vigorously denies those and all of the allegations against him.
She added the media “is not the forum for which we will plead our case. The courtroom is.”
Shemesh is also involved in another high-profile sex assault case involving a public figure. She is representing pc28¹ÙÍøCoun. Michael Thompson, who is scheduled to stand trial on two counts of sex assault this fall in Bracebridge, Ont.
Betsy Powell is a Toronto-based reporter covering crime and
courts for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: .
