Frank Stronach, who created a global auto parts company from inside a rented garage to become one of Canada’s richest men, was found guilty on Friday of sexual assault and indecent assault in two cases that date back decades.
Mr. Stronach was also acquitted on three other charges of sexual assault involving two other women. The verdict rendered by Justice Anne Molloy of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto represents a remarkable downfall for Mr. Stronach, a recipient of Canada’s highest civilian honor.
The founder of Magna International, Mr. Stronach pleaded not guilty to a dozen charges stemming from seven complainants. The allegations spanned from the 1970s to the 1990s.
Beginning in the 1980s, Magna became a global operation that moved beyond just making parts into assembling vehicles for several automakers including Mercedes-Benz. During Mr. Stronach’s tenure the company tried to take over both Chrysler and Opel, the former European arm of General Motors.
But Mr. Stronach also has a long history of making inappropriate public remarks about women. In the midst of his unsuccessful bid for Chrysler, he opened the company’s 2007 annual meeting by asking shareholders gathered in a Toronto concert hall, who was more attractive to women, himself or his longtime aide, Manfred Gingl.
The charges against Mr. Stronach heard by Justice Molloy mainly involve women who he met through Magna or other companies that he controlled.
The victim in the indecent assault conviction, however, was a social acquaintance of Mr. Stronach who testified that she went to his apartment after a dinner in 1977 when she was 25. Once there, Mr. Stronach lifted the woman’s skirt and engaged in what Justice Malloy said was “quite simply, gross and disgusting conduct.”
A different woman, whom Mr. Stronach was convicted of sexually assaulting, testified that she was groped by the billionaire in the 1980s. She said Mr. Stronach repeatedly groped her after she attempted to leave his condominium following a dinner to discuss her dismissal as a waitress from a restaurant he owned.
Prosecutors withdrew five charges after the trial opened in February. In the case of the acquittals, Justice Molloy said that she was unable to determine if the woman had consented to sexual activity.
Mr. Stronach is scheduled to face another sexual assault trial next year.
While Mr. Stronach’s off-color comments had little apparent effect on his company’s fortunes, investors in Magna eventually challenged his control over the company through a special class of shares. Unrestrained, Mr. Stronach made several, often unprofitable forays into businesses with no relation to the automotive industry. They included a failed restaurant chain, a glossy business magazine, golf courses and horse racing. In 2010, Magna gave Mr. Stronach about $1 billion to cede control and he has had no involvement in the company since then.
In 2013, Team Stronach, a pro-business protest party founded by Mr. Stronach in his home country of Austria, won two seats in the Austrian state parliament before the movement ultimately collapsed. His daughter, Belinda, a former cabinet minister in Canada from whom he is apparently estranged, now controls the Stronach horse racing and gambling company which includes Gulfstream Park in Florida.
