Frank Stronach won’t have to go to jail, judge says, after dramatic day of argument

TORONTO — Frank Stronach will not go to jail for the crime of indecent assault, a judge said in surprise final comments at his sentencing hearing.

Judge Anne Molloy of the Ontario Superior Court said Stronach should return to hear his sentence in December. It will not be custodial but still could involve conditions on his freedom.

The news followed a dramatic day of argument Thursday in which the Crown argued the 94-year-old autoparts billionaire should go to jail for six months, surrender a sample of his DNA, and be listed on Canada’s sex offender registry for 10 years.

“Only a real deprivation of liberty will do,” said prosecutor Jelena Vlacic.

Stronach’s defence lawyer argued that he should be granted an absolute discharge, which means no conviction would be entered on the charge of indecent assault for which he was found guilty in June, and there would be no conditions on his release.

Stronach was originally charged with 12 offences involving seven women, but all other charges failed for various reasons.

The victim, now in her 70s, gave a short statement from the witness stand on Thursday, the only evidence called in the day-long hearing that was dominated by technical argument over precedent cases and the purposes of sentencing.

“I am 20 years younger than the defendant. I felt ambushed, I felt overpowered, I felt my physical privacy was violated without my consent. My body and my sense of security were instantly injured. My self reliance was wounded when by confidence in the defendants character was shattered.”

In her testimony earlier this year, the woman (whose identity is protected) testified that she knew Stronach socially and was with him at the Toronto bar he owned, Rooney’s. She accepted his invitation to a nearby apartment, where Stronach abruptly pushed her face down over the arm of a chair and pressed himself against her from behind while lifting her skirt. There was no direct contact with her skin and both remained clothed. She described it as “bizarre” and “pathetic.”

“I felt I deserved an apology, I was upset when none was forthcoming,” she said in her victim impact statement.

Both sides discussed comparable cases. There was argument over the Crown’s comparison of Stronach to Peter Nygard, 85, the fashion mogul who was sentenced in 2024 to 11 years in prison over historical sex assault charges.

Shemesh objected to this and other comparisons of Stronach to perpetrators of outrageous sexual crimes, such as home invasion sexual assaults and repeated predatory behaviour against vulnerable victims. Despite Stronach’s wealth and fame, the defence lawyer told the judge this case is not like Nygard, or Bill Cosby, or Harvey Weinstein.

But the Crown highlighted Nygard to emphasize the point that Stronach’s advanced age should not necessarily work in his favour. She quoted the judge in Nygard’s case: “Were I to punish him less harshly than his moral blameworthiness calls for because he is now an elderly man, it would, in effect, validate the immunity that wealth and power have given him. In my view, it would be contrary to public policy. It would significantly devalue the importance of denunciation and deterrence. It would send the message that if you are rich and powerful and your victims are vulnerable…, you can escape accountability if you can hold off the day of judgment long enough. That is exactly the wrong message for the court to send. Although age is a factor that I must consider, there is a limit to the amount of weight I will give it.”

Shemesh said she was unable to find any Canadian case of a 90-year-old person being sentenced at all, let alone sentenced to jail time. She said six months in jail would be “excessive” for a man who has “truly earned his place in Canadian history as a visionary” and has been “determined, over the course of his life, to really better society.”

Stronach is “quite a simple man,” she said, devoted to his children and his work, motivated by “goodness, kindness and charity.”

“He has learned to love simplicity,” she said.

Shemesh urged Molloy to find that Stronach has already been punished enough by the process of being charged and tried in the public glare. His name has been “dragged through the mud,” Shemesh said, and seen many of his lifetime honours revoked.

The Aurora Sports Hall of Fame removed his name, the Southlake Health Frank Stronach Cancer Centre removed his name, the City of Newmarket, Ont., renamed its Frank Stronach Park, as did a recreation centre in Aurora, Ont., and most “astonishing and shameful,” Shemesh said, was that the Automotive Hall of Fame had indicated it wants to revoke his induction.

Prosecutor Vlacic said this public reckoning should not minimize his sentence. “When you have a lot, you have a lot to lose,” Vlacic said.

It also emerged that, during his trial in March, Stronach was refused entry to the United States on his way to Tampa, Fla., on the grounds of having outstanding charges against him.

“Whatever punishment the Ministry of the Attorney General was trying to garner, that punishment has already been meted out,” Shemesh said.

She said her client has engaged with this process with “hope and determination,” but the experience has “chipped away at him mentally” and “affected him cognitively” such that it was “difficult to watch.”

Stronach is also charged with other sexual offences involving six women, including as recently as 2024, in a separate matter that is not yet set for trial. That cannot be used against him here because he is presumed innocent, but it came up in the hearing.

“Can I make a positive finding that there’s been no repetition?” Molloy asked Shemesh, when she emphasized Stronach’s “unblemished” life since committing the indecent assault in 1977.

Shemesh said this court knows nothing of those other charges. “He comes before you with an unblemished record,” she said. “There’s no way for your honour to dispute the claim that he has lived an unblemished life.”