Woman tells Stronach’s trial she felt ’terrified’

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Waking up in a dimly lit room, the woman saw her own face and someone’s back reflected in a mirror on the ceiling and realized she was being raped, she told a Toronto court as the sexual assault trial of billionaire businessman Frank Stronach began on Thursday.

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“I feel someone having sex with me and I realize that it’s him and I’m just very confused,” the woman testified, laying out her account of a night more than 40 years ago.

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“I’m terrified and I’m naked and I don’t know how I got there,” she said. She had run into Stronach at his Toronto restaurant earlier that night while celebrating her upcoming birthday with co-workers, but had blacked out at times, she said.

“I realize I am being raped in that moment.”

The woman, who was in her early 20s at the time, said she knew she hadn’t consented because she would never have slept with “an old man, particularly an old, married man.”

Now in her 60s, the woman is the first of seven complainants expected to testify at a trial that has captured international attention and seen several twists before it even got underway. None of the complainants can be identified under a standard publication ban.

Stronach, who is 93, has pleaded not guilty to a dozen charges related to incidents that allegedly took place from the late 1970s to the 1990s.

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Prosecutors said they intend to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that those incidents occurred, that the complainants did not consent to sexual activity with Stronach, and that he knew they didn’t or was wilfully blind to it.

The woman was working at a Toronto racetrack in what she believes was the spring and summer of 1981 when she first met the auto parts magnate, she said.

They crossed paths “a handful of times” at Woodbine racetrack, mostly talking about horses, she testified, adding she knew he owned horses. They spoke a few times after she left the track to work at a farm, again about horses, she said.

Woman recalls alleged assault

Later that summer, two of her new co-workers suggested going out to Rooney’s, Stronach’s restaurant, to celebrate her birthday, the woman said.

On a Thursday night after work, the woman put on her favourite grey knit dress — the one she usually wore to church _ slipping her underwear over her pantyhose to help secure it in place, then drove to the restaurant to meet the others, she said.

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The restaurant seemed empty as she sat down at the table with her co-workers, she said.

Almost immediately, Stronach appeared with a bottle of champagne, “kind of like, ‘surprise!’,” she said.

The woman said she remembered telling him she didn’t drink, then “coming to on the dance floor” to him holding her tightly and pressing his hands in her crotch.

“I felt his fingers directly inside me and I recall it being painful,” she said. “I recall not understanding what was going on,” feeling discombobulated and incapable of controlling her body, she added.

Her dress was lifted in the front, her underwear had been pushed aside and there was a hole in her pantyhose, she said.

She pushed him away and tried to say no, but a prior throat condition made her words come out like a croak, she said.

Stronach quickly shoved her in a booth, where he continued sticking his fingers inside her and touching her body, the woman said. She could see silhouettes nearby but didn’t know if they were also in the booth, she said.

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“I knew I couldn’t walk, my body was not working, my legs weren’t working, I was weak,” she said.

Woman said she felt ‘horrified’

Her next memory is of waking up with Stronach on top of her, she said. After what she thought were a few minutes, the woman got up and went to the bathroom, where she spent some time “freaking out” on the toilet, she said.

Peeking out, she saw her clothes in a pile, then darted out to get them and got dressed in the bathroom, she said. She didn’t put on her pantyhose.

They headed out soon after, and a glance out a window told her she was at the harbourfront, she said.

Stronach was acting “like everything was normal” as he walked her out and drove her back to her car, she said.

“He was acting like we’d been on a date… like we’d had fun,” she said. Meanwhile, she felt “horrified” and furious, she said.

She never spoke to those co-workers after that night, the woman said. Nor did she seek medical attention or go to the police at the time, she said.

“I just wanted it to be over,” she said, adding she didn’t think anyone would believe her.

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Woman contacted police years later

She contacted Halton regional police in 2015 after an incident with her superintendent stirred up her anxiety, she said. She also felt like a hypocrite staying silent on her own experience while speaking up for women and victims’ rights, she said.

She was referred to Toronto police, but nothing happened until 2024, when police in Peel Region contacted her, she said. Stronach was charged months later.

Stronach’s lawyer pressed the woman Thursday on her memory of the dates, locations and details of her account, as well as her preparation for the trial, suggesting the woman’s testimony had been “tainted.”

Defence lawyer Leora Shemesh noted that the woman previously told police and media that the incident took place in 1980, two days before her birthday, which was on a Saturday.

She suggested the woman changed it to 1981 after hearing that Stronach may not have been in Canada the year before. But if it happened in 1981, the woman’s birthday would have fallen on a Sunday, Shemesh said.

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The woman replied she had always been unsure about the timing, but that she was 90 per cent sure it was 1981 after coming across a recommendation letter from that year.

She also acknowledged under cross-examination that she didn’t know if the dance floor she found herself on was at Rooney’s.

The trial, which was delayed by more than a week, is set to continue Friday with more cross-examination.

The judge-alone trial was initially scheduled to begin early last week but Stronach’s lawyer asked for more time to prepare after receiving what she described as a large volume of disclosure “at the 11th hour.”

When court reconvened for an update days later, Shemesh indicated she would apply for a stay of proceedings over concerns some of the complainants may have been coached by prosecutors. The application would be heard after the trial.

Stronach, best known as the founder of the auto parts conglomerate Magna International, is also expected to stand trial in Newmarket, Ont., later this year on sexual assault charges. He has denied those allegations as well.

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