‘Difficult decision’ awaits judge in trial of Frank Stronach

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At long last, billionaire Frank Stronach’s high-profile sex assault trial has sputtered to an end.

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Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy told the 93-year-old she hopes to have a decision by June on whether the former auto parts magnate is guilty or innocent of sexually assaulting three young women more than 40 years ago.

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“I have a lot of work to do,” the judge said. “I make no promises. It’s a very difficult decision to write. This is not simple stuff.”

The founder of Magna International knows this much: He will be acquitted on seven of the 12 charges he was originally facing when his sensational trial opened in February. As the prosecution suffered defeat after defeat, they withdrew the counts involving three of the complainants after their testimonies imploded on the witness stand.

Molloy then added to the collapse of the Crown case by announcing last week that she couldn’t convict based on the evidence of a fourth complainant due to her testimony being “not even remotely reliable,” including her changing evidence about what year it had happened.

Defence lawyer alleges Stronach faced ‘abuse of process’

In the trial’s last outstanding issue, Stronach’s defence lawyer Leora Shemesh argued Thursday that her client suffered an “abuse of process,” alleging the Crown conducted “probing” interviews with the women just before the trial began and Toronto Police failed to provide complete notes about those meetings — which hampered her ability to cross-examine the complainants.

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“There’s no coincidence that all seven shortly before the trial, following preparatory meetings, all gave new statements and new memories just suddenly emerged for all seven,” Shemesh argued. “What the defence is saying at the outset is they were guided. Whether that was done inadvertently, it was done.”

Stronach’s lawyer seemed to back off from her allegation earlier in the trial that the Crown had intentionally coached the witnesses. Instead, she suggested prosecutors had to ask “investigative-type questions” because the police had taken everything the women said at face value — and their answers led to new details emerging about the alleged attacks.

“We’ve come to appreciate that the Crown was placed in an unenviable position of having to now suddenly probe memories because the police didn’t,” she said.

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Legal wrangling over new disclosures

To their credit, Shemesh said, prosecutors had the women put their new disclosures on video. But she complained she doesn’t know what led to the revelations because the meetings weren’t recorded and the police notes are incomplete.

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Molloy mused that Shemesh’s expectation that all Crown prep meetings be taped would be a “pretty dramatic change” from normal procedure.

“What is the harm,” Shemesh countered, “in pushing ‘record?’”

Crown attorney David Tice, who was parachuted in to argue the abuse of process motion, said there’s no legal obligation to provide a verbatim record of pre-trial Crown meetings and anything important was captured by the video of the complainant’s new evidence.

“The cases say that summaries are sufficient. The cases say new information has to be recorded. The cases don’t say the context of everything that may have been said before, after, etc., is what’s required here,” Tice told the court.

Testimony of three accusers being weighed

Shemesh is no longer arguing that the abuse of process should result in throwing out the entire case against Stronach, but urged the judge to take it into consideration while weighing the evidence.

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Molloy is left to determine the credibility and reliability of Stronach’s three remaining accusers, all women in their early 20s at the time who enjoyed a dinner date with the much older Stronach before agreeing to go back to a private residence.

A former cocktail waitress testified Stronach ran his hands up and down the sides of her body and she said he urged her to stay as she stood at his door waiting to leave his Harbourfront condo; a legal secretary testified they went to a Balliol St. apartment, where she said he bent her over a chair and tried grinding against her from behind for two to three minutes; and a businesswomen alleged she was vaginally raped in his Harbourfront condo.

Whatever the judge decides, Stronach is still expected to face a second trial this year in Newmarket involving six more complainants.

mmandel@postmedia.com

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