Defence closes in Frank Stronach sex assault trial

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The defence has closed its case in the Frank Stronach sex assault trial — and left the police investigation looking embarrassingly shoddy and incomplete.

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On the hot seat Wednesday were the two lead investigators from the Peel Regional Police’s special victims unit being probed by Stronach’s lawyer Leora Shemesh. She wanted to know what steps they’d taken to verify the claims made by seven women who alleged the billionaire founder of Magna International had sexually assaulted them decades earlier.

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Shockingly, it seems they did very little. Instead, in the post #MeToo climate, the mantra “believe them” seemed to be enough to arrest the business magnate and charge him with 12 counts. Stronach, 93, has pleaded not guilty to all counts.

Crown withdrew five charges related to three women

With the lack of a thorough police investigation, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that by the time the accusers were cross-examined during the judge-alone trial, there were enough inconsistencies and credibility problems with some of their testimonies that the Crown had little choice but to withdraw five charges related to three of the women.

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Even the most basic assurances weren’t sought by the police — such as having the complainants swear their statements were true, being cautioned about repercussions if they were lying and being warned their statements were now formal documents that could be used in court.

Gabe Dinardo, one of the lead officers on the case, said he would have reminded the seven women to be truthful, but agreed that instruction wasn’t in their video statements or his notes. It wasn’t his practice, he explained, to have complainants actually swear they were telling the truth.

Shemesh asked if police ran any background checks on the accusers — looked at their social media profiles, investigated whether they’d ever been sued?

“No, only if it became relevant,” responded the increasingly flustered officer.

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Court heard one of the complainants dropped from the case had been involved in numerous lawsuits, including being sued by a man who alleged she had him falsely arrested.

“In the time that you were on this case, so for about the two years that you’ve been investigating this case, do you ever investigate the veracity of the allegations? Do you ever actually challenge the narratives you’re being given?” the defence lawyer asked with barely veiled incredulity.

“Only if we had information to believe people were lying, which we did not,” he replied. “I’m going to believe someone unless I have evidence to show that they’re lying.”

Condo layout wasn’t checked, court hears

Many of the women alleged they’d been assaulted by Stronach in a Harbour Castle condo and one described seeing mirrors on the ceiling. Did they send officers there, check title records to see what unit he owned and get its layout to check it against their evidence?

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Dinardo wasn’t even aware there was a condo tower on the site — he assumed the alleged assaults occurred in the adjacent hotel and sent officers to investigate if any of the rooms had mirrored ceilings at the time. A former cleaner initially said they had but in her video statement said she must have been thinking about a TV show.

Some of the women mentioned an underground garage at the site — but that was never verified, either, he conceded. Court heard there was only above-grade parking at the time.

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One of the women said she’d been sexually assaulted at an apartment on Balliol St. but Dinardo agreed police didn’t investigate if Stronach had ever rented there.

“So you assume everyone’s telling the truth, right? But then you don’t do anything to determine if they aren’t?” Shemesh asked.

“We were limited in that factor because of how much time had gone by since the allegations occurred,” the officer replied. “For example, there would be no surveillance videos or other stuff like that.”

But there was documentary evidence, the lawyer argued, such as documents from the Ministry of Transportation to see if Stronach had a Porsche at the time — one of the complainants said she’d been driven in one — or records from Canada Border Services to check if he was in the country.

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There were discussions but the team decided those checks “wouldn’t provide any value,” he said. Stronach could have borrowed the Porsche and there were no firm dates to check with CBSA because many of the women couldn’t pin down exactly when the alleged incidents occurred.

“So even if he was travelling at a certain time, it wouldn’t prove or disprove that these things didn’t happen,” he said.

Shemesh countered that investigators did have at least one exact date — one complainant said she’d been raped on Feb. 14, 1986.

“Did you do anything to determine if he was in the country?”

“No,” Dinardo replied.

When asked when he took the stand, Ted Misev, the officer in charge of the investigation, said he didn’t check because he knew from past investigations that CBSA records only date back seven to 10 years.

Shemesh also asked Misev why the complainants hadn’t been sworn or cautioned about the consequences of misleading the police.

Sexual assault still remains a largely under-reported crime, he explained, and he wouldn’t want to “scare somebody from disclosing an intimate incident that’s occurred to them.”

“Believe them” is the mantra. But surely that shouldn’t mean a wholesale abdication of a thorough police investigation when someone’s liberty is at stake.

Closing arguments are expected to begin March 31.

mmandel@postmedia.com

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