Crown seeks six-month jail sentence for billionaire Frank Stronach

Prosecutors are seeking a six-month jail sentence for Canadian auto-parts magnate Frank Stronach following his conviction for a historical indecent assault. At a sentencing hearing Thursday morning, Crown attorney Jelena Vlacic said the 1977 assault was sudden and disorienting and had a lasting impact on the complainant, who was 25 at the time and 20 years younger than Stronach.

Vlacic cited mitigating factors, including Stronach’s lack of a criminal record before the offence and his decades as a prominent business leader. But she argued the court should give limited weight to more than a dozen character-reference letters from former employees and other supporters who said they had never seen him behave inappropriately toward women. Defence lawyer Leora Shemesh called the Crown’s proposed sentence excessive as she began her submissions.

The hearing comes while the Crown challenges a judge’s decision to declare a rare post-verdict mistrial on Stronach’s sexual assault conviction. Stronach, 94, was found guilty in June on both charges, which arose from separate allegations by two women in his Toronto criminal trial. Weeks later, Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy granted a mistrial on the sexual assault conviction after emails from the complainant’s lawyer in a separate civil case were presented in court. Stronach’s lawyer argued the emails told a story inconsistent with the woman’s criminal-trial testimony. Shemesh told The Canadian Press at the time that the court had not heard from the complainant before the decision.

The Crown’s appeal seeks to restore the guilty verdict for sexual assault and return the case to Superior Court for sentencing. Stronach initially faced 12 charges involving allegations from seven complainants dating to the late 1970s. The Crown later withdrew one charge and agreed he should be acquitted on four others. Molloy then said she could not convict him on two charges involving one complainant because she found that person’s evidence unreliable. Five charges involving three complainants remained, and Stronach was found guilty on two before the mistrial was granted. He is scheduled to face a jury trial next year in Newmarket, Ont., in a sexual assault case involving six complainants.