Flamboyant fashion mogul Peter Nygard has been busted on charges of sexually assaulting dozens of teenage girls and women for decades, Manhattan federal prosecutors said on Tuesday.
The 79-year-old Finnish-born designer and businessman — whose women’s apparel company was headquartered in Times Square — is accused of fueling his “near-daily’’ need for sex with victims as young as 14.
Nygard, who has been living in Canada, was nabbed in Winnipeg on Monday at the request of the US feds.
Manhattan prosecutors had been investigating the gray-maned magnate at least since February, when they raided his city headquarters after a slew of women sued him for alleged sex abuse.
The multimillionaire appeared in Winnipeg court Tuesday — trading his usual flashy duds for a gray sweatshirt and prison pants — after the US feds unsealed a nine-count indictment against him for charges ranging from sex trafficking to racketeering.
The alleged incidents go as far back as 1995.
“Harm to his victims has included not only economic and psychological harm but also numerous instances of nonconsensual sex, including nonconsensual group sex, attempted forcible rapes and drugging of victims,’’ US prosecutors wrote in court papers seeking the designer’s extradition to the United States.
The threads tycoon is accused of using his successful Nygard International brand to recruit victims, putting them on his payroll as “models,” “assistants” or communication specialists, prosecutors said.
The dough was used for everything from plastic surgery for the women to dental work — and even abortions, authorities said.
Nygard called some of the women his “girlfriends’’ as they traveled with him to his palatial properties in California, the Bahamas and Canada, officials said.
He would allegedly recruit more victims by hosting “Pamper Parties,” or gigs known for their free food, drinks and spa treatments, at his estates in Marina del Rey, Calif., and the Bahamas.
In the Bahamas, Nygard built a pleasure dome in the form of a Mayan temple and disco featuring a stripper pole, The New York Times has reported.
Nygard would allegedly use a “girlfriend” or employee at his eccentric parties to scout out a fresh victim, who would then be forced to have sex with him — and later receive hundreds to thousands of dollars in cash.
Some guests, including minors, were drugged to get them to perform his sexual demands, prosecutors said.
Others were allegedly lured to a secluded area of the property where they were physically coerced or manipulated into sex acts.
Nygard also hosted sexual “swaps” with friends and business associates, who would bring a “date” to trade for sex with one of his “girlfriends,” the feds said.
“ ‘Girlfriends’ were not consulted in advance that they would be traded for sex, and Nygard often pressured them to comply with swaps at his direction through manipulation, intimidation, degradation and threats,” the court documents said.
Nygard also brought his “girlfriends’’ to “swingers’ clubs” in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles and Winnipeg — where he would pressure the women into having sex with other men so he could sleep with someone else there, prosecutors said.
Nygard kept his “girlfriends” under constant surveillance, insisting they needed his permission to leave the properties — a rule enforced by his company’s employees, prosecutors said.
He also allegedly used false promises of modeling opportunities, financial support and threats to coerce the women into sexual encounters.
After a group of women sued him in February alleging he sex-trafficked them, two of Nygard’s own sons sued him in August — for allegedly hiring a “known sex worker” to rape them as teens.
Nygard is accused of telling one of his boys that he wanted the woman to “make a man” out of them.
The sons said at the time of their suit that they came forward to lend weight to the claims from Nygard’s other accusers, who now total 57 in the class-action case.
Several of the women have said they were 14 or 15 years old when the mogul raped them.
Nygard has been battered by accusations for years — at least partly fueled by a bizarre and incredibly bitter feud with his Bahamas neighbor, hedge-fund billionaire Louis Bacon.
The two — who have been described as polar opposites, with Nygard flamboyant and Bacon more the lawn-croquet type — have spent years and tens of millions of dollars trading lawsuits and accusations from insider trading to murder, the Times has said.
Bacon has allegedly offered Cartier jewelry and a year’s rent in a gated community, among other things, to build cases against Nygard, including involving sex-abuse allegations, the outlet said in its February piece. Meanwhile, Nygard has allegedly shelled out tens of thousands of dollars to accrue alleged evidence against Bacon in various cases.
Nygard has previously denied the sex accusations of the women and his sons.
His lawyer, Jay Prober, said Tuesday, “Mr. Nygard vehemently denies all the allegations and expects to be vindicated in court.’’
Earlier this year, amid the women’s lawsuit, Nygard stepped away from the fashion brand he founded, saying he was prioritizing the welfare of his employees, business partners and vendors.
He founded Nygard International as a sportswear manufacturer in 1967 — and now it has more than 170 stores in North America, according to its Web site.
Nygard’s lawyers said he will seek bail. He is due back in court on Jan. 13.
With Wires