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I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline. Tonight, inside a glittering fashion empire
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in what some say was the dark secret at its heart. Peter Nygaard created a fantasy land.
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You get to this huge, ginormous gate. You feel like you're going into Jurassic Park.
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You see these temples, tennis courts, the beach. Nygaard was having these extravagant parties.
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He said, which one should I take for me? Her or her? Like a buffet of women. Yeah.
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I asked him to stop. And I started crying. He was just on top of me. And I can't try to push away.
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It was hell and paradise. He had the power to shut people down. He knew how to intimidate them into silence.
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Peter Nygaard's lawyer said that Peter Nygaard, quote, absolutely and categorically denies your claims.
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I know my own truth. They say Epstein, Weinstein, Nygaard. There's nothing like him.
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I don't put him in the same universe as others. It's surreal to think about my father,
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what he was doing outside of the limelight in secret. When I see his face, I see a monster.
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Here's Natalie Morales with The Secrets of Nygaard Key. Jenny Gilmer says there is no forgetting.
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I remember that pain every day. No going back to the girl she used to be. I know what happened to me.
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And I know it was wrong. But today she's moving forward on a healing journey, taking it step by step.
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I think it's important to finally speak up, not just for my story, but for all the other young girls that this happened to.
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And Jenny is certain of one thing now. She is not on this journey alone. I wonder how many people has he done this to?
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So many ugly stories in such a beautiful place. It was a well-oiled machine. You saw that?
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Definitely. A machine hidden in the heart of a multi-million dollar fashion empire,
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now being laid bare in a quest for the truth. Justice is people waking up and realizing this is true, it occurred,
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evil like this exists in the world, and we cannot stand silent. No one wants the truth more than this man, a son faced with a terrible choice.
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His name is Kai. He grew up here in a small town on the tip of Puget Sound, raised by his single mom.
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His life a modest one. But once he turned 12, Kai started spending summers with his father in a world across the ocean.
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A world his dad was building out of the sand in the Bahamas. Imagine going there, you've got your dad.
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He's working the actual cranes, moving palm trees around. A little treehouse cabana popped up one time, and before I know it, there was this giant Mayan temple there, and just expanded.
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A tropical playground as outlandish as the man himself, Peter Nygaard. All right, we're home.
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He was a fashion mogul whose company had more than a half a billion dollars in sales.
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Factories and warehouses in Asia and North America, a private jet, and exclusive homes dotted around the world.
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If you want to be the best in the world, that's all you can pursue. But he had started out with nothing.
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Born in Finland, his family had immigrated to Canada when he was a boy, something Kai heard a lot about growing up.
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They fell into extreme poverty, and they had to bootstrap their way to a new life.
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He overcame tremendous obstacles. Nygaard elbowed his way into the fashion industry,
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making a fortune by selling practical clothes to working women at stores like Saks and Dillard's, as well as his own boutiques.
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But his real genius had been his branding. He hired a supermodel, Beverly Peel, who had graced runways around the world to be his public muse.
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He asked you to be the face of Nygaard. It wasn't worded like that, but yes, I basically, bottom line is I was the Nygaard model.
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And I remember that my friend was saying his net worth went up when I became the face of that.
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And Nygaard put himself at the heart of his marketing, too. Nygaard had a big ego and I, with cameras flashing, and it was able to provide him like a sense of importance.
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Steven Ferraglio was Nygaard's videographer, on call to film him 24-7. The entrepreneur's life captured on more than a thousand hours of video.
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casting Peter Nygaard as the star of his own fabulous universe. Years later, that very same video would be used to tell a very different story.
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But back then, it was all about creating the right image. We would go to clubs and we would go to restaurants
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and he would want it to look like there was paparazzi around him. He would want a big entrance.
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By the time Kai was out of college, Nygaard's name and face loomed large in Times Square,
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New York, the site of Nygaard's world headquarters. It was incredible to be in New York and to walk down the street and I could see Nygaard
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and blue letters going down the side of the building. I could take the subway and come
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out and it right there Kai joined the company mainly working in Los Angeles When his dad was in town they play volleyball and sometimes have dinner His dad flanked by girlfriends
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Kai was used to that. He did not make it a secret to anyone that he wanted to surround himself with various beautiful women at any given time.
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He would say that that was consensual non-monogamy. That was his lifestyle. A lifestyle Kimberly LaPalme says she heard about before she even met him.
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In 2006, she was a top-notch corporate flight attendant when she got a call about heading up the crew on N-Force, Nygaard's private plane.
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It was presented to me like an Air Force One, very presidential. And I was so excited.
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And maybe that's why she didn't pay more attention to a strange question she says she got asked at her job interview.
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It was explained to me that, uh-huh, Mr. Nygaard, just, you know, he's a bachelor, so he dates a lot of women, and he might be, you know, flying one girlfriend for dinner somewhere and another girlfriend for dinner another time. Would that upset you?
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She didn't think it would. She had seen a lot in her career. In her 20s, she fronted a band with the name Stiletto Fetish, making edgy music videos and touring with ZZ Top.
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You're not the kind who shocks easily then. Not at all. But Peter Nygaard shocked you.
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He did. And that says a lot. This was something that sticks with me forever. She was about to meet a boss who would not only shock her, but scare her.
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Because Kimberly was entering Peter Nygaard's world, an empire built on fashion.
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But perhaps hiding something darker and bigger than anyone could imagine. It wouldn't be long before Kimberly got her first inkling of what she says it meant to work for Nygaard.
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When we come back, parties with Peter. He said, so do you think she's hot or do you think her or her?
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Like a buffet of women. Oh, yeah. And then what she says happened on his plane. All of a sudden, he grabbed me and he said, women like you deserve this.
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They were his calling card, Peter Nygaard's entourage of young women. By his side at store openings, fashion shows, parties,
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always on display for his videographer's cameras. They danced for him. They went to dinner with him.
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He would parade them in during one of his meetings. But according to his son, Nygaard's band of girlfriends was not just a marketing gimmick.
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He's constantly surrounding himself with women all the time, obsessed with women.
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And Kai says that obsession permeated the workplace. Kimberly LaPalme says she was in charge of getting his bedroom ready on his private plane.
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I always went on the day before the flight with the Viagra prescription. Viagra?
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The condoms and the lube and stuff like that. And that was all put in the top drawer.
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Not something you had perhaps ever stocked a flight with before? No. Many employees told us that Nygaard had his own way of doing things, to say the least.
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Mara Del Carbuccio was the treasurer of one of Nygaard's companies in California.
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She said Nygaard summoned her one day to the bedroom at his beach house for a work meeting.
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He came out of the jacuzzi completely naked. Like he was going to go to work like that?
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Because you're there with your computer. I am there with my computer. Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack.
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Clack, clack. Whoa. Yeah. And did you want to just get out of there? I got out of there really fast.
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And when I mentioned it to him, don't you think it's a little inappropriate? He gave me this long story.
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What is the big deal? We are born naked. We are, okay. Later on in her time with Nygaard, Maradel says she was asked to help out at something he called a pamper party.
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They were Sunday gatherings at his various homes, advertised as a place for aspiring models to relax and mingle.
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and a key part of his work hard, play hard image. Supermodel Beverly Peel says Nygaard liked her to be there.
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Do you think he was, you know, using your name, your face at these pamper parties?
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Yes, of course. Supermodel Beverly Peel is here if you want to, you know, you too can be a supermodel like Beverly Peel.
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Beverly thought the parties were just a way for Nygaard to meet attractive girls to sleep with,
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and she didn't like it. Neither did Kimberly, barely a week into her job. She says Nygaard approached her at a pamper party.
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And he said, so what about her over there? Like, do you think she's hot? Or do you think her or her?
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Like a buffet of women. Oh, yeah. That's a good way of looking at it. But he's a bachelor.
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He's single. I'm sure that's the way he would explain that. So, yeah, he's got a great lifestyle.
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So yeah, but I wasn't comfortable with my new boss asking me and I kind of deflected it.
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I just said, you know, I'm sure they're all beautiful. He didn have a distinction between where his personal life started and then where it ended It was all together It was all in one Dana Neal worked in Nygaard Human Resources Department for two years
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He was recruitment and retention manager and says most people didn't stick around longer than three months.
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He says there wasn't really a formal process for employees to complain to HR. That didn't stop Kimberly from trying.
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She said that she had reported his behavior multiple times. Were you aware of that?
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Yeah. Oh, yeah. And was anything done about her complaints? Nothing. Nothing was ever done.
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Dana says executives made excuses for Nygaard's behavior. It's just downplayed. Oh, it wasn't like that. It wasn't so bad.
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He's got a panache. He's got character, you know, that sort of thing. And everyone had a story about Nygaard's temper.
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What the f*** the matter with you? His videographer more than once caught him yelling and cursing at employees.
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You do not have any f***ing taste at all. Every day was some new fresh hell. Like every day there was some new fresh hell.
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With the f***ing music on as well. You have to be there to witness him. How scary he is.
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How he screams. How he acts. Peter says he would say that he's God. Did he tell you that?
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Yes. Kimberly says she saw that temper up close too. About a month after she started working for Nygaard, she says she went into his bedroom on the plane to ask him for some time off.
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All of a sudden, he grabbed me from the back of my waist and he shoved his hand down the cheeks of my bum, right down, and he cupped my bum.
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and he said, women like you, he said, deserve this. You don't deserve days off. I started to cry.
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I'm sorry. What did you do? And then he goes, get on your knees. And you asked me for those days off.
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Kimberly told us other crew members were on the plane when this happened, but nobody stepped in to help.
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Why do you think everybody around him seemed to turn a blind eye? Number one fear. Number one fear. He ruled with fear.
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Peter Nygaard was by many accounts the boss from hell who got away with abusive behavior in his offices all over Canada and the U.S.
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But what about that fantastical place he built for himself in the Bahamas on the furthest point of the island?
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What kind of secrets might be hidden there? Bahamas, it was hell in paradise. Coming up, this woman describes a horrifying night with Nygaard when she was just a teen.
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When he was finished, I went down to my room and I locked the door. I was scared and ashamed.
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Very ashamed. When Dateline continues. Nygaard Key was everything a wealthy playboy could want.
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Back home, back home. And showing it off for the cameras seemed key to the image Peter Nygaard was constantly crafting.
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This is all going to be my home for you. You know how every house has its for you?
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The treehouse cabana Kai remembered was now a fabulous pleasure palace, sprawling over a secluded spit of land.
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Featured on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. If ever there was a correct candidate for Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,
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I would say that it would be Peter Nygaard. Even Beverly Peel, who had modeled around the world
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and was no stranger to glamour and excess, was impressed. You get to this huge, ginormous Jurassic Park-sized gate.
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Like, you feel like you're going into Jurassic Park, like in the movie. The gate opens up, and then you hear this music.
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Because you're going in. When the gate is opening, the music is. Then you hear the music and it's everywhere.
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Welcome to Nygaard Key. Every visitor was required to check in at a gatehouse. And more than a dozen people we spoke to told us they could only check out with Peter Nygaard's permission.
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In fact, employees at the gatehouse routinely collected visitors' passports. Could you just walk out?
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You can't just walk out, no. Jenny Gilmer knows that now, wishes she didn't, because now she can never forget the place or the man.
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He's my nightmare. Still, all these years later. Yes. It was 1998. Jenny was fresh out of boarding school in Canada.
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19 years old, her life ahead of her. But first, a trip to the Bahamas. It's paradise.
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It is. Jenny was with her mom on the island. She sailed, enjoyed the sun, and took up tennis, lessons with an instructor.
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He told her about an amazing place with courts by the ocean. He said, okay, well, your next lesson, I'd like to take you to Chief's house to play tennis.
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Chief. He called him. Chief and boss. Chief and boss. The tennis instructor asked her to wear a dress.
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Odd request, but she did. She brought her mom along and went to Nygaard Key and met its owner, the chief and boss.
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You're introduced to Peter Nygaard. Describe him as you first encounter him. Kind of very nice, very friendly, very eccentric.
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Big smile on his face. What did he say to you? He welcomed us and asked me if I'd like to play tennis.
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And I said that I was in a dress. And he said, well, he had tennis shoes for me.
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But they in my room She went with him climbing the stairs to his bedroom in the treetops in his closet rows of tennis shoes and more To the left of the tennis shoes was a big shelf
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and it had boxes and boxes of KY, it said KY jelly on it. Did you know what that was at 19?
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I did not. I did not. Boxes and boxes of KY jelly. Yeah. When did you figure that out, what that was?
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a few weeks later. Tennis followed, then cocktails. The following week, the coach took Jenny back.
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And when Peter Nygaard heard her mother had to return to Canada, he invited Jenny to stay.
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What did you think about this, though, his offer to stay for the rest of the summer?
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Here's your very own cabana. That was incredible. He said, you know, you can enjoy the beach, play tennis.
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No strings attached? No strings attached. Days later, Jenny handed over her passport and settled into Nygaard Key.
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One evening, she and some other guests were invited to drinks in Nygaard's room.
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Jenny says she started to feel dizzy, unable to control her body. Then she says she was alone with Nygaard.
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And he raped her. When he was finished, I lied there for a few minutes because I was just so hurt.
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And I was bleeding. and I went down to my room and I locked the door and then I stayed there for about two days.
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And in that time, what did you do during those two days? I stayed in bed a lot. I was really hurt and I didn't know what to do.
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And I was scared and sad and ashamed. Very ashamed. In the days that followed, she says,
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as Nygaard assaulted her again and again. She says she was too ashamed to tell anyone what was happening,
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although there were plenty of people around. There were some opportunities, though, that you were off,
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outside of Nygaard Key that potentially could have asked for help. So some might say, why not ask?
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It seems like an easy question, but it's not. I was broken, and maybe I deserved it as well,
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because I couldn't stop it. and I put myself in the situation by going there and just to stay.
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And I didn't want anyone to know. Jenny says she couldn't go far anyway because Nygaard had her passport
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and she felt he was watching her. He had eyes everywhere. He knew where everybody was at all times.
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Jenny remembers that Kai, Nygaard's son, was also in the Bahamas that summer. He would have been about 15 years old, only a few years younger than her.
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She says she's haunted by the memory of Kai looking for his dad during one of the assaults.
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I was in Peter's room, and you could see out with the glass around his room, but you couldn't see in.
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He had me on the bed, and his son was knocking on the door. Looking for his dad?
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Here was this kid looking for his dad. and I was inside and even if I screamed he wouldn't have heard me
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but how could I do that to this kid for him to find out what kind of person his dad really is
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You were thinking about that in that time I felt way worse for him than I did for me at that moment
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Yeah After three weeks at Nygaard Key she says Nygaard was leaving He gave her back her passport.
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Were there any words exchanged besides just, here's your passport? He just said, good luck, good luck with school.
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There was no sorry. There was no sense of remorse. Nothing. Jenny says she went home numb and broken.
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She says she told no one, determined to leave what she says happened at Nygaard Key behind her.
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I thought if I just forgot it happened and kind of turned myself off, that I would be okay.
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I now know that that was a very bad idea because I was not okay. She felt so alone.
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She had no idea then what else was happening in that hellish paradise. Coming up, Beverly recalls a nighttime visitor to her room.
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It's this young lady who is just petrified, and she was begging me to help her. She'd planned it so differently, the life she would have after a summer in the sun in the Bahamas.
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Instead, Jenny Gilmer went home to Canada feeling overwhelmed by the agony of what she says happened to her at Nygaard Key.
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That kind of pain, even if you push it all the way to the back, it's still there.
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It altered my decisions, my decision-making through life, relationships, depression.
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As Jenny struggled over the next few years to rebuild her life, Nygaard was building up his fashion empire.
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There were the store openings and deals. He doubled the size of his California distribution center,
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opened that corporate headquarters in New York. Nearly 10 years went by, and that's when Dana Neal,
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Nygaard's head of retention, and flight attendant Kimberly LaPalme came on board.
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They visited Nygaard Key and did not like what they saw. It's like heart of darkness.
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You're going down the river, And things are just going to get weirder and weirder and darker.
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And they sure did. Yeah. Dana made just one trip there, saw one of those pamper parties where Nygaard would be seen surrounded by attractive women.
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He says Nygaard told him he'd been taking care of one woman since she was a teenager.
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What did you think he meant by those words? Well, considering that he was exposing, you know, her breasts to me and then sticking his hand down her pants, it was pretty obvious.
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Dana says he told his boss, Nygaard's CFO, how upset he was. So you were still in the Bahamas when you make this phone call?
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Yeah. Yeah, you were that alarmed. Yeah, I called him up and I said, this is nuts.
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A few months later, he quit. I quit without having another job to go to, just because I couldn't be a part of that anymore.
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Kimberly LaPalm says she saw women at Nygaard Key that seemed too young to be there.
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Like Dana, she left the company after her first work trip to the Bahamas. And Beverly Peel, who made many trips to Nygaard Key,
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told us this story about a young woman who appeared at her door one night. It's this young lady who is just petrified.
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And she was begging me to help her to leave. How old did she seem to you? She looked like a baby.
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Not developed yet, you know, or going through puberty kind of look. And she was crying and asking me to help her.
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So I went down to the gatehouse and was like, this girl needs a taxi. She needs to go home.
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Beverly says the staff wouldn't call a taxi. Oh, we haven't had permission from Nygaard yet.
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And then Beverly says she vanished. Man, I turn around and this girl is gone. She's gone.
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She struggled over barbed wire fence, barefoot. Did you ever confront Peter Nygaard and say, this can't happen.
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This is unacceptable. No. Beverly regrets that now, but her story is complicated.
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It would take her years to tell it. Just as it would take years for Maradel Carbuccia to tell her full story.
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Because she says she hadn't just experienced Nygaard's bullying or his workplace nudity.
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She says Nygaard sexually assaulted her. I saw his face really, really close to me, and that was it.
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She says it happened in 2016. Nygaard had an office and home in Marina del Rey, California.
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Meridell was staying there at one of his apartments, auditing the accounts of his latest venture, a cannabis facility.
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At first, Meridell thought she could handle Nygaard's moods and eccentric behavior,
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but she says nothing prepared her for that night he summoned her to his room. All of a sudden, the phone rings in my room.
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And he says, I need to review some things with you. I said, now? He goes, yes. She says she grabbed her laptop and went upstairs.
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Nygaard offered her a soft drink. But after just a few sips, she says something happened.
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I started getting fuzzy vision. And really, really dizzy. and I couldn't feel my hands,
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I just hear him talking to me and talking to me and then all of a sudden, I just wasn't functional anymore.
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And I tried, like mentally, I was trying to get up. I'm sorry. But I couldn't get up.
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He was just on top of me. And I kept trying to push away. I was like, Peter, get off me.
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What are you doing? And then she says she blacked out. When I woke up in the morning, I was just there by myself.
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Nobody was there. Maradel says she crept back to her apartment in shock. I sat down in the bed in the room, and I slowly took off all the clothes.
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I took off everything, took a shower. I probably stood in that shower probably more than an hour, just having water on top of me.
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Just like Jenny Gilmer, Maradel believed Nygaard had drugged her before he sexually assaulted her.
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And just like Jenny Gilmer, Maradel felt so alone. She says she stayed in her room for hours, her mind reeling, wondering what to do next.
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I felt ashamed, embarrassed. I never thought that I would see myself in a situation like that.
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She was afraid, too, scared of what Nygaard would do if she reported him. So she stayed silent for the time being. Others managed to speak out sooner, though it often did not go well. Not well at all.
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Coming up, Dana Neal prepares to go public with accusations against Nygaard. What he says followed.
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There was a dude who tried to break into my house in the middle of the night. He said to me, Peter says hi.
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When Dateline continues Jenny Gilmer continued to struggle in the years after she says she was raped at Nygaard Key
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At one point she was hospitalized for depression and tried to take her own life.
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It reached that low point in your life. It did. I just couldn't, I couldn't take it anymore.
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The pain was just too much. As for Nygaard, his business empire prospered. He was a success story in Winnipeg, his home base.
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But stories about him spread. Suspicions flourished. It wouldn't have been very long after I started working at the Winnipeg Free Press
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before I would have first heard a story about, oh yeah, he's a weirdo or he's a creep.
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Ryan Thorpe, an investigative reporter with the Winnipeg Free Press. There was just all of these kind of rumblings and rumors and stories about, you know, people who worked there and had creepy experiences or uncomfortable experiences or inappropriate experiences.
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In the 1990s, Nygaard paid to settle three sexual harassment complaints against him in Canada.
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He did not admit wrongdoing. Years earlier, there had been a more serious allegation.
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In 1980, the Winnipeg police charged him with rape. The charge was ultimately stayed after the 18-year-old who had accused Nygaard of rape declined to testify at trial.
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And Nygaard subsequently claimed vindication. Dana Neal, the former HR manager, says Nygaard was a master at batting away employee complaints and bad press.
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He calls it libel chill. What do you mean by libel chill? Well, just because he had so much money, there would be threats to sue you into the ground.
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And then that would be enough to scare people and then they'd go away and they'd be quiet.
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But Dana decided he didn't want to be quiet. After he quit the company, he began talking to investigative journalists at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's news magazine, The Fifth Estate.
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I started thinking, yeah, maybe I actually can do something about this as opposed to just walking away.
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Even before any reports aired, Nygaard apparently got word Dana was talking to reporters.
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And then Dana says libel chill started happening to him. I started getting first nasty letters and then I started getting, you know, served and, you know, for things that were just patently false, like just did not happen to try and shut me up.
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And then that just strengthened my resolve. They accused you of copying data files or sharing company secrets.
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Yeah, that didn't happen. What did happen was that Nygaard sued him for breaching his employment agreement.
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And he says he got a frightening nighttime visit. There was a dude who tried to break in the front door of my house in the middle of the night.
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And I had a bat. I just kind of pointed it at him and went like this. And he said to me, hey, do you know Peter Nygaard?
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And I just stared at him, and then he said, Peter says hi. Then he jumped off my steps and ran away.
00:33:23
Kimberly LaPalme, the flight attendant who left the company after her first trip to the Bahamas,
00:33:28
started talking to the same CBC reporters. She says she received threatening phone calls even before she was interviewed.
00:33:36
I was told, how would your current boss like to know that you're not to be trusted,
00:33:43
that you are not trustworthy because you break non-disclosure agreements. Nygaard sued the CBC to try to stop the report from airing, but it didn't work.
00:33:53
This is the fifth mistake. The CBC's investigative report aired in 2010, the first to take an in-depth, unvarnished look at Nygaard.
00:34:01
It portrayed him as an abusive boss and included allegations of sexual misconduct.
00:34:08
Nygaard sued the CBC again, this time for criminal defamation. Dana says Nygaard's litigiousness hurt his reputation.
00:34:17
I had a tough go for a while after that. The HR community in Winnipeg didn't want to touch me because of the tremendous backlash that happened.
00:34:29
Jenny Gilmer followed the news from a distance. After she recovered from her suicide attempt, Jenny was ready to talk.
00:34:37
The CBC interviewed her in 2013. but at the time her explosive allegation of rape did not
00:34:44
air. I came forward actually and I did tell them my story it never aired how did you feel you put yourself out there
00:34:56
you finally told your story and I was very scared to tell my story and still afraid of him
00:35:01
the CBC told us they made a difficult decision not to air Jenny's story back then
00:35:07
But the pressure was building. How long could the silence that seemed to protect Nygaard last?
00:35:19
Coming up, an insider speaks out on Nygaard's need to dominate those around him.
00:35:26
He did have me order some documentaries on Hitler. What he, I think, was fascinated with was the mind control and manipulation.
00:35:49
When Peter Nygaard son Kai was in his 20s he was still hoping for a real connection with his dad I with the Viking himself I love this jacket your 80s jacket He worked for the company in different roles in L
00:36:05
mainly in the distribution center, away from his dad's main office. But even that wasn't easy.
00:36:12
I tried to have a relationship with him that would work for both of us, which meant limited amounts of time together
00:36:17
because he's got a pretty volatile personality and you take it in doses, but I wasn't there to be his judge.
00:36:23
Kai says that for years he'd bought the image his dad had cultivated, the work hard, play
00:36:30
hard fashion executive. He knew there were issues, but didn't think they were serious.
00:36:35
I knew that there was something that had happened where he got accused of harassment in the
00:36:41
90s and that it got settled for a small amount of money. But that was really it besides the CBC special that came out, but that was more like, this
00:36:51
This guy's a real jerk to work for. Nygaard's claim of criminal defamation against the CBC was eventually dismissed.
00:37:00
The Canadian broadcaster did air an interview with Jenny Gilmer years later. But back then, Kai knew nothing of her accusation of rape
00:37:08
and believed his dad's relationships were consensual. You never saw women crying or upset?
00:37:15
Not really. I never heard anything or any, there wasn't any massive red flag that we got exposed to.
00:37:21
Do you think he protected you from that? Yeah. His whole purpose was to control people.
00:37:29
Pamela Erickson started working for Nygaard as an office administrator. Over two decades, she rose to become his director of marketing and PR.
00:37:38
That's her with Robin Leach, host of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, after he shot in Nygaard Key.
00:37:44
She says that just like in the Bahamas, Nygaard controlled the comings and goings in his Marina Del Rey compound.
00:37:51
Employees had to call him for permission before letting anyone leave. There were times a girl would come down the stairs.
00:37:58
They would say, let me out, let me out. And by just seeing their body language and that they were upset,
00:38:06
I did not call him. I'd unlock the door and just let them out. She says Nygaard would rage at her for breaking the rules.
00:38:14
There were a lot of those. She says he seemed to want to rule his company with a cult-like authority.
00:38:21
He did have me order some documentaries and videos on Hitler. But what he, I think, was fascinated with was the mind control and manipulation.
00:38:35
The long hours, the tirades. Pamela says employees were beaten down by exhaustion and stress.
00:38:44
You were just in fear every minute. Kai says he definitely saw that. I lasted about three years before I said I don't want to be in the Nygaard company anymore.
00:38:55
I don't want to take over the company. Pamela was close to her breaking point when she says the company asked her to do something that really scared her.
00:39:05
It had to do with those parties in the Bahamas. and Nygaard's obsession with controlling his image.
00:39:12
Back in 2004, actors Jessica Alba and Paul Walker were shooting the thriller Into the Blue in the Bahamas,
00:39:18
and the crew was invited to spend time at Nygaard Key. Later, a tabloid from Finland reported Alba was disgusted by what she saw at a party there,
00:39:29
and the litigious Nygaard sued the paper. That's when Pamela says someone at the company wrote an affidavit
00:39:36
denying any inappropriate behavior at those parties, then demanded she sign it. First of all, I wasn't there. How can I sign an affidavit if I wasn't there?
00:39:47
It was intense pressure to sign it. And I said, no, I will not sign it. I'm never going to sign it.
00:39:56
And I will not lie for anyone. A year later, she quit. The lawsuit was dismissed, but Pamela says she has no idea how an affidavit with her name on it ended up in the court docket.
00:40:11
I didn't tell nobody at all. Pamela never crossed paths with Maradel Carbuccia, but says it's easy for her to understand why someone like Maradel felt paralyzed into silence.
00:40:26
My husband kept asking me, are you sure you're okay? What's going on? What's wrong? You seem different.
00:40:46
Changed, she says, by a man who seemed willing to use his money and power to get whatever he wanted.
00:40:54
But in the Bahamas, Nygaard's money and power were about to be challenged by another wealthy man,
00:41:00
someone who lived right next door. It started as a spat between two exasperated neighbors.
00:41:06
From a feud that begins like circa 2008 over a puddle in a driveway, all of a sudden we have, you know, dozens of lawsuits.
00:41:15
People are suing each other and counter-suing each other. We've got, you know, allegations of assassination plots and intimidation.
00:41:23
And just maybe secrets, long hidden, about to be exposed. Coming up, one of Nygaard's employees makes a difficult decision that could have dramatic consequences.
00:41:39
I was just trying to do like the next right thing and come clean about my involvement.
00:41:43
When Dateline continues. So this is going to be my grand interest through there after I fix it up in my grand hall you know Peter Nygaard was used to getting his own way especially in the Bahamas where Nygaard was trailed by his videographer after casting himself as the leading man in his very own movie
00:42:11
He often said, why would I want to go to this fancy Hollywood party? Like, I have my own island. Like, I'm the king there.
00:42:18
The truth was, Peter Nygaard didn't actually own an island. Nygaard Key was located on the tip of an island.
00:42:26
His fabulous estate, just one of several inside an exclusive gated community. The estate next door to his belonged to an American investor named Louis Bacon,
00:42:37
a billionaire who'd made his fortune on Wall Street. He seems to be the polar opposite of Peter Nygaard.
00:42:43
Nygaard's very flamboyant, very over-the-top. Bacon's more buttoned down and seems a bit more kind of reserved.
00:42:51
And definitely not a fan of Nygaard's late-night parties. They were loud. I mean, I would sleep with a pillow on my head when I would be done.
00:43:00
Just the music was deafening. Kai said his dad didn't seem to care if he was disturbing anyone,
00:43:06
especially his more sedate next-door neighbor. Where he's throwing the parties is where the neighbor's bedroom was close to.
00:43:13
He could have chosen the other side of the property where he wouldn't have even heard it.
00:43:17
According to Kai, it wasn't just the music that bothered Bacon. There was the constant coming and going, too.
00:43:26
Cars and trucks at all hours driving down a road that cut through Bacon's estate.
00:43:31
By law, it belonged to both neighbors, and they didn't share nicely. Nygaard complained about some construction work Bacon did on the road,
00:43:40
resulting in a pool of standing water at the entrance to Nygaard Cay. It turned this puddle into something more like a swamp that was kind of developing in their driveway.
00:43:51
And I think he was just kind of thumbing his nose at his neighbor who was pissing him off.
00:43:56
And this set off a sequence of events that got out of control. The bickering got really ugly after a fire tore through Nygaard Key, gutting Nygaard's dream home.
00:44:07
He was devastated, according to Kai. Rebuilding Nygaard Key was a massive priority for him.
00:44:14
But Kai says his dad had a problem. The government wouldn't grant his request for building permits.
00:44:20
And that didn't look likely to change after a local environmental group called Save the Bays
00:44:25
made videos like this one accusing Nygaard of destroying the shoreline with his constant construction work.
00:44:32
Sitting on the environmental group's board of directors was none other than Lewis Bacon.
00:44:37
He never got the permission to rebuild the house. He felt that the neighbor was stopping him from getting that permission, and that made him very angry.
00:44:48
Kaisas' dad plotted to take Bacon down. It was a war for him. It was a war. It had turned into an absolute war.
00:44:58
Nygaard lobbed lawsuits at Bacon. Bacon fired back. But their war wasn't just confined to the courtroom.
00:45:05
members of bacon's environmental group accused nygaard of sending people to harass and intimidate
00:45:12
them including fire bombing a car nygaard denied it all but one of nygaard's former employees
00:45:19
told us he was so worried bacon was in danger he called him up to warn him it started escalating
00:45:26
escalating escalating steven ferralio the videographer was on the front lines of nygaard's
00:45:32
war. He says Nygaard asked him to make videos to smear Lewis Bacon. We're going to make 30 videos,
00:45:39
one a day for the next month. We're going to show the world how bad Bacon really is.
00:45:44
I did contact actually Human Resources and I said, I'm not really comfortable doing this.
00:45:49
And they said, you know, you work for the company. So if you don't do it, I don't know
00:45:53
that you'll still be able to work for the company. He did what he was told, creating fake videos that
00:45:58
depicted Bacon as a liar, a fraud, and a KKK member. All these just these lies and they they
00:46:07
knew them to be lies. Then he posted them anonymously to YouTube using fake IP addresses
00:46:13
so they could not be traced back to Nygaard. Stephen Ferraglio says he felt more and more uneasy.
00:46:20
I knew that I was on the wrong side and I was just trying to do like the next right thing and
00:46:24
And that would be to at least, you know, come clean about my involvement. To come clean, he reached out to Bacon, the man he'd been paid to vilify,
00:46:33
told him what Nygaard was up to and offered to show him the videos he had documenting Nygaard's life.
00:46:40
When Nygaard found out, Feralio says he got messages that made him feel threatened.
00:46:45
I received, you know, Facebook messages and text messages. You know, they said, I need to stop what I'm doing or I'm going to ruin the rest of my life.
00:46:53
He went into hiding and Bacon helped pay for his security and lawyers. To this day, Stephen Ferraglio told us he still lives in fear of Peter Nygaard.
00:47:05
Nygaard has accused Ferraglio of being a disgruntled former employee, looking for a payday.
00:47:11
But his lawyer, Stephen Feldman, calls him a whistleblower whose decision to come forward was a turning point.
00:47:17
Other people saw that Stephen was willing to come forward, and that motivated others to come forward and speak up against Nygaard.
00:47:28
Dark stories about Nygaard were starting to come to light in the Bahamas, and those stories made their way across the ocean to the desk of this man.
00:47:38
It is unparalleled. There's nothing like him. It is the worst that I think we've ever seen.
00:47:43
Coming up, a terrifying story of how victims were kept in line. Nygaard's security guard said, if the girls don't do it, Mr. Nygaard says, we feed them to the sharks.
00:47:55
The Sharks The billionaire and the fashion mogul were jostling for every advantage in their epic feud,
00:48:13
firing off lawsuits, dispatching private investigators. You're not following my law.
00:48:19
By 2016, Peter Nygaard's videographer had switched sides, joining forces with Nygaard's nemesis, Louis Bacon.
00:48:27
That's when he got a surprising call. We were contacted by Department of Homeland Security, and they were interested in reviewing the Nygaard footage archive.
00:48:36
They were investigating him. Nygaard was under investigation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for human trafficking,
00:48:44
and Bacon's investigators were standing by to help. Stephen Ferraglio says he had never witnessed Nygaard doing anything illegal,
00:48:53
but he showed the agents that video, Nygaard showing off for his cameras, playing the part he wanted others to see.
00:49:01
But the investigators were looking at the images in a very different light, a much darker one.
00:49:07
They were particularly interested in one young woman or girlfriend who they said was underage.
00:49:13
Then as suddenly as it started, the investigation was closed for unforeseen circumstances.
00:49:21
We weren't given any explanation about why they were just ending this investigation.
00:49:25
It was certainly disconcerting. Still, women in the Bahamas had started talking to Bacon's associates,
00:49:33
and the director of Lewis Bacon's environmental group, a prominent Bahamian attorney,
00:49:38
reached out to some lawyers in the U.S. to see if they could file a civil suit. We were contacted by some lawyers out of Florida who had done work with some Bahamian lawyers,
00:49:49
and they said, there's something very serious going on in the Bahamas. Are you all interested in trying to help?
00:49:55
Greg Gutzler is a commercial litigator, more used to working on cases about big business than sexual assault.
00:50:02
He knew nothing about Peter Nygaard or Lewis Bacon, but agreed to go take a look.
00:50:08
That's when we had a whirlwind four days of interviews, and it changed all of our lives.
00:50:14
Their fact-finding mission to the Bahamas had a code name, somebody's daughter, and strict ground rules.
00:50:21
We were instructed to not use Peter Nygaard's name, so we called him S1. And they were told to travel with bodyguards.
00:50:30
We were very careful what roads we took, where we stayed. We didn't leave the facility if we didn't have to, so we were very, very careful.
00:50:38
We took it very seriously. Gutzler went from conference room to conference room,
00:50:42
interviewing young women who had horror stories about Nygaard, horror stories about those parties caught on camera,
00:50:49
and what happened when the cameras weren't rolling. The first woman he talked to said she was just a teenager when she went to Nygaard Key,
00:50:58
excited for a party and free food. She was a 15-year-old girl. She had no resources.
00:51:06
I mean, just the prospect of getting a warm meal was exciting to her. As the night went on, she was given a drink,
00:51:14
and of course she's in a situation where she wanted to fit in, so she did have a drink.
00:51:17
She then said she felt very lightheaded and dizzy and she couldn't control her arms and legs.
00:51:25
And according to her, that's when Nygaard's security guard took her to Nygaard's bedroom.
00:51:31
She was in a room. She was trapped. There's no handle on the door. You can't get out.
00:51:36
He violently raped her and it was unspeakable what she went through. After interviewing more than 10 women,
00:51:46
Gutzler said he was struck by how young they were. Some of them had been 14 or 15 when they met Nygaard.
00:51:54
And there was something else. Unlike Meridel, who was a Nygaard employee, or Jenny, who had been in the Bahamas on vacation,
00:52:02
the women Gutzler met were locals. Some of them from an area called Over the Hill,
00:52:07
on the opposite side of the island to Nygaard Key. He would have recruiters that would go into the impoverished areas of the Bahamas to recruit young girls to come to the party.
00:52:18
And they would have buses or limos or SUVs that would then drive these young women to the party.
00:52:27
After all that he'd heard, Gutzler wondered why nobody in the Bahamas had come forward sooner to report these stories of brutal assaults.
00:52:35
until one of the women told him she had been too scared to tell her mother what happened.
00:52:41
I said, why not? She said, because she would beat me. And the culture in the Bahamas was one in which the victims of rape
00:52:49
would actually be the ones who were punished, if you will, socially. Gutzler said years had passed since the young women had met Nygaard,
00:52:59
and yet they were still afraid of what he might do to them. They were absolutely terrified.
00:53:05
We'd take them out the back door, we'd make sure we drove them. They were beyond scared.
00:53:10
So that gave me a sense for who he was. And what he was, Gutzler learned, was connected.
00:53:17
Hey, we did it, man, we did it. Feralio, the videographer, showed us footage of Nygaard
00:53:22
celebrating the election victory of Perry Christie as Prime Minister of the Bahamas in 2012.
00:53:28
Congratulations, man. Nygaard bragging about helping him win. A few months later, there he was on video again, giving the newly elected prime minister a tour of Nygaard Key.
00:53:43
Gutzler could see how Nygaard's mere proximity to power could easily intimidate a poor young victim.
00:53:50
I had one woman who was down in the Bahamas and Nygaard security guard said if the girls don do it Mr Nygaard says we feed them to the sharks And she took him at his word based on how he said it It was very scary
00:54:05
As horrifying as the stories were, Gutzler believed he was just getting a glimpse of something much bigger.
00:54:12
Back in New York, he made a decision with his partners. They were going to take the next step,
00:54:17
hire their own investigators, and get to the bottom of what was going on. I said, we have to do this.
00:54:25
I don't know what it is yet, but we have to do something. Coming up, Kai describes the moment that finally opened his eyes about his father.
00:54:36
I felt like the world shaking and almost like walls crashing down. When Dateline continues.
00:54:43
Peter Nygaard's son, Kai, had no idea a lawyer from New York was investigating his father.
00:55:01
By 2019, Kai's time working for him was long in the rearview mirror. I was cordial with him from long distance, but I wasn't spending time with him.
00:55:11
I really wanted to have some semblance of a positive relationship with him and it wasn't going to happen by me working closely with him.
00:55:19
In May of that year, Kai and his brother visited their father in Los Angeles. He had his house in Marina del Rey. We asked him if it was all right if we pop by and say hello. It had been a long time since we'd been there.
00:55:32
He joined his father at one of his dinner parties in his Marina del Rey home. It was a scene he knew well, his father holding court for a table full of guests.
00:55:43
But while they were eating, Kai says he witnessed something he hadn't seen before.
00:55:48
Something disturbing. One of the guests there had her daughter with her. And the daughter was sitting directly to the right of Nygaard, which is typically his girlfriend chair.
00:56:02
That's where he normally would have the girl, whoever he was going to flirt with that night.
00:56:06
And I'm noticing him going like this and whispering into the little girl's ear. And she's like ten or eight or nine years old, something very young.
00:56:16
And I'm watching it and I'm just thinking it's odd that he, for me, it appeared that he was flirting with her.
00:56:23
And it made me uncomfortable. And then after dinner. He took the girl, brought her around to this side of him.
00:56:32
And then it looked like he had put his hand behind her. and I start seeing his elbow going like this.
00:56:38
And as soon as I saw that, I got a huge adrenaline rush. And I went to the mother and I said, get her away from him.
00:56:46
He's touching your daughter inappropriately. Get her away from him right now. Kai says the mother pulled her child away from Nygaard.
00:56:54
All I could feel was my heart pounding. I'm looking at his eyes and I felt like the world shaking around
00:57:00
and almost like walls crashing down is what it felt like in my mind when I remember it and how I experience it.
00:57:07
And I was sick. Kai says he did speak immediately about it with one of Nygaard's top executives
00:57:15
but needed time to process what he saw and avoided talking with his dad. Then two months later, he finally took his dad's call.
00:57:25
It was not an easy call. What I got was, I got this response of, isn't it interesting that there were 20 people at the dinner table and you're the only one that saw this?
00:57:38
And how sick are you that you even think of such a thing? What a twisted mind you must have.
00:57:46
You must be brain damaged. Kai was of course used to seeing his father surrounded by women.
00:57:54
But this was something different. Whereas before it looked like consenting adults,
00:58:00
now I started to think to myself, how far is he capable of going? Kai's growing concerns about his father
00:58:09
happened to coincide with a broader cultural awakening about sexual harassment and abuse by powerful men.
00:58:17
Weinstein, Epstein, the Me Too movement was by now in full swing. This is a whole new era.
00:58:25
Attorney Gloria Allred is known for representing women in many high-profile sexual abuse cases.
00:58:31
The cultural climate has changed, and even more importantly than that, juries now are looking at the cases differently.
00:58:40
All the women we spoke to said they were terrified into silence. Maybe it would be different now.
00:58:47
I was really terrified of him because of his temper and the things that he says.
00:58:53
Meridel Carbuccia, Nygaard's former treasurer, had told no one her story of assault.
00:59:00
She had continued working for Nygaard until, she says, they clashed over the way his cannabis facility was operating.
00:59:07
And Nygaard fired her. Once she was no longer working for Nygaard, she started thinking about telling her story, including to her husband.
00:59:17
I sat down and I spoke to my husband. And I told him everything. And he was so devastated.
00:59:30
He was crying. He wasn't mad at me. He was hurt that I didn't tell him. He was hurt that I was so scared.
00:59:45
He's like, there's no business. There's no money. There's nothing in the world. more important than you.
00:59:54
Maradel decided to go public With Gloria Allred as her attorney she filed a lawsuit in 2020 claiming wrongful termination and sexual battery
01:00:06
The lawsuit made a huge impression on Kai. She was somebody who was very methodical and analytical, and she was a strong woman.
01:00:16
First, the incident with the child at the dinner party, and now Maradel. Kai dug deeper into his father's past.
01:00:25
He had been arrested for rape in 1980, which I'd never heard before. Nobody cared to share that with me.
01:00:32
The dam was about to break. Just weeks after Maradel's suit in January 2020, attorney Greg Gutzler filed a lawsuit, too.
01:00:42
The suit filed in New York contained accusations from 10 anonymous Jane Does, women and girls accusing Nygaard of sex trafficking and sexual assault.
01:00:52
Nine of the first ten Jane Does were the young Bahamians, and they showed great bravery.
01:01:00
Nygaard's lawyer denied the allegations, and Peter Nygaard prepared to fight back.
01:01:06
But it turns out this was just the beginning. After that, it was like a tsunami, floodgates of horrific information coming forward over the course of several months.
01:01:15
coming up the story model beverly peel tried hard not to tell i had nightmares about this for like
01:01:26
two years after years of fear and silence in 2020 women were coming forward to accuse peter
01:01:45
Nygaard of horrific assaults. There was the lawsuit from Maradel, his former treasurer,
01:01:51
and the 10 women represented by attorney Greg Gutzler. And then there were more, many more.
01:01:59
Immediately after filing, our phones and our email was going absolutely crazy. We didn't have enough
01:02:07
people to answer the phones. We didn't have enough people to return the emails. He soon started
01:02:13
talking to Peter Nygaard's own son. It's quite a whirlwind from in your mind believing that Peter
01:02:21
Nygaard, my father, was this flamboyant entrepreneur, hard-working businessman, and then to find out that behind the scenes he's actually a monster. Kai not only believed the
01:02:37
allegations, he made a decision to help the attorney gather more evidence against his father.
01:02:44
He gave the lawyers an insider's view of how the company operated, and later he spoke out in public
01:02:51
against his dad. It's been extraordinarily helpful. He stands with the accusers now.
01:02:56
What does that mean to you? Probably more than I could ever tell him. His support has just been
01:03:03
It's so huge for me and probably for others. I don't know Kai as an adult. I still see him as this kid with so much strength.
01:03:13
Jenny Gilmer joined Gutzler's case, a class action lawsuit which grew to include 57 women from at least four different countries.
01:03:22
Accusations of sexual assault that spanned a period of 40 years. Some of the accusers made their names public,
01:03:30
including one woman in Nygaard's world who was more famous than he was. When you sweep stuff under the rug that happens to you
01:03:38
and you don't speak about it, you build this, it's almost like venom, and it devours you.
01:03:44
Beverly Peel wasn't just the face of Nygaard. She was the mother of Nygaard's child, Trey.
01:03:52
Born, she says, after Nygaard raped her. I had nightmares about this man for like two years.
01:03:59
The devil was Nygaard in my dreams. Even though he's the father of the child who you love so much, you still view Nygaard as the devil.
01:04:09
With blue eyes, yes ma'am. It happened, she says, a few days after she first met him.
01:04:15
Beverly had gone to Nygaard's California beach house to sign her modeling contract.
01:04:20
She says the ink was still wet when Nygaard attacked her in the bathroom. I think I slapped him and I ran and I got my stuff and I couldn't get out because it's a code on the door to get out.
01:04:32
I remember screaming and getting really upset because I couldn't open the door. Beverly says she somehow found a way outside to her truck.
01:04:42
I'm about to cry and trying to think of what am I going to tell my soon-to-be husband.
01:04:48
And I just signed a contract so I have this going on in my head. I have this going on. What do I do?
01:04:53
Like many victims of rape, Beverly didn't consider going to the police. In shock, she says the easiest thing to do was to convince herself it didn't happen.
01:05:04
If you don't talk about it, then you don't give it any life, you know. So I just didn't talk about it.
01:05:08
And I went, put my game face on, and it was never spoken. Beverly thought she could put it behind her.
01:05:16
She didn't even tell her new husband. Her story was still a secret when she found out she was pregnant and assumed her husband was the father.
01:05:26
So when did you know it wasn't your husband's child? When the baby was born. I see the baby is lighter than you.
01:05:31
And my girlfriend, she had the handy cam, and she just dropped it and goes... And I looked at her like, something's wrong with it.
01:05:39
And literally, I had a flash of the incident. And you probably did the math. I remember putting my head down, just like, why me?
01:05:48
Why me? Nygaard eventually learned Trey was his child and made an effort to have a relationship with his son Beverly kept the rape story buried and let the father relationship happen We spent time together the three of us It was fun You know he was it was nice And I
01:06:07
hate that I have those memories because it's like, wow, like, how could this person be this person?
01:06:12
Like, it makes me cry. Like, I'm getting choked up right now because it's just sad.
01:06:18
When I saw him with our son, he was different, you know, and. He was almost like multiple
01:06:23
personality. He had so many masks. When Trey was 11, Beverly told him her story of how he was
01:06:31
conceived. And later in 2020, he encouraged her to go public. I was like, mom, we need to,
01:06:39
we need to speak up about it. Like you need to tell your story and make sure other people are
01:06:44
not scared to come out because if you come out, many will follow. Many, many, many men will follow.
01:06:49
and I think I'm okay with it as long as you're okay with it and we could just go through this
01:06:54
together. That's how I kind of like described it to her. That had to be a really tough choice for
01:06:59
her to make knowing too that it would expose you to whatever would come and also knowing that it
01:07:06
might end your relationship with your father. Yeah, I only saw him like once a year. We never
01:07:11
really had a strong relationship that I was trying to go for. Beverly joined the lawsuit and decided
01:07:16
to speak out. Nygaard's attorney has denied her sexual assault allegation. Beverly says she had
01:07:23
no idea so many women in Nygaard's orbit had similar stories of sexual assault. She regrets
01:07:30
not doing more to warn them about Nygaard. I wish I would have had the courage to say something
01:07:36
because I would have told the girls to go home, go home before something bad happens.
01:07:41
But Beverly was about to learn these women were up against something much larger than just one man.
01:07:48
An entire enterprise. And Greg Gutzler and his team were building a case like you've never heard before.
01:07:56
We spent thousands of hours putting the pieces together. And once you start doing that, it's kind of like a mosaic.
01:08:04
If you step back and you fill out enough of the mosaic, you can see the complete picture.
01:08:11
Coming up, a behind-the-scenes look at Nygaard's pamper parties, which insiders describe as a well-oiled machine for preying on young women.
01:08:21
He would order up what he called the happy juice, and the bartender would know because he had somebody targeted.
01:08:26
So he would have to make the happy juice, which was the date rape drug. When Dateline continues.
01:08:41
After talking to more than 100 women, after trawling through thousands of pages of documents, hours of video, interviewing dozens of former employees, and filing a massive lawsuit,
01:08:53
Attorney Greg Gutzler finally had a map for what he believed lay at the heart of Nygaard's fashion empire, a sex trafficking machine.
01:09:03
I don't think there's been anything so widespread, something so developed and sophisticated in terms of the infrastructure that was put toward it.
01:09:13
The scale, the depth, the level of people that were involved, there's absolutely no comparison.
01:09:20
It began with those pamper parties you've seen and heard about. Gutzler says what appeared on video to be carefree decadence was anything but that the parties had been organized with corporate efficiency.
01:09:33
Everything was systematic. You dotted your I's, you crossed your T's. We tracked down this woman who worked for two months at Nygaard Key in 2003.
01:09:43
Michelle May was hired in an administrative role at the property, but quickly found out one of her main responsibilities was organizing the pamper parties.
01:09:52
She says her colleagues told her what that meant. We're just one of the pimps, the pimpettes.
01:09:58
and that they just basically disclosed that this was all a ruse, you know. There was a script, Michelle says, to lure guests to Nygaard Key,
01:10:10
promising them a good time and a chance to audition to be Nygaard models. And for each potential guest, she'd fill out a form
01:10:18
recording the guest's contact information, age and weight. And one more data point.
01:10:24
Michelle told us the women were given a grade, A, B, or C. They had to be under 20. They had to be in their teens.
01:10:35
They had to be a certain weight. She says she was also expected to send Nygaard photos of women when they checked in at the gatehouse.
01:10:45
He would be in his stateroom receiving the emails, receiving the pictures, and he would confirm or reject the attendance of that person.
01:10:57
Nygaard has said the check-in process was for security and communication. Michelle and her colleagues loaded all the information into a computer.
01:11:07
There was a rolling electronic file of pamper party guests. This database of women was stored and accessible on Nygaard company computers.
01:11:19
According to Gutzler's lawsuit, it contained 7,500 names. While Nygaard didn't appear to drink much himself, several former employees told us his party guests were encouraged to consume lots of alcohol.
01:11:34
And Gutzler says he heard stories of how Nygaard would target some of the women with drugs.
01:11:41
He would order up what he called the happy juice. There was a drawer in the back of the kitchen there and the bartender would take it and
01:11:47
then know because he had somebody targeted. He knew exactly what he wanted. So he would have to make the happy juice, which was the date rape drug.
01:11:55
Michelle May says she didn't see any big effort to hide what was going on at What she says she did see was an effort to pay police and government officials to look the other way.
01:12:07
There were plenty of politicians that came to receive packages of money and white envelopes
01:12:16
that was handed at the end of the night after dinner at the Great Hall. That was just standard procedure.
01:12:23
Nygaard's attorneys have painted Michelle as untrustworthy and not credible. But others who spent time working at Nygaard Key told us they believed Nygaard had officials in his pocket.
01:12:36
Cops were coming and taking cash payments. It was not a return for any type of legitimate job they were doing.
01:12:42
That was for protection. That was for a cover-up. We wanted to go to the Bahamas to ask about these allegations of corruption.
01:12:50
But when government officials found out we were reporting on sex trafficking allegations,
01:12:55
they refused to approve our visas. Police and government officials have not responded to requests for comment.
01:13:03
After studying the Nygaard organization with its 12,000 employees worldwide, Gutzler says he found people at all levels of the company,
01:13:12
from the boardroom to the travel department, playing a part in the machine. We've had many people come forward and tell the truth,
01:13:20
including a lot of co-conspirators who aren't proud of what they did, but they felt compelled, coerced to do it.
01:13:30
In the spring of 2020, Gutzler decided to name names. He updated his class action lawsuit with a list of 13 Nygaard managers and executives
01:13:41
he accused of being co-conspirators, of enabling Nygaard. We saw who was writing the checks.
01:13:48
We saw who was telling victims to be quiet. We knew who they were. They were people Kai knew well, some he'd known since he was a child.
01:14:00
It makes me laugh at the idea in my mind that I used to look up to these people in this respected position
01:14:05
and think that they were admirable people and wonder what the hell else they might have known.
01:14:10
Kai and former marketing manager Pamela Erickson have been connecting with hundreds of former Nygaard employees,
01:14:17
many of whom want to help keep the investigation going. because the legal system wasn't done with Peter Nygaard.
01:14:25
A year after Gutzler's first trip to the Bahamas, he wasn't the only one digging into Nygaard's company.
01:14:32
The FBI was now on the case The eye of the storm was moving north Destination Times Square
01:14:44
Coming up, a striking scene at Nygaard headquarters. I saw detectives with the New York Police Department going in and out, taking stuff out.
01:14:53
FBI agents were there. And then... Hi, Jenny. After all that's happened, an emotional meeting for Jenny and Kai.
01:15:03
February 2020, less than two weeks after a class action lawsuit was filed against Peter Nygaard in civil court.
01:15:24
The FBI descended on his company's New York headquarters. I saw detectives and photographed detectives at the New York Police Department going in and out, taking stuff out.
01:15:35
FBI agents were there. From there, things snowballed. Nygaard announced he was stepping down from his position as head of the company that same day.
01:15:46
And then, months later, in December 2020, Peter Nygaard was arrested in Winnipeg and charged in a nine-count federal indictment in the U.S.
01:15:57
The federal indictment against Peter Nygaard is vast. Kristen Gibbons Fedden was a prosecutor on the Bill Cosby case.
01:16:05
She's a legal analyst for MSNBC. But the lead charge is the racketeering charge.
01:16:10
And that describes an organized criminal enterprise where individuals and employees of the many Nygaard entities
01:16:18
assisted with recruiting, soliciting, and ultimately targeting young women to then provide them and hand them over to Nygaard.
01:16:29
The racketeering charge, or RICO, was enacted in the 1970s to go after organized crime.
01:16:37
In other words, the mafia. Peter Nygaard's enterprise was organized crime, where the objective was sex trafficking.
01:16:44
This is exactly what RICO is meant to do. It's meant to get the kingpin when the underlings are acting at his or her or its instruction.
01:16:54
Federal prosecutors believe there are at least 100 victims. This is not the first time U.S. attorneys have used the RICO statute to go after alleged sex predators.
01:17:06
Federal prosecutors use this charge successfully in the R. Kelly case. But Kristen Gibbons Fedden says it not a slam dunk The RICO statue is very difficult to pursue because you have to prove that there was a criminal enterprise one
01:17:22
And two, that that criminal enterprise facilitated the main person at the top to engage in criminal activity.
01:17:31
But if the prosecution is not able to show that the enterprise was connected, the jury may think, well, they've tried to overreach.
01:17:39
After we reached out to Peter Nygaard's attorneys, a former Bahamian radio host who has also worked as Nygaard's publicist, contacted us on his behalf.
01:17:51
She did not comment on the allegations from people we interviewed, but did tell us she believes Nygaard is innocent, that he is a philanthropist, that she never saw underage women at Nygaard Key.
01:18:03
And she says the stories of Nygaard's payoffs to police and politicians are false.
01:18:08
She also repeated what Nygaard's attorneys have said. He is a victim of a conspiracy of lies orchestrated and funded by Lewis Bacon.
01:18:19
To Jenny Gilmer, who says she was assaulted before the Bacon dispute began, that makes absolutely no sense.
01:18:28
What happened to me in 98 would have nothing to do with the feud that he has with his neighbor.
01:18:37
Nygaard's lawyers have also said the Jane Doe's are, quote, jumping on what they think is a money train and hope to cash in.
01:18:44
Is this about money for you? No, this isn't about the money. This is about justice.
01:18:49
This is also a teaching moment for sexual predators that you literally may have to pay the cost of your wrongs.
01:19:00
and sometimes having to literally pay the victim is language that the sexual predators can understand.
01:19:11
Nygaard's fashion empire is shuttered. The day after he agreed to be extradited to the U.S.,
01:19:17
he was also charged with sexual assault in Canada. His son Kai feels a huge sense of relief
01:19:25
knowing his father is going to face justice in court. That's a big weight off my shoulders, just knowing that he's not going to get away with it.
01:19:35
He's not going to be able to hurt anybody else. Kai, who at one point stood to inherit part of his father's empire,
01:19:43
has done all he can to separate himself from the company and even the Nygaard name.
01:19:49
I legally changed my name I wanted to dishonor the Nygaard name It something that he has a lot of vanity around that he pushed that name On top of the name change he is working to create change
01:20:03
through an organization called Child USA. They focus on changing laws that would be in support
01:20:11
of justice for women and children and other victims of sexual crimes. Like his brother Kai,
01:20:19
Trey has also separated himself from all things Nygaard. He's 18 years old now, a man who says his life will be nothing like his father's.
01:20:31
I don't want to treat women how he treated women. When it comes to relationships and other stuff like that,
01:20:37
I don't want to be him, so. Treat a woman as you would your mother. Your mother, exactly.
01:20:41
That's what she tells me all the time. The women who say they've been abused by Peter Nygaard
01:20:48
are all working in their own ways to come to terms with what happened. He has left scars that are going to be there for the rest of my life.
01:20:58
What do you think should happen to Peter Nygaard? I'm hoping that they put him in a jail until he passes away.
01:21:09
Just this week, we watched Jenny Gilmer, now a married mother of two, take another step.
01:21:15
Hi, Jenny. Hi. Jenny had not seen Kai since they were teenagers on Nygaard Key a long time ago.
01:21:24
We drove Kai to meet her. Thanks for seeing me. I think she's coming this way. A chance to replace awful memories with new ones.
01:21:38
Your story was very impactful, not just for myself, but also for others. I don't know.
01:21:47
Thank you. Well, it took a long time. Do you think of yourself as a survivor now?
01:21:56
I do. I'm still here, and now I have my family, and for me, that's number one. You know, if I can't stand up for myself, then what am I teaching my kids?
01:22:11
That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again next Friday at 10, 9 central.
01:22:17
And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester Holt.
01:22:23
For all of us at NBC News, good night.