Complainant in Stronach trial breaks into tears as she describes alleged sex assault

TORONTO — Frank Stronach turned into a “different person” inside his hotel suite, growing more aggressive the more she pleaded with him to stop, a woman tearfully told the billionaire businessman’s sexual assault trial Monday.

The woman, who is the fifth complainant to testify in the case, said she first encountered Stronach in the early 1980s, when she went to his restaurant, Rooney’s, with a friend who was dating him.

She ran into him again when she went to Rooney’s with that same friend in the summer of 1990, and alone at a hotel restaurant in late October or early November of that year, she said.

Stronach informed her that he and her friend had broken up, and asked for the woman’s phone number, which she gave him despite her initial hesitation, she said. He called the next day to invite her out to lunch at the same restaurant and they met up a day later, she said.

While catching up at the restaurant, the woman started crying about her relationship falling apart, she said. Stronach asked if she wanted to continue their conversation in his suite, which the woman said she’d viewed as a “simple gesture” to make the situation less embarrassing.

Once inside the suite, however, she said Stronach slipped her purse and jacket off her arm, embraced her and pushed her backwards until she was laying on a bed. She wasn’t sure what was happening until he started undoing the buttons of her top, she said.

The woman “kept saying no,” and tried to keep her shirt closed, she said. Meanwhile, Stronach had undone his pants and had nothing on from the waist down, she said.

“He became a different person, not the person I thought I knew,” she said, later describing him as “a beast.”

At some point, he snapped the buttons of her shirt, lifted her bra up to her neck, then lifted her skirt and tore her pantyhose and underwear, she said. He used his legs to try to pry her knees apart, and her efforts to squeeze them shut left her bruised, she said.

“I wasn’t strong enough to fight him,” she said, crying. “He forced himself on me.”

Stronach, who is 93, has pleaded not guilty to a dozen charges involving seven complainants. The charges stem from incidents dating back as far as the 1970s.

Prosecutors have said they intend to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the incidents occurred, that the complainants didn’t consent, and that Stronach knew they didn’t or was wilfully blind to that fact.

On the stand Monday, the woman who is now 71 said she kept saying no and pleading with him to stop, but he was “so forceful, so strong.”

“The more I kept saying no … the more aggressive he became,” she said.

He penetrated her without protection and ejaculated, and the woman later worried about the risk of pregnancy because she wasn’t on birth control at the time, she said.

It was painful because she had recently had a baby, and had not had sexual relations since giving birth, the woman said. “I bled,” she said.

Afterward, the woman said Stronach tried to calm her down, telling her everything was OK. It took about half an hour for her to stop crying, then Stronach handed over her purse and jacket, asked her if she was OK to drive and walked her to the suite’s door, she said.

She took the elevator to the garage and sat in her car for a while before driving home, she said.

At no point did she initiate or reciprocate physical contact with Stronach, nor did she want it, the woman said. She had mentioned wanting “love and romance” while at the restaurant, but nothing sexual, she said.

The woman said she didn’t go see a doctor or get therapy because she was too ashamed, and she was worried about losing custody of her children.

She never spoke to Stronach again after that, she said.

The woman reached out to police in June 2024 after seeing a news report about Stronach being charged, she said.

“I was in shock … it brought everything back,” she said.

Under cross-examination by the defence, the woman agreed her testimony included information she had never before mentioned, including in multiple statements to police.

Stronach’s lawyer, Leora Shemesh, also zeroed in on discrepancies between the timeline of events the woman laid out in her statements and in court.

The woman had never previously mentioned seeing Stronach at Rooney’s in 1990, Shemesh suggested, noting the restaurant closed in 1988.

It may not have been Rooney’s but it was a restaurant in the same area near her friend’s workplace, the woman said.

Later, Shemesh suggested the woman could not have seen her friend in 1990 because that friend was no longer living in Toronto by then. As well, Stronach was out of town for a week at the end of October 1990, the defence lawyer said.

The woman maintained she saw her friend that summer, tying the date to the birth of her child, and said her encounters with Stronach must have been before or after the week he was away.

In her first statement to police in 2024, however, the woman said she and Stronach knew each other from the 1970s and that he had raped her in the fall of 1980, the defence lawyer said.

At another point, the woman told police she met her friend and Stronach in 1988, Shemesh said.

“There’s a confusion here about the years,” the woman said, adding that she had met Stronach with her friend multiple times over several years.

The woman said she couldn’t remember some details, such as the name of the hotel, because she had wanted to erase the incident from her mind.

The defence suggested the woman had picked up some parts of her account from media reports on other complainants, including how Stronach had regularly bought champagne when they met at Rooney’s.

The woman denied seeing any complainant’s account in the media, even after Shemesh suggested the woman had told prosecutors in November 2024 about seeing a television segment with a woman whose face was blacked out for anonymity.

Shemesh is set to continue her cross-examination Tuesday. Two other complainants, none of whom can be identified under a standard publication ban, are still expected to testify.

Earlier Monday, a woman who is suing Stronach over allegations of sexual assault was told she couldn’t watch the court proceedings because she is listed as a potential witness.

Jane Boon is not part of the criminal case against Stronach, but at least one of the complainants told the court they read Boon’s account in a newspaper op-ed.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 23, 2026.

Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press