Police were ‘limited’ in investigating allegations against Stronach, officer says

TORONTO — Police were limited in what they could do to investigate sexual assault allegations against Frank Stronach given how much time had passed since the alleged incidents, one of the officers in the case told the billionaire businessman’s trial Wednesday.

Two Peel regional police officers who led the investigation faced questions from the defence regarding the steps they took — or didn’t take — to check the information reported by seven complainants.

On a few occasions, defence lawyer Leora Shemesh asked Sgt. Gabe Di Nardo whether he had simply taken the complainants’ allegations at face value or taken steps to “investigate their veracity.”

The officer said he generally believes people unless he has reason to think they’re lying, which he didn’t in this case.

“So you assume everyone’s telling the truth…” Shemesh began.

“Correct,” the officer said.

“…but then you don’t do anything to determine if they are,” she continued.

“We were limited in that factor because of how much time had gone by,” and the absence of evidence such as surveillance video, he said.

There were other documents police could have sought but didn’t, such as employment and housing records, or documents from the Ministry of Transportation that could confirm what cars Stronach owned at the time, he agreed.

Stronach, who became one of Canada’s wealthiest people as the founder and former CEO of the auto parts manufacturer Magna International, has pleaded not guilty to 12 charges related to allegations made by seven complainants. The alleged incidents span from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Prosecutors have since dropped five charges related to three complainants.

The seventh and final complainant to testify said Stronach picked her up in a sports car she believed was a Porsche in the early 1980s.

Investigators discussed seeking those documents but “decided against it” after concluding it wouldn’t provide any value, Di Nardo told the court Wednesday. For one thing, he said, Stronach’s wealth meant he owned many cars and could even have borrowed one.

The investigative team also “didn’t see the value” in seeking records from the Canada Border Services Agency that would have indicated whether Stronach was in Canada at the time of the alleged offences, he said.

“You mean to determine whether or not he had an alibi? No value in that,” Shemesh said.

“All the dates that were provided were varying … there was no, very few specific dates that people were able to provide, so even if he was travelling at a certain time, it wouldn’t prove or disprove that these things didn’t happen,” the officer said.

When Shemesh noted one of the complainants gave an exact date for her encounter with Stronach and another described an alleged incident around her birthday in 1980 or 1981, Di Nardo agreed the documents “would’ve been valuable” in those cases.

Ted Misev, the officer in charge of the investigation, told the court he had reached out to the border agency at some point but not to check if Stronach was out of the country, since he knew from past experience those records are only retained for seven years.

He also checked transportation records for Stronach’s driver’s licence, he said, but couldn’t recall which cars, if any, were registered to him.

The defence highlighted two “locations of interest” in the case — Rooney’s, the dining and nightlife hot spot Stronach owned, and the waterfront building where the businessman had a condo — and asked investigators what they had done to look into those places.

The condo building was connected to a hotel topped with a rotating restaurant, court has heard, but Di Nardo said he believed the entire complex was a hotel.

Misev, meanwhile, testified he believed the alleged incidents took place in a condo, based on complainants’ accounts, but didn’t check whether Stronach owned a unit in the building.

He went to the waterfront site at some point to see if any units had mirrored ceilings, as one of the complainants reported, but wasn’t sure if he’d been on the hotel or the condo side, he said.

Misev sought out former employees and spoke to an ex-cleaner, but when Shemesh pointed out the cleaner had worked on the hotel side, the officer acknowledged he hadn’t known the hotel and residences were separate.

As for Rooney’s, Misev said he had looked it up online and found some old photos of the venue. He didn’t know when it opened but said he believed it closed in the late 1980s or early 1990s.

The officer was also pressed on what happened during a series of preparatory meetings between prosecutors and the complainants, as well as the notes he took during those meetings.

The notes don’t include what was said by the Crown, nor do they account for everything discussed, the defence said.

Misev said he documented new information and left out things that had previously been disclosed, along with any pleasantries or irrelevant topics.

Asked whether he was concerned that every preparatory meeting gave rise to new information from the complainants, the officer said it was “very common” in sexual assault cases.

The officers were the defence’s last witnesses, meaning court has heard all the evidence in the case.

Lawyers are set to make legal arguments at the end of the month, after which the defence is expected to apply for a stay of proceedings.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 11, 2026.

Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press