Sixth complainant expected to take the stand in Frank Stronach’s sexual assault trial

TORONTO — Trauma and fear turned a woman into a “social recluse” after she was sexually assaulted by billionaire businessman Frank Stronach four decades ago, she told a Toronto court Wednesday.

In testimony punctuated by tears, the woman described living in fear and losing her “zest for life” after she said Stronach forced himself on her the night of Valentine’s Day 1986.

“I was afraid to open up to people because of what happened to me,” she said, her voice unsteady.

“It was something like I could not shake it off because it caused me a great deal of trauma, emotional stress.”

The 73-year-old woman is the sixth of seven complainants expected to testify at the trial, which began two weeks ago after some delay.

Stronach, the founder of the auto parts conglomerate Magna International, has pleaded not guilty to 12 charges related to alleged incidents spanning from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Prosecutors allege he knew the complainants did not consent to sexual activity or was wilfully blind to that fact.

At the urging of prosecutors and the presiding judge, the woman took several breaks to calm herself Wednesday as she laid out her account of what happened that night.

After working a late shift, the woman said she headed out to Rooney’s, the midtown hotspot Stronach owned, because she didn’t want to be at home alone in her west-end apartment. She had heard of the venue through acquaintances but had never been there before, she said.

To her surprise, there was hardly anyone there when she arrived, she said, so she decided to have one drink at the bar before going home. As she drank a glass of wine, a group of well-dressed, good-looking men came up to the bar and sat on the stools, she said.

A middle-aged man who was shorter than the others sat next to her and started a conversation, she said. The woman said she wasn’t particularly interested in talking to him until he asked if she was hungry and ordered a large bowl of shrimp from the bar.

She hadn’t eaten dinner, she said, so she accepted the food. She and the man had a “casual conversation,” mostly about skiing, and at some point he introduced himself as Frank. She didn’t know it was Stronach at the time, she said.

He seemed “very nice, very caring,” and didn’t raise any red flags, she said. He told her he was divorced and worked as a machine operator, she said. “I never, ever had any suspicion of him,” she said.

She noticed the other men in the group had disappeared, leaving her alone with Stronach, she said.

When the woman mentioned having to leave before the last subway, Stronach told her not to worry, to have another drink and he would drive her home, she said. She had another glass or two of wine, she said, but Stronach wasn’t drinking because he was going to drive.

They danced at some point and moved to a table, then a young man came over and asked Stronach if he wanted him to drive, she said. Stronach said no and told the other man to just bring the car.

As they left at around 2 or 2:30 a.m., the young man brought a cherry red Chevrolet to the front of the venue, then got out so that Stronach could get in the driver’s seat, she said. The woman got in the passenger seat and gave him directions to her home, she said.

Panic began to set in when he ignored her instructions and headed south of Bloor, but he told her it would be quicker to take Lakeshore Drive and she believed that to be a “rational explanation,” she said.

But instead of turning onto Lakeshore, he pulled into an underground parking garage, telling her he lived in the building and needed to have a coffee before driving her the rest of the way, she said.

The woman said she didn’t want to go, but Stronach pressured her, insisting he needed coffee, she said. Since she didn’t know where she was, she followed him, and they took the elevator to an elegant apartment on a high floor, she said.

It was a two-level apartment, and they initially sat on a couch on the higher level, she said. At some point, the woman said she went to the kitchen, but there was no coffee or food there, just a fridge “full of booze,” and it looked like no one had ever cooked there before.

She lost track of Stronach for a bit, and the next time she saw him, he was naked on a waterbed on the lower level of the apartment, she said.

Stronach told her he wanted to see her naked and tugged her towards him by the hands or wrists, she said.

Shocked and angry, the woman tried not to look at him as she broke free, she said. “I just shouted, ‘Take me home, take me home, take me home,'” she said.

Stronach relented when she threatened to break all the windows and jump into Lake Ontario, she said. He put on his pants but didn’t zip up the fly, she said. He may also have put on a shirt but left it open, she added.

He got a bottle of Dubonnet and two glasses, urging her to have a glass to calm down, but the woman didn’t drink, she said.

As they sat on the couch, Stronach tried to convince her it had been a nice evening and that he would take her home, she said.

He then pushed her so she was leaning back into the corner of the couch, unzipped her pants and pulled them down almost to her knees, she said. The woman tried to wriggle free, she said, but felt “overpowered.”

Stronach then forced his penis inside her, she said.

It was over quickly, she said. Afterward, she was shaking and crying, she said.

None of the complainants can be identified under a standard publication ban.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 25, 2026.

The Canadian Press