TORONTO — A woman’s narrative of her encounter with Frank Stronach several decades ago has evolved with time, with new details emerging even in recent years to round out her story, the businessman’s lawyer suggested Friday at his sexual assault trial.
Leora Shemesh highlighted discrepancies between what the woman — the first of seven complainants expected to testify in the case — described in police interviews and news articles over the years and in her testimony before the court.
In one instance, Shemesh noted the woman told police in 2015 there was water on the table at the restaurant where she first met Stronach that night, but now recalled her companions having tropical cocktails.
“This is what I mean by a progression of your narrative. You have filled in facts and details, and I’m gonna suggest to you … that you are a storyteller,” she said.
“You have told a story in this courtroom, and you’ve continued to tell a story to various media outlets for public consumption, and to this court.”
The woman, who was in her early 20s at the time of the alleged incidents, rejected that characterization. “I know what he did to me, that’s the important part. What was on the table is not important,” she replied.
While her memory on the timing or logistics of certain events may have changed or faded, the woman said she clearly remembers Stronach sexually assaulting her on a dance floor and then raping her later that night.
Stronach, who is 93, has pleaded not guilty to a dozen charges related to seven complainants for incidents that allegedly took place from the late 1970s to the 1990s.
Crown prosecutors have said they intend to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that those incidents did take place, the complainants did not consent and that Stronach knew they didn’t or was wilfully blind to that fact.
On the stand Thursday, the complainant, now in her 60s, testified she had crossed paths with Stronach a few times while she worked at a race track in Toronto in what she believed was the spring and summer of 1981.
Two days before her birthday, she went out with two of her new coworkers to Rooney’s, the Toronto restaurant Stronach owned, she said. He appeared almost immediately, bearing a bottle of champagne, she said.
The woman told him she didn’t drink, she said. Then she was coming to on the dance floor, with Stronach holding her tight and penetrating her with his fingers, she said.
She tried to push him off and he shoved her in a booth, where he continued to grope her, she said.
Her next memory was waking up in a bed in an unknown place, seeing her face and someone’s back in a mirror above and realizing Stronach was raping her, she said. She felt confused and terrified, she said.
She said she didn’t know how she got there but knew she hadn’t consented.
During cross-examination Friday, the defence asked the woman about notes a police officer in Halton Region took when they spoke in 2015. According to the notes, the woman told the officer she couldn’t remember if she’d consented, court heard.
The woman didn’t remember speaking to that officer at all, she replied, and there would have been no reason to say that because she knew she hadn’t consented.
“I would never have slept with a married man, particularly someone that old,” she said. Stronach was 47 at the time, court heard.
She also told police that year that Stronach hiked up her dress on the dance floor, pushed her underwear aside and poked through her pantyhose, but Shemesh suggested that was a deduction rather than a memory.
The woman acknowledged she didn’t have a memory of that happening. “The fingers are the memory that exists in my mind,” she said.
The complainant didn’t tell police, however, that she had tried to push Stronach away on the dance floor or that he’d continued to sexually assault her in the booth, the defence said.
“I didn’t think I had to be that explicit,” the woman said, adding she’d expected police to ask her questions if they needed more details.
The year of the alleged incident has been a recurring point of questioning, with the defence noting the woman placed it in 1980 until recently, when she switched to 1981.
Shemesh suggested the woman changed it after learning Stronach may not have been in Canada in 1980, while the complainant said she had never been sure of the date and only settled on 1981 after seeing a letter that helped anchor the events in time. She now is 90 per cent sure it’s 1981, she said.
Stronach was charged in 2024. His judge-alone trial was initially scheduled to begin early last week but the defence asked for more time to prepare after receiving what it described as a large volume of disclosure “at the 11th hour.”
The trial is set to resume Tuesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 13, 2026.
Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press
