The Secrets of Nygard Cay

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Speaker 5 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Tonight, inside a glittering fashion empire in what some say was the dark secret at its heart.

Speaker 7 Peter Nygaard created a fantasy land.

Speaker 8 You get to this huge, ginormous gate. You feel like you're going into Jurassic Park.
You see these temples, tennis courts, the beach.

Speaker 9 Nygaard was having these extravagant parties.

Speaker 11 He said, which one should I take for me?

Speaker 3 Her or her?

Speaker 12 Like a buffet of women. Yeah.

Speaker 13 I asked him to stop.

Speaker 13 And I started crying.

Speaker 3 He was just on top of me that I can't

Speaker 3 try to

Speaker 3 push away.

Speaker 8 It was hell and paradise.

Speaker 11 He had the power to shut people down.

Speaker 6 He knew how to intimidate them into silence.

Speaker 12 Peter Nygaard's lawyer said that Peter Nygaard, quote, absolutely and categorically denies your claims.

Speaker 13 I I know my own truth.

Speaker 15 They say, Epstein, Weinstein, Nygaard, there's nothing like him.

Speaker 6 I don't put him in the same universe as others.

Speaker 15 It's surreal to think about my father, what he was doing outside of the limelight in secret.

Speaker 13 When I see his face, I see a monster.

Speaker 5 Here's Natalie Morales with the secrets of Nygard Key.

Speaker 12 Jenny Gilmer says there is no forgetting.

Speaker 13 I remember that pain every day.

Speaker 12 No going back to the girl she used to be.

Speaker 13 I know what happened to me, and I know it was wrong.

Speaker 12 But today she's moving forward on a healing journey, taking it step by step.

Speaker 13 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.

Speaker 12 And Jenny is certain of one thing now. She is not on this journey alone.

Speaker 14 I wonder, how many people has he done this to?

Speaker 12 So many ugly stories in such a beautiful place.

Speaker 8 It was a well-oiled machine.

Speaker 12 You saw that?

Speaker 8 Definitely.

Speaker 12 A machine hidden in the heart of a multi-million dollar fashion empire, now being laid bare in a quest for the truth.

Speaker 6 Justice is people waking up and realizing this is true, it occurred, evil like this exists in the world and we cannot stand silent.

Speaker 12 No one wants the truth more than this man, a son faced with a terrible choice. His name is Kai.

Speaker 12 He grew up here in a small town on the tip of Puget Sound, raised by his single mom, his life a modest one.

Speaker 12 But once he turned 12, Kai started spending summers with his father in a world across the ocean, a world his dad was building out of the sand in the Bahamas.

Speaker 15 Imagine going there. You've got your dad.
He's working the actual cranes, moving palm trees around. A little treehouse cabana popped up one time.

Speaker 15 And before I know it, there was this giant Mayan temple there and just expanded.

Speaker 12 A tropical playground as outlandish as the man himself, Peter Nygar.

Speaker 3 All right, we're home.

Speaker 12 He He was a fashion mobile whose company had more than a half a billion dollars in sales. Factories and warehouses in Asia and North America.
A private jet and exclusive homes dotted around the world.

Speaker 19 If you want to be the best in the world, that's all you can pursue.

Speaker 12 But he had started out with nothing. Born in Finland, his family had immigrated to Canada when he was a boy.
Something Kai heard a lot about growing up.

Speaker 15 They fell into

Speaker 15 extreme poverty, and they had to bootstrap their way to a new life. He overcame tremendous obstacles.

Speaker 12 Nygaard elbowed his way into the fashion industry, making a fortune by selling practical clothes to working women at stores like Saks and Dillard's, as well as his own boutiques.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 He asked you to be the face of Nygaard.

Speaker 8 It wasn't worded like that, but yes, I basically bottom line is I was the Nygaard model. And I remember that my friend was saying his net worth went up when I became the face of that.

Speaker 12 And Nygaard put himself at the heart of his marketing, too.

Speaker 20 Nygaard had a big ego and I with cameras flashing and it was able to provide him like a sense of importance.

Speaker 12 Stephen Feraglio was Nygaard's videographer on call to film him 24-7.

Speaker 12 The entrepreneur's life captured on more than a thousand hours of video, casting Peter Nygaard as the star of his own fabulous universe.

Speaker 12 Years later, that very same video would be used to tell a very different story. But back then, it was all about creating the right image.

Speaker 20 We would go to clubs and we would go to restaurants and, you know, he would want it to look like there was paparazzi around him. He would want, you

Speaker 20 a big entrance.

Speaker 12 By the time Kai was out of college, Nygaard's name and face loomed large in Times Square, New York, the site of Nygaard's world headquarters.

Speaker 15 It was incredible to be in New York and to walk down the street. I could see Nygaard in blue letters going down the side of the building.
I could take the subway and come out, and it's right there.

Speaker 12 Kai joined the company mainly working in Los Angeles. When his dad was in town, they'd play volleyball and sometimes have dinner.
His dad flanked by girlfriends. Kai was used to that.

Speaker 15 He did not make it a secret to anyone that he wanted to surround himself with various beautiful women at any given time.

Speaker 15 He would say that that was consensual non-monogamy. That was his lifestyle.

Speaker 12 A lifestyle Kimberly LaPalm says she heard about before she even met him.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 11 It was presented to me like an Air Force One, very presidential, and I was so excited.

Speaker 12 And maybe that's why she didn't pay more attention to a strange question she says she got asked at her job interview.

Speaker 11 It was explained to me that

Speaker 11 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.

Speaker 8 Would that upset you?

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 You're not the kind who shocks easily, then.

Speaker 3 Not at all.

Speaker 12 But Peter Nygaard shocked you. He did.

Speaker 11 And that says a lot.

Speaker 21 This was

Speaker 11 something that sticks with me forever.

Speaker 12 She was about to meet a boss who would not only shock her but scare her because Kimberly was entering Peter Nygaard's world, an empire built on fashion, but perhaps hiding something darker and bigger than anyone could imagine.

Speaker 5 It wouldn't be long before Kimberly got her first inkling of what she says it meant to work for Nygaard. When we come back, parties with Peter.

Speaker 8 He said, so do you think she's hot?

Speaker 22 Or do you think her or her?

Speaker 12 Like a buffet of women.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 5 And then what she says happened on his plane.

Speaker 11 All of a sudden, he grabbed me and he said, Women like you deserve this.

Speaker 12 They were his calling card, Peter Nygaard's entourage of young women. By his side at store openings, fashion shows, parties, always on display for his videographer's cameras.

Speaker 20 They danced for him, they went to dinner with him, he would, you know, parade them in during one of his meetings.

Speaker 12 But according to his son, Nygaard's band of girlfriends was not just a marketing gimmick.

Speaker 15 He's constantly surrounding himself with women all the time, obsessed with women.

Speaker 12 And Kai says that obsession permeated the workplace.

Speaker 12 Kimberly LaPalm says she was in charge of getting his bedroom ready on his private plane.

Speaker 11 I always went on the day before the flight with the Viagra prescription. Viagra, the condoms and the lube and stuff like that.
And that was all put in the top drawer.

Speaker 12 Not something you had perhaps ever stocked a flight with before?

Speaker 12 No.

Speaker 12 Many employees told us that Nygaard had his own way of doing things, to say the least. Maridel Carbuccio was the treasurer of one of Nygaard's companies in California.

Speaker 12 She said Nygaard summoned her one day to the bedroom at his beach house for a work meeting.

Speaker 14 He came out of the jacuzzi

Speaker 14 completely

Speaker 3 naked.

Speaker 12 Like he was gonna go to work like that? Because you're there with your computer.

Speaker 14 I am there with my computer. Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clock.

Speaker 3 Clock, clack.

Speaker 6 Whoa.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 12 And did you want to just get out of there?

Speaker 3 I got out of there really fast.

Speaker 14 And when I mentioned it to him, don't you think it's a little unappropriate?

Speaker 14 He gave me this long story. What is the big deal? We are born naked.
We are okay.

Speaker 12 Later on in her time with Nygaard, Maridel says she was asked to help out at something he called a pamper party.

Speaker 12 They were Sunday gatherings at his various homes, advertised as a place for aspiring models to relax and mingle, and a key part of his work-hard, play-hard image.

Speaker 12 Supermodel Beverly Peale says Nygaard liked her to be there. Do you think he was, you know, using your name, your face at these pamper parties? Yes, of course.

Speaker 8 Supermodel Beverly Peele is here. If you want to, you know, you too can be a supermodel like Beverly Peele.

Speaker 12 Beverly thought the parties were just a way for Nygaard to meet attractive girls to sleep with, and she didn't like it. Neither did Kimberly.

Speaker 12 Barely a week into her job, she says Nygaard approached her at a pamper party.

Speaker 11 And he said,

Speaker 11 so

Speaker 6 what about her over there?

Speaker 8 Like, do you think she's hot?

Speaker 22 Or do you think her or her?

Speaker 12 Like a buffet of women.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 12 That's a good way of looking at it. But he's a bachelor.
He's single. I'm sure that's the way he would explain that.

Speaker 22 So yeah, he's got a great lifestyle.

Speaker 11 So yeah, but I wasn't comfortable with my new boss asking me,

Speaker 11 and I kind of deflected it. I just said, you know, I'm sure they're all beautiful.

Speaker 25 He didn't have a distinction between, you know, where his personal life

Speaker 25 started and then where, you know, it ended. It was all together.
It was all in one.

Speaker 12 Dana Neal worked in Nygaard's human resources department for two years. He was recruitment and retention manager and says most people didn't stick around longer than three months.

Speaker 12 He says there wasn't really a formal process for employees to complain to HR.

Speaker 12 That didn't stop Kimberly from trying. She said that she had reported his behavior multiple times.
Were you aware of that?

Speaker 3 Yeah, oh, yeah.

Speaker 12 And was anything done about her complaints? Nothing.

Speaker 25 Nothing was ever done.

Speaker 12 Dana says executives made excuses for Nygaard's behavior.

Speaker 20 It's just downplayed.

Speaker 25 Oh, it wasn't like that. It wasn't so bad.
He's got a panache. He's got character, you know.

Speaker 25 That sort of thing.

Speaker 12 And everyone had a story about Nygaard's temper. What the f is the matter with him? His videographer more than once caught him yelling and cursing at employees.
You do not have any fing taste at all.

Speaker 20 Every day was some new fresh hell. Like every day there was some new fresh hell.

Speaker 26 With the fing music on as well.

Speaker 14 You have to be there to witness him.

Speaker 14 How scary he is. How he screams, how he acts.
Peter says he would say that he's God.

Speaker 12 Did he tell you that? Yes.

Speaker 12 Kimberly says she saw that temper up close, too. About a month after she started working for Nygard, she says she went into his bedroom on the plane to ask him for some time off.

Speaker 11 All of a sudden, he grabbed me from the back of my waist and he shoved his hand down the cheeks of my

Speaker 18 bum,

Speaker 11 right down and he cupped my bum and he said, women like you,

Speaker 11 he said, deserve this. You don't deserve days off.
I started to cry.

Speaker 15 I'm sorry.

Speaker 12 What did you do?

Speaker 11 And then he goes, get on your knees.

Speaker 11 And

Speaker 11 you ask me for those days off.

Speaker 12 Kimberly told us other crew members were on the plane when this happened, but nobody stepped in to help. Why do you think everybody around him seemed to turn a blind eye?

Speaker 11 Number one, fear.

Speaker 9 Number one, fear.

Speaker 12 He ruled with

Speaker 11 fear.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 But what about that fantastical place he built for himself in the Bahamas, on the furthest point of the island? What kind of secrets might be hidden there?

Speaker 8 Bahamas, it was hell in paradise.

Speaker 5 Coming up, this woman describes a horrifying night with Nygard when she was just a teen.

Speaker 13 When he was finished, I went down to my room and I locked the door. I was scared and ashamed.

Speaker 13 Very ashamed.

Speaker 5 When dateline continues.

Speaker 12 Nygaard Key was everything a wealthy playboy could want.

Speaker 3 Back home, back home.

Speaker 12 And showing it off for the cameras seemed key to the image Peter Nygaard was constantly crafting.

Speaker 26 This is all going to be my home for you. You know how every house is its for you?

Speaker 12 The treehouse Cabana Kai remembered was now a fabulous pleasure palace sprawling over a secluded spit of land.

Speaker 12 Featured on lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Speaker 28 If ever there was a correct candidate for lifestyles of the rich and famous, I would say that it would be Peter Nygaard.

Speaker 12 Even Beverly Peel, who had modeled around the world and was no stranger to glamour and excess, was impressed.

Speaker 8 You get to this huge... Ginormous Jurassic Park size gate.
Like you feel like you're going into Jurassic Park, like in the in the movie. The gate opens up

Speaker 8 and then you hear this music. Oh,

Speaker 8 you're going in.

Speaker 12 When the gate is opening, the music is open.

Speaker 8 Then you hear the music, and it's everywhere.

Speaker 29 Welcome to Nygaard Key.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 In fact, employees at the gatehouse routinely collected visitors' passports.

Speaker 12 Could you just walk out?

Speaker 8 You can't just walk out, no.

Speaker 12 Jenny Gilmer knows that now, wishes she didn't, because now she can never forget the place or the man.

Speaker 13 He's my nightmare still.

Speaker 12 All these years later.

Speaker 18 Yes.

Speaker 12 It was 1998. Jenny was fresh out of boarding school in Canada.
19 years old, her life ahead of her. But first, a trip to the Bahamas.
It's paradise.

Speaker 13 It is.

Speaker 12 Jenny was with her mom on the island. She sailed, enjoyed the sun, and took up tennis.
Lessons with an instructor. He told her about an amazing place with courts by the ocean.

Speaker 13 He said, okay, well, your next lesson, I'd like to take you to Chief's house to play tennis.

Speaker 30 Chief.

Speaker 12 He called him Chief and Boss. Chief and boss.

Speaker 12 The tennis instructor asked her to wear a dress. Odd request, but she did.
She brought her mom along and went to Nygaard Key and met its owner, the chief and boss. You're introduced to Peter Nygaard.

Speaker 12 Describe him as you first encounter him.

Speaker 13 Kind of very nice, very friendly,

Speaker 13 very eccentric. Big smile on his face.
What did he say? Welcome thus. And asked me if I'd like to play tennis.
And I said that I was in a dress. And he said, well, he had tennis shoes for me.

Speaker 13 But they're in my room.

Speaker 12 She went with him, climbing the stairs to his bedroom in the treetops. In his closet, rows of tennis shoes and more.

Speaker 13 To the left of the tennis shoes was a big shelf, and it had boxes and boxes of KY. It said KY jelly on it.

Speaker 12 Did you know what that was at 19?

Speaker 13 I did not.

Speaker 12 Boxes and boxes of KY jelly.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 12 When did you figure that out what that was?

Speaker 12 A few weeks later.

Speaker 12 Tennis followed, then cocktails. The following week, the coach took Jenny back.
And when Peter Nygaard heard her mother had to return to Canada, he invited Jenny to stay.

Speaker 12 What did you think about this, though, his offer to stay for the rest of the summer? Here's your very own cabana.

Speaker 13 That was incredible. He said, you know, you can enjoy the beach, play tennis.

Speaker 12 No strings attached?

Speaker 13 No strings attached.

Speaker 12 Days later, Jenny handed over her passport and settled into Nygaard Key. One evening, she and some other guests were invited to drinks in Nygaard's room.

Speaker 12 Jenny says she started to feel dizzy, unable to control her body. Then she says she was alone with Nygaard

Speaker 12 and he raped her.

Speaker 13 When he was finished, I lied there for a few minutes because I was just so hurt and I was bleeding. And I went down to my room

Speaker 13 and I locked the door

Speaker 13 and then I stayed there for about two days.

Speaker 12 And in that time, what did you do during those two days?

Speaker 13 I stayed in bed a lot.

Speaker 13 I was really hurt, and I didn't know what to do. And I was scared, and sad, and ashamed.
Very ashamed.

Speaker 12 In the days that followed, she says Nygard assaulted her again and again. She says she was too ashamed to tell anyone what was happening, although there were plenty of people around.

Speaker 12 There were some opportunities, though, that you were off outside of Nygaard Key that

Speaker 12 potentially could have asked for help. So some might say, why not ask?

Speaker 13 It seems like an easy question, but it's not. I was broken.
And maybe I deserved it as well. That because I couldn't stop it.

Speaker 13 And I put myself in this situation by going there and just to stay.

Speaker 13 And

Speaker 13 I didn't want anyone to know.

Speaker 12 Jenny says she couldn't go far anyway because Nygaard had her passport and she felt he was watching her.

Speaker 13 He had eyes everywhere. He knew where everybody was at all times.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 She says she's haunted by the memory of Kai looking for his dad during one of the assaults. I was in Peter's room and you could see out.

Speaker 13 with his the glass around his room, but you couldn't see in. He had me on the bed and

Speaker 13 his son was knocking on the door.

Speaker 12 Looking for his dad?

Speaker 13 Here was this kid looking for his dad.

Speaker 13 And I was inside, and even if I screamed, he wouldn't have heard me. But

Speaker 13 how could I do that to this kid? To you know, for him to find out what kind of person his dad really is.

Speaker 12 You were thinking about

Speaker 12 dad in that time.

Speaker 13 I felt way worse for him than I did for me at that moment.

Speaker 13 Yeah.

Speaker 12 After three weeks at Nygaard Key, she says Nygaard was leaving. He gave her back her passport.
Were there any words exchanged besides just, here's your passport?

Speaker 13 He just said, good luck. Good luck with school.
There was no sorry. There was no

Speaker 13 sense of remorse.

Speaker 13 Nothing.

Speaker 12 Jenny says she went home, numb and broken. She says she told no one, determined to leave what she says happened at Nygaard Key behind her.

Speaker 13 I thought if I just forgot it happened

Speaker 13 and kind of turned myself off,

Speaker 12 that I would be okay.

Speaker 13 I now know that that was a very bad idea because I was not okay.

Speaker 12 She felt so alone.

Speaker 12 She had no idea then what else was happening in that hellish paradise.

Speaker 5 Coming up, Beverly recalls a nighttime visitor to her room.

Speaker 8 It's this young lady who is just petrified, and she was begging me to help her.

Speaker 12 She'd planned it so differently, the life she would have after a summer in the sun in the Bahamas.

Speaker 12 Instead, Jenny Gilmer went home to Canada, feeling overwhelmed by the agony of what she says happened to her at Nygaard Key.

Speaker 13 That kind of pain, even if you push it all the way to the back,

Speaker 13 it's still there. It altered my decisions, my decision-making through life,

Speaker 13 relationships, depression.

Speaker 12 As Jenny struggled over the next few years to rebuild her life, Nygaard was building up his fashion empire. There were the store openings and deals.

Speaker 12 He doubled the size of his California distribution center, opened that corporate headquarters in New York.

Speaker 12 Nearly 10 years went by, and that's when Dana Neal, Nygaard's head of retention, and flight attendant Kimberly LaPalm, came on board.

Speaker 12 They visited Nygaard Key and did not like what they saw.

Speaker 25 It was like heart of darkness. You're going down the river and things are just going to get weirder and weirder and darker.

Speaker 12 And they sure did. Yep.

Speaker 12 Dana made just one trip there, saw one of those pamper parties where Nygaard would be seen surrounded by attractive women.

Speaker 12 He says Nygaard told him he had been taking care of one woman since she was a teenager. What did you think he meant by those words?

Speaker 25 Well, considering that he was exposing her breasts to me and then sticking his hand down her pants, it was pretty obvious.

Speaker 12 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.
Yeah, you were that alarmed.

Speaker 25 Yeah, I was, I called him up and I said, this is nuts.

Speaker 12 A few months later, he quit.

Speaker 25 I quit without having another job to go to, just because I couldn't be a part of that anymore.

Speaker 12 Kimberly LaPalm says she saw women at Nygard Key that seemed too young to be there. Like Dana, she left the company after her first work trip to the Bahamas.

Speaker 12 And Beverly Peel, who made many trips to Nygard Key, told us this story about a young woman who appeared at her door one night.

Speaker 8 It's this young lady who is just petrified. And she was begging me to help her to leave.
And I was just like, oh, she seemed to

Speaker 8 look like a baby. Not developed yet, you know, or going through puberty kind of look.
And she was crying and asking me to help her.

Speaker 8 So I went down to the gatehouse and was like, this girl needs a taxi. She needs to go home.

Speaker 12 Beverly says the staff wouldn't call a taxi.

Speaker 8 Oh, we haven't had permission from Nygaard yet.

Speaker 12 And then Beverly says she vanished.

Speaker 8 Man, I turn around and this girl is gone. She's gone.
She struggled over barbed wire fence barefoot.

Speaker 12 Did you ever confront Peter Nygaard and say, this can't happen? This is unacceptable.

Speaker 8 No.

Speaker 12 Beverly regrets that now, but her story is complicated. It would take her years to tell it,

Speaker 12 just as it would take years for Maridel Carbuccia to tell her full story.

Speaker 12 Because she says she hadn't just experienced Nygaard's bullying or his workplace nudity, she says Nygaard sexually assaulted her.

Speaker 31 I saw his face really, really close to me, and that was it.

Speaker 12 She says it happened in 2016. Nygaard had an office and home in Marina Del Rey, California.

Speaker 12 Maridel was staying there at one of his apartments, auditing the accounts of his latest venture, a cannabis facility.

Speaker 12 At first, Maridel thought she could handle Nygaard's moods and eccentric behavior, but she says nothing prepared her for that night. He summoned her to his room.

Speaker 14 All of a sudden, the phone rings in my room. And he says, I need to review some things with you.

Speaker 23 I said, now?

Speaker 14 He goes, Yes.

Speaker 12 She says she grabbed her laptop and went upstairs. Nygaard offered her a soft drink.
But after just a few sips, she says something happened.

Speaker 14 I started getting fuzzy vision

Speaker 3 and really, really dizzy.

Speaker 14 And I couldn't feel my hands.

Speaker 14 I just hear him talking to me and talking to me. And then all of a sudden,

Speaker 23 I just wasn't functional anymore.

Speaker 24 And I tried, like mentally, I was

Speaker 3 trying

Speaker 3 to

Speaker 30 get up.

Speaker 24 I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 But I couldn't get up.

Speaker 3 He was just on top of me.

Speaker 3 And I kept

Speaker 3 trying to push you away. I was like, Peter, get off me.

Speaker 3 What are you doing?

Speaker 12 And then she says she blacked out.

Speaker 14 When I woke up in the morning, I was just

Speaker 3 there

Speaker 8 by myself.

Speaker 14 Nobody was there.

Speaker 12 Meredal says she crept back to her apartment in shock.

Speaker 14 I sat down in the bed in the room and I slowly took off all the clothes. I took off everything, took a shower.

Speaker 30 I probably stood in that shower probably more than an hour, just having water on top of me.

Speaker 12 Just like Jenny Gilmer, Maridel believed Nygaard had drugged her before he sexually assaulted her. And just like Jenny Gilmer, Maridel felt so alone.

Speaker 12 She says she stayed in her room for hours, her mind reeling, wondering what to do next.

Speaker 14 I felt ashamed, embarrassed.

Speaker 3 I

Speaker 14 never

Speaker 3 thought

Speaker 14 that I would see myself

Speaker 14 in a situation like that.

Speaker 12 She was afraid, too, scared of what Nygaard would do if she reported him. So she stayed silent for the time being.

Speaker 12 Others managed to speak out sooner, though it often did not go well. Not at all.

Speaker 5 Coming up, Dana Neal prepares to go public with accusations against Nygaard.

Speaker 10 What he says followed.

Speaker 25 There was a dude who tried to break in my house in the middle of the night. He said to me, Peter says hi.

Speaker 5 When dateline continues.

Speaker 12 Jenny Gilmer continued to struggle in the years after she says she was raped at Nygaard Key. At one point, she was hospitalized for depression and tried to take her own life.

Speaker 12 It reached that low point in your life.

Speaker 12 It did.

Speaker 13 I just couldn't. I couldn't take it anymore.

Speaker 13 The pain was just too much.

Speaker 12 As for Nygaard, his business empire prospered. He was a success story in Winnipeg, his home base.
But stories about him spread. Suspicions flourished.

Speaker 9 It wouldn't have been very long after I started working at the Winnipeg Free Press before I would have first heard a story about, oh yeah, he's a weirdo or he's a creep.

Speaker 12 Ryan Thorpe, an investigative reporter with the Winnipeg Free Press.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 12 In the 1990s, Nygaard paid to settle three sexual harassment complaints against him in Canada. He did not admit wrongdoing.
Years earlier, there had been a more serious allegation.

Speaker 12 In 1980, the Winnipeg police charged him with rape.

Speaker 9 That charge was ultimately stayed after the 18-year-old who had accused Nygaard of rape declined to testify at trial, and Nygaard subsequently claimed vindication.

Speaker 12 Dana Neal, the former HR manager, says Nygaard was a master at batting away employee complaints and bad press. He calls it libel chill.
What do you mean by libel chill?

Speaker 25 Well, just because he had so much money, he would just, you know, there'd be threats to sue you into the ground.

Speaker 25 And then that would be enough to scare people and then they'd go away and they'd be quiet.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 25 I started thinking, yeah, maybe I actually can do something about this, as opposed to just walking away.

Speaker 12 Even before any reports aired, Nygaard apparently got word Dana was talking to reporters. And then Dana says libel chill started happening to him.

Speaker 25 I started getting first nasty letters, and then I started getting, you know, served

Speaker 25 for things that were just just patently false like just did not happen to try and try and shut me up and then that just that just strengthened my resolve.

Speaker 12 They accused you of copying data files or sharing company secrets.

Speaker 25 Yeah, that didn't happen.

Speaker 12 What did happen was that Nygaard sued him for breaching his employment agreement. And he says he got a frightening nighttime visit.

Speaker 25 There was a dude who tried to break in the front door of my house in the middle of the night. and I had a bat.
I just kind of pointed it at him and went like this.

Speaker 25 And he said to me, hey, do you know Peter Nygaard?

Speaker 25 And I just stared at him, and then he said, Peter says hi.

Speaker 25 And he jumped off my steps and ran away.

Speaker 12 Kimberly LaPalm, the flight attendant who left the company after her first trip to the Bahamas, started talking to the same CBC reporters.

Speaker 12 She says she received threatening phone calls even before she was interviewed.

Speaker 22 I was told, how would your current boss like to know that

Speaker 11 you're not to be trusted, that you are not trustworthy because you break non-disclosure agreements?

Speaker 12 Nygaard sued the CBC to try to stop the report from airing, but it didn't work. This is the fifth estate.

Speaker 12 The CBC's investigative report aired in 2010, the first to take an in-depth, unvarnished look at Nygaard. It portrayed him as an abusive boss and included allegations of sexual misconduct.

Speaker 12 Nygaard sued the CBC again,

Speaker 12 this time for criminal defamation. Dana says Nygaard's litigiousness hurt his reputation.

Speaker 25 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.

Speaker 12 Jenny Gilmer followed the news from a distance. After she recovered from her suicide attempt, Jenny was ready to talk.

Speaker 12 The CBC interviewed her in 2013, but at the time, her explosive allegation of rape did not air.

Speaker 13 I

Speaker 13 came forward, actually, and

Speaker 13 I did tell them my story.

Speaker 12 It never aired. How did you feel? You put yourself out there.
You finally told your story.

Speaker 13 And I was fairly scared to tell my story and still afraid of him.

Speaker 12 The CBC told us they made a difficult decision not to air Jenny's story back then, but the pressure was building. How long could the silence that seemed to protect Nygaard last?

Speaker 5 Coming up, an insider speaks out on Nygaard's need to dominate those around him.

Speaker 32 He did have me order some documentaries on Hitler. What he, I think, was fascinated with was

Speaker 32 the mind control and manipulation.

Speaker 12 When Peter Nygaard's son, Kai, was in his 20s, he was still hoping for a real connection with his dad.

Speaker 15 But the Viking himself.

Speaker 15 I love this jacket. Your 80s jacket.

Speaker 12 He worked for the company in different roles in LA, mainly in the distribution center, away from his dad's main office. But even that wasn't easy.

Speaker 15 I tried to have a relationship with him that would work for both of us, which meant limited amounts of time together because he's got a pretty volatile personality and you take it in doses, but I wasn't there to be his judge.

Speaker 12 Kai says that for years, he'd bought the image his dad had cultivated. the work-hard, play-hard fashion executive.
He knew there were issues, but didn't think they were serious.

Speaker 15 I knew that there was something that had happened where he got accused of harassment in the 90s and that it got settled for a small amount of money.

Speaker 15 But that was really it besides the CBC special that came out, but that was more like this guy's a real jerk to work for.

Speaker 12 Nygaard's claim of criminal defamation against the CBC was eventually dismissed. The Canadian broadcaster did air an interview with Jenny Gilmer years later.

Speaker 12 But back then, Kai knew nothing of her accusation of rape and believed his dad's relationships were consensual.

Speaker 12 You never saw women crying or upset?

Speaker 15 Not really. I never heard anything or any, there wasn't any massive red flag that we got exposed to.

Speaker 13 Do you think he protected you from that?

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 32 His whole purpose was to control people.

Speaker 12 Pamela Erickson started working for Nygaard as an office administrator. Over two decades, she rose to become his director of marketing and PR.

Speaker 12 That's her with Robin Leach, host of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, after he shot in Nygaard Key.

Speaker 12 She says that just like in the Bahamas, Nygaard controlled the comings and goings in his Marina Del Rey compound. Employees had to call him for permission before letting anyone leave.

Speaker 32 There were times a girl would come down the stairs. They would say, let me out, let me out.

Speaker 32 And

Speaker 32 by just seeing their body language and that they were upset, I did not call him. I'd unlocked the door and just let them out.

Speaker 12 She says Nygaard would rage at her for breaking the rules. There were a lot of those.
She says he seemed to want to rule his company with a cult-like authority.

Speaker 32 He did have me order some documentaries and videos on Hitler. But what he, I think, was fascinated with was

Speaker 32 the mind control and manipulation.

Speaker 12 The long hours, the tirades. Pamela says employees were beaten down by exhaustion and stress.

Speaker 32 You were just in fear every minute.

Speaker 12 Kai says he definitely saw that.

Speaker 15 I lasted about three years before I said, I don't want to be in the Nygaard company anymore. I don't want to take over the company.

Speaker 12 Pamela was close to her breaking point when she says the company asked her to do something that really scared her.

Speaker 12 It had to do with those parties in the Bahamas and Nygaard's obsession with controlling his image.

Speaker 12 Back in 2004, actors Jessica Alba and Paul Walker were shooting the thriller into the blue in the Bahamas and the crew was invited to spend time at Nygaard Key.

Speaker 12 Later, a tabloid from Finland reported Alba was disgusted by what she saw at a party there. And the litigious Nygaard sued the paper.

Speaker 12 That's when Pamela says someone at the company wrote an affidavit denying any inappropriate behavior at those parties, then demanded she sign it.

Speaker 32 First of all, I wasn't there. How can I sign an affidavit if I wasn't there? It was intense pressure to sign it.
And I said, no, I will not sign it. I'm never going to sign it.

Speaker 32 And I will not lie.

Speaker 32 for anyone.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 14 I didn't tell

Speaker 14 nobody

Speaker 12 at all. Pamela never crossed paths with Maridel Carbuccia, but says it's easy for her to understand why someone like Meredel felt paralyzed into silence.

Speaker 14 My husband kept asking me, Are you sure you're okay? What's going on? What's wrong?

Speaker 15 You seem different.

Speaker 12 Changed, she says, by a man who seemed willing to use his money and power to get whatever he wanted.

Speaker 12 But in the Bahamas, Nygaard's money and power were about to be challenged by another wealthy man, someone who lived right next door. It started as a spat between two exasperated neighbors.

Speaker 9 From a feud that begins, like circa 2008, over a puddle in a driveway, all of a sudden we have dozens of lawsuits. People are suing each other and counter-suing each other.

Speaker 9 We've got allegations of assassination plots and intimidation.

Speaker 12 And just maybe, secrets, long hidden, about to be exposed.

Speaker 5 Coming up, one of Nygaard's employees makes a difficult decision that could have dramatic consequences.

Speaker 20 I was just trying to do like the next right thing and come clean about my involvement.

Speaker 5 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 26 After I fix it up in my Grand Hall, you know.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 20 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.

Speaker 12 The truth was, Peter Nygaard didn't actually own an island. Nygaard Key was located on the tip of an island.
His fabulous estate, just one of several inside an exclusive gated community.

Speaker 12 The estate next door to his belonged to an American investor named Louis Bacon, a billionaire who'd made his fortune on Wall Street.

Speaker 9 He seems to be the polar opposite of Peter Nygaard. Nygaard's very flamboyant, very over-the-top.

Speaker 9 Bacon's more buttoned down and seems a bit more kind of reserved.

Speaker 12 And definitely not a fan of Nygaard's late-night parties.

Speaker 20 They were loud. I mean,

Speaker 20 I would sleep with a pillow on my head when I would be done. Just the music was deafening.

Speaker 12 Kai said his dad didn't seem to care if he was disturbing anyone, especially his more sedate next-door neighbor.

Speaker 15 Where he's storing the parties is where the neighbor's bedroom was, close to. He could have chosen the other side of the property where you wouldn't have even heard it.

Speaker 12 According to Kai, it wasn't just the music that bothered Bacon.

Speaker 12 There was the constant coming and going too. Cars and trucks at all hours driving down a road that cut through Bacon's estate.
By law, it belonged to both neighbors, and they didn't share nicely.

Speaker 12 Nygaard complained about some construction work Bacon did on the road, resulting in a pool of standing water at the entrance to Nygaard Key.

Speaker 9 It turned this puddle into something more like a swamp that was kind of developing in their driveway. And I think he was just kind of thumbing his nose at his neighbor who was pissing him off.

Speaker 9 And this set off a sequence of events that got out of control.

Speaker 12 The bickering got really ugly after a fire tore through Nygaard Key, gutting Nygaard's dream home. He was devastated, according to Kai.

Speaker 15 Rebuilding Nygaard Key was a massive priority for him.

Speaker 12 But Kai says his dad had a problem. The government wouldn't grant his request for building permits.

Speaker 12 And that didn't look likely to change after a local environmental group called Save the Bays made videos like this one accusing Nygaard of destroying the shoreline with his constant construction work.

Speaker 12 Sitting on the environmental group's board of directors was none other than Louis Bacon.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 12 Kai says his dad plotted to take Bacon down.

Speaker 15 It was a war for him. It was a war.
It had turned into an absolute war.

Speaker 12 Nygaard lobbed lawsuits at Bacon. Bacon fired back.
But their war wasn't just confined to the courtroom.

Speaker 12 Members of Bacon's environmental group accused Nygaard of sending people to harass and intimidate them, including firebombing a car.

Speaker 12 Nygaard denied it all, but one of Nygaard's former employees told us he was so worried Bacon was in danger, he called him up to warn him.

Speaker 15 It started escalating, escalating, escalating.

Speaker 12 Stephen Feralio, the videographer, was on the front lines of Nygaard's war. He says Nygaard asked him to make videos to smear Lewis Bacon.

Speaker 20 We're going to make 30 videos,

Speaker 20 a day for the next month. We're gonna show the world how bad Bacon really is.

Speaker 20 I did contact actually Human Resources and I said I'm not really comfortable doing this like and they said you know you work for the company so if you don't do it I don't know that you'll still be able to work for the company.

Speaker 12 He did what he was told creating fake videos that depicted Bacon as a liar, a fraud, and a KKK member.

Speaker 20 All these just these lies.

Speaker 20 And they knew them to be lies.

Speaker 12 Then he posted them anonymously to YouTube using fake IP addresses so they could not be traced back to Nygaard. Stephen Veralio says he felt more and more uneasy.

Speaker 20 I knew that I was on the wrong side and I was just trying to do like the next right thing and that would be to at least come clean about my involvement.

Speaker 12 To come clean, he reached out to Bacon, the man he'd been paid to vilify, told him what Nygaard was up to and offered to show him the videos he had documenting Nygaard's life.

Speaker 12 When Nygaard found out, Veralio says he got messages that made him feel threatened.

Speaker 20 I received

Speaker 20 Facebook messages and text messages.

Speaker 12 He went into hiding and Bacon helped pay for his security and lawyers. To this day, Stephen Feraglio told us he still lives in fear of Peter Nygaard.

Speaker 12 Nygaard has accused Veraglio of being a disgruntled former employee looking for a payday.

Speaker 12 But his lawyer, Stephen Feltman, calls him a whistleblower, whose decision to come forward was a turning point.

Speaker 31 Other people saw that Stephen was willing to come forward, and that motivated others to come forward and speak up against Nygaard.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 6 It is unparalleled. There's nothing like him.
It is the worst that I think we've ever seen.

Speaker 5 Coming up, a terrifying story of how victims were kept in line.

Speaker 6 Nygaard's security guard said: if the girls don't do what Mr. Nygaard says, we feed him to the sharks.

Speaker 12 The billionaire and the fashion mogul were jostling for every advantage in their epic feud, firing off lawsuits, dispatching private investigators.

Speaker 18 You're not following my law.

Speaker 12 By 2016, Peter Nygaard's videographer had switched sides, joining forces with Nygaard's nemesis, Louis Bacon. That's when he got a surprising call.

Speaker 20 We were contacted by the Department of Homeland Security, and they were interested in reviewing the Nygaard footage archive. They were investigating him.

Speaker 12 Nygaard was under investigation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for human trafficking, and Bacon's investigators were standing by to help.

Speaker 12 Stephen Veralio says he had never witnessed Nygaard doing anything illegal, but he showed the agents that video, Nygaard showing off for his cameras, playing the part he wanted others to see.

Speaker 12 But the investigators were looking at the images in a very different light, a much darker one.

Speaker 20 They were particularly interested interested in one young woman or girlfriend who they said was underage.

Speaker 12 Then, as suddenly as it started, the investigation was closed for unforeseen circumstances.

Speaker 31 We weren't given any explanation about why they were just ending this investigation. It was

Speaker 31 certainly disconcerting.

Speaker 12 Still, women in the Bahamas had started talking to Bacon's associates, and the director of Lewis Bacon's Environmental Group, a prominent Bahamian attorney, reached out to some lawyers in the U.S.

Speaker 12 to see if they could file a civil suit.

Speaker 6 We were contacted by some lawyers out of Florida who had done work with some Bahamian lawyers and they said there's something very serious going on in the Bahamas.

Speaker 6 Are you all interested in trying to help?

Speaker 12 Greg Gutzler is a commercial litigator, more used to working on cases about big business than sexual assault. He knew nothing about Peter Nygaard or Louis Bacon, but agreed to go take a look.

Speaker 6 That's when we had a whirlwind four days of interviews, and it changed all of our lives.

Speaker 12 Their fact-finding mission to the Bahamas had a code name, somebody's daughter, and strict ground rules.

Speaker 6 We were instructed to not use Peter Nygaard's name, so we called him S-1.

Speaker 12 And they were told to travel with bodyguards.

Speaker 6 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.
We took it very seriously.

Speaker 12 Gutzler went from conference room to conference room, interviewing young women who had horror stories about Nygaard.

Speaker 12 Horror stories about those parties caught on camera and what happened when the cameras weren't rolling.

Speaker 12 The first woman he talked to said she was just a teenager when she went to Nygaard Key, excited for a party and free food.

Speaker 6 She was a 15-year-old girl. She had no resources.
I mean, just the prospect of getting a warm meal was exciting to her. As the night went on, she was given a drink.

Speaker 6 And of course, she's in a situation where she wanted to fit in, so she did have a drink. She then said she felt very lightheaded and dizzy, and she couldn't control her arms and legs.

Speaker 12 And according to her, that's when Nygaard's security guard took her to Nygaard's bedroom.

Speaker 6 She was in a room. She was trapped.
There's no handle on the door.

Speaker 19 You can't get out.

Speaker 6 He violently raped her.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 it was unspeakable what she went through.

Speaker 12 After interviewing more than 10 women, Gutzler said he was struck by how young they were. Some of them had been 14 or 15 when they met Nygaard.

Speaker 12 And there was something else.

Speaker 12 Unlike Maridel, who was a Nygard employee, or Jenny, who had been in the Bahamas on vacation, the women Gutzler met were locals, some of them from an area called Over the Hill on the opposite side of the island to Nygard Key.

Speaker 6 He would have recruiters that would go into the impoverished areas of the Bahamas to recruit young girls to come to the party.

Speaker 6 And they would have buses or limos or SUVs that would then drive these young women to the party.

Speaker 12 After all that he'd heard, Gutzler wondered why nobody in the Bahamas had come forward sooner to report these stories of brutal assaults until one of the women told him she had been too scared to tell her mother what happened.

Speaker 6 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 would actually be the ones who were punished, if you will, socially.

Speaker 12 Gutzler said years had passed since the young women had met Nygaard and yet they were still afraid of what he might do to them.

Speaker 6 They were absolutely terrified. We'd take them out the back door.
We'd make sure we drove them. They were beyond scared.
So that gave me a sense for who he was.

Speaker 12 And what he was, Gutzler learned, was connected.

Speaker 8 Hey, we did it, man.

Speaker 17 We did it.

Speaker 12 Feralio, the videographer, showed us footage of Nygaard celebrating the election victory of Perry Christie as Prime Minister of the Bahamas in 2012.

Speaker 17 Congratulations, man.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 Gutzler could see how Nygaard's mere proximity to power could easily intimidate a poor young victim.

Speaker 6 I had one woman who was down in the Bahamas, and Nygaard's security guard said, if the girls don't do what Mr. Nygaard says, we feed him to the sharks.

Speaker 6 And she took him at his word based on how he said it. It was very scary.

Speaker 12 As horrifying as the stories were, Gutzler believed he was just getting a glimpse of something much bigger. Back in New York, he made a decision with his partners.

Speaker 12 They were going to take the next step, hire their own investigators, and get to the bottom of what was going on.

Speaker 6 I said we have to do this.

Speaker 6 I don't know what it is yet, but we have to do something.

Speaker 27 Coming up.

Speaker 5 Kai describes the moment that finally opened his eyes about his father.

Speaker 15 I felt like the world shaking and almost like walls crashing down.

Speaker 5 When dateline continues.

Speaker 12 Peter Nygaard's son Kai had no idea a lawyer from New York was investigating his father. By 2019, Kai's time working for him was long in the rearview mirror.

Speaker 15 I was cordial with him from long distance, but I wasn't spending time with him.

Speaker 15 I really wanted to have some semblance of a positive relationship with him and wasn't going to happen by me working closely with him.

Speaker 12 In May of that year, Kai and his brother visited their father in Los Angeles.

Speaker 15 He had his house in Marina del Rey. We asked him if it was all right if we pop by and say hello.
It'd been a long time since we'd been there.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 But while they were eating, Kai says he witnessed something he hadn't seen before. Something disturbing.

Speaker 15 One of the guests there had her daughter with her.

Speaker 15 And the daughter was sitting directly to the right of Nygaard, which is typically his girlfriend chair. That's where he normally would have the girl, whoever he was going to flirt with that night.

Speaker 15 And I'm noticing him like going like this and like whispering into the little girl's ear. And she's like 10 or like eight or nine years old, something very young.

Speaker 15 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 and it made me uncomfortable.

Speaker 15 And then after dinner, he took the girl, brought her around to this side of him.

Speaker 15 And then it looked like he'd put his hand behind her. And I start seeing his elbow going like this.

Speaker 15 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 he's touching your daughter inappropriately like get her away from him right now Kai says the mother pulled her child away from Nygard all I could feel was my heart pounding I'm looking at his eyes and I felt like the world shaking around and almost like walls crashing down is what it felt like in my mind when I even remember it now I experience it and

Speaker 15 I was sick.

Speaker 12 Kai says he did speak immediately about it with one of Nygaard's top executives but needed time to process what he saw and avoided talking with his dad.

Speaker 12 Then two months later he finally took his dad's call.

Speaker 15 It was not an easy call. What I got was

Speaker 15 I got I got this response of

Speaker 15 Isn't it interesting that there were 20 people at the dinner table and you're the only one that saw this?

Speaker 15 And how sick are you that you even think of such a thing? What a twisted mind you must have. You must be brain-damaged.

Speaker 12 Kai was, of course, used to seeing his father surrounded by women, but this was something different.

Speaker 15 Whereas before it looked like consenting adults,

Speaker 15 now I started to think to myself, how far is he capable of going?

Speaker 12 Kai's growing concerns about his father happened to coincide with a broader cultural awakening about sexual harassment and abuse by powerful men.

Speaker 12 Weinstein, Epstein, the Me Too movement was by now in full swing. This is a whole new era.
Attorney Gloria Allred is known for representing women in many high-profile sexual abuse cases.

Speaker 12 The cultural climate has changed and even more importantly than that, juries now are looking at the cases differently.

Speaker 12 all the women we spoke to said they were terrified into silence maybe it would be different now i was ruthlessly terrified of him because of his temper and the things that he says

Speaker 12 maridel karbucha nygaard's former treasurer had told no one her story of assault She had continued working for Nygaard until she says they clashed over the way his cannabis facility was operating and Nygaard fired her.

Speaker 12 Once she was no longer working for Nygaard, she started thinking about telling her story, including to her husband.

Speaker 14 I sat down and I spoke to my husband

Speaker 19 and I told him everything.

Speaker 14 And he was so devastated.

Speaker 14 He was crying.

Speaker 14 He wasn't mad at me.

Speaker 12 He was hurt

Speaker 14 that i didn't tell him he was hurt that i was so scared he's like there's no business there's no money there's nothing in the world

Speaker 3 more important than you

Speaker 12 maridel decided to go public with gloria allred as her attorney she filed a lawsuit in 2020 claiming wrongful termination and sexual battery. The lawsuit made a huge impression on Kai.

Speaker 15 She was somebody who was very methodical and analytical, and she was a strong woman.

Speaker 12 First, the incident with the child at the dinner party and now Maridel.

Speaker 12 Kai dug deeper into his father's past.

Speaker 15 He had been arrested for rape in 1980, which I'd never heard before. Nobody cared to share that with me.

Speaker 12 The dam was about to break. Just weeks after Maridel's suit in January 2020, attorney Greg Gutzler filed a lawsuit, too.

Speaker 12 The suit filed in New York contained accusations from 10 anonymous Jane Does, women and girls accusing Nygaard of sex trafficking and sexual assault.

Speaker 6 Nine of the first 10 Jane Does were the young Bahamians, and they showed great bravery.

Speaker 12 Nygaard's lawyer denied the allegations, and Peter Nygaard prepared to fight back. But it turns out this was just the beginning.

Speaker 15 After that, it was like a tsunami, floodgates of horrific information coming forward over the course of several months.

Speaker 5 Coming up, the story model Beverly Peel tried hard not to tell.

Speaker 8 I had nightmares about this for like two years.

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Speaker 12 After years of fear and silence, in 2020, women were coming forward to accuse Peter Nygaard of horrific assaults.

Speaker 12 There was the lawsuit from Maridel, his former treasurer, and the 10 women represented by attorney Greg Gutzler. And then there were more, many

Speaker 12 more.

Speaker 6 Immediately after filing, our phones and our email was

Speaker 6 going absolutely crazy. We didn't have enough people to answer the phones.
We didn't didn't have enough people to return the emails.

Speaker 12 He soon started talking to Peter Nygaard's own son.

Speaker 15 It's quite a whirlwind from

Speaker 15 in your mind believing that Peter Nygaard, my father, was this

Speaker 15 flamboyant entrepreneur, hardworking businessman, and then to

Speaker 15 find out that behind the scenes he's actually a monster.

Speaker 12 Kai not only believed the allegations, he made a decision to help the attorney gather more evidence against his father. He gave the lawyers an insider's view of how the company operated.

Speaker 12 And later, he spoke out in public against his dad.

Speaker 6 He's been extraordinarily helpful.

Speaker 12 He stands with the accusers now. What does that mean to you?

Speaker 13 Probably more than I could ever tell him. His support has

Speaker 13 just been 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.

Speaker 12 Jenny Gilmer joined Gutzler's case, a class action lawsuit which grew to include 57 women from at least four different countries. Accusations of sexual assault that spanned a period of 40 years.

Speaker 12 Some of the accusers made their names public, including one woman in Nygaard's world who was more famous than he was.

Speaker 8 When you sweep stuff under the rug that happens to you and you don't speak about it, you build this, it's almost like venom and it devours you.

Speaker 12 Beverly Peel wasn't just the face of Nygaard. She was the mother of Nygaard's child, Trey.

Speaker 12 Born, she says, after Nygard raped her.

Speaker 8 I had nightmares about this man for like two years. The devil was Nygaard in my dreams.

Speaker 12 Even though he's the father of the child who you love so much,

Speaker 12 you still view Nygard as the devil.

Speaker 8 The devil with blue eyes, yes, ma'am.

Speaker 12 It happened, she says, a few days after she first met him. Beverly had gone to Nygaard's California beach house to sign her modeling contract.

Speaker 12 She says the ink was still wet when Nygaard attacked her in the bathroom.

Speaker 8 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. I remember screaming and getting really upset because I couldn't open the door.

Speaker 12 Beverly says she somehow found a way outside to her truck.

Speaker 8 I'm about to cry and trying to think of what am I going to tell my soon-to-be husband? And I just signed a contract, so I have this going on in my head. I have this going on.
What do I do?

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 8 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. And I went and put my my game face on, and it was never spoken.

Speaker 12 Beverly thought she could put it behind her, 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.

Speaker 12 So, when did you know it wasn't when the baby was born?

Speaker 8 I see the baby is lighter than you. And my girlfriend was video, she was, she had the handy cam, and she just dropped it and goes.

Speaker 8 And I was like, like looked at her like something's wrong with it. And then coming, and I had literally, I had a flash of the incident.

Speaker 12 And you probably don't know.

Speaker 8 I remember putting my head down, just like,

Speaker 8 why me? Why me?

Speaker 12 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-son relationship happen.

Speaker 8 We'd spend time together, the three of us. It was fun.
You know, he was, it was nice. And I hate that I have those memories because it's it's like, wow, like, how could this person be this person?

Speaker 8 Like, it makes me cry. Like, I'm getting choked up right now because it's just sad.

Speaker 8 When I saw him with our son, he was different, you know, and he was almost like multiple personalities. He had so many masks.

Speaker 12 When Trey was 11, Beverly told him her story of how he was conceived. And later in 2020, he encouraged her to go public.

Speaker 15 I was like, mom,

Speaker 19 we need to speak up about it. Like, you need to tell your story and make sure other people are not scared to come out.
Because if you come out, many will follow. Many, many, many men will follow.

Speaker 19 And I think I'm okay with it as long as you're okay with it. And we could just go through this together.
That's how I kind of like described it to her.

Speaker 12 That had to be a really tough choice for her to make, knowing, too, that it would expose you to whatever would come.

Speaker 12 And also knowing that it might end your relationship with your father.

Speaker 19 Yeah, because I only saw him like once a year. We never really had a strong relationship that I was trying to go for.

Speaker 12 Beverly joined the lawsuit and decided to speak out. Nyguard's attorney has denied her sexual assault allegation.

Speaker 12 Beverly says she had no idea so many women in Nygaard's orbit had similar stories of sexual assault. She regrets not doing more to warn them about Nygard.

Speaker 8 I wish I would have had the courage to say something because I would have told the girls to go home, go home before something bad happens.

Speaker 12 But Beverly was about to learn these women were up against something much larger than just one man. An entire enterprise.

Speaker 12 And Greg Gutzler and his team were building a case like you've never heard before.

Speaker 6 We spent thousands of hours putting the pieces together. And once you start doing that, it's kind of like a mosaic.

Speaker 6 If you step back and you fill out enough of the mosaic, you can see the complete picture.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 6 He would order up what he called the happy juice, and the bartender would know he had somebody targeted, so he would have to make the happy juice, which was the date rape truck.

Speaker 5 When dateline continues

Speaker 12 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, Attorney Greg Gutzler finally had a map for what he believed lay at the heart of Nygaard's fashion empire, a sex trafficking machine.

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 The scale, the depth, the level of people that were involved, there's absolutely no comparison.

Speaker 12 It began with those pamper parties you've seen and heard about.

Speaker 12 Gusler says what appeared on video to be carefree decadence was anything but that the parties had been organized with corporate efficiency.

Speaker 7 Everything was systematic. You dotted your I's, you crossed your T's.

Speaker 12 We track down this woman who worked for two months at Nygard Key in 2003.

Speaker 12 Michelle Mae was hired in an administrative role at the property, but quickly found out one of her main responsibilities was organizing the pamper parties.

Speaker 12 She says her colleagues told her what that meant.

Speaker 7 We're just one of the pimps, the pimpettes.

Speaker 7 And that they just basically disclose that this was all a ruse, you know.

Speaker 12 There was a script, Michelle says, to lure guests to Nygaard Key, promising them a good time and a chance to audition to be Nygaard models.

Speaker 12 And for each potential guest, she'd fill out a form recording the guest contact information, age, and weight. And one more data point, Michelle told us the women were given a grade, A, B, or C.

Speaker 7 They had to be under 20. They had to be in their teens.

Speaker 7 They had to be a certain weight.

Speaker 12 She She says she was also expected to send Nygaard photos of women when they checked in at the gatehouse.

Speaker 7 He would be in his stateroom receiving the emails, receiving the pictures, and he would confirm or reject

Speaker 7 the attendance of that person.

Speaker 12 Nygaard has said the check-in process was for security and communication. Michelle and her colleagues loaded all the information into a computer.

Speaker 7 There was a rolling electronic file of

Speaker 7 pamper party guests.

Speaker 12 This database of women was stored and accessible on Nygaard company computers. According to Gutzler's lawsuit, it contained 7,500 names.

Speaker 12 While Nygaard didn't appear to drink much himself, several former employees told us his party guests were encouraged to consume lots of alcohol.

Speaker 12 And Gutzler says he heard stories of how Nygaard would target some of the women women with drugs.

Speaker 6 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 then, no, because he had somebody targeted.

Speaker 6 He knew exactly what he wanted. So he would have them make the happy juice, which was the date rape drug.

Speaker 12 Michelle May says she didn't see any big effort to hide what was going on at the parties. What she says she did see was an effort to pay police and government officials to look the other way.

Speaker 7 There were plenty of politicians that came to

Speaker 24 receive packages of money and mine envelopes that was handed at the end of the night after dinner at the Great Hall.

Speaker 7 That was just

Speaker 7 standard procedure.

Speaker 12 Nygaard's attorneys have painted Michelle as untrustworthy and not credible. But others who spent time working at Nygaard Key told us they believe Nygaard had officials in his pocket.

Speaker 6 Cops were coming and taking cash payments. It was not in return for any type of legitimate job they were doing.
That was for protection. That was for a cover-up.

Speaker 12 We wanted to go to the Bahamas to ask about these allegations of corruption.

Speaker 12 But when government officials found out we were reporting on sex trafficking allegations, they refused to approve our visas. Police and government officials have not responded to requests for comment.

Speaker 12 After studying the Nygaard organization with its 12,000 employees worldwide, Gutzler says says he found people at all levels of the company, from the boardroom to the travel department, playing a part in the machine.

Speaker 6 We've had many people come forward and tell the truth, including a lot of co-conspirators who aren't proud of what they did, but they felt compelled, coerced to do it.

Speaker 12 In the spring of 2020, Gutzler decided to name names.

Speaker 12 He updated his class action lawsuit with a list of 13 Nygard NiGuard managers and executives he accused of being co-conspirators, of enabling NiGuard.

Speaker 6 We saw who was writing the checks. We saw who was telling victims to be quiet.
We knew who they were.

Speaker 12 There were people Kai knew well, some he'd known since he was a child.

Speaker 15 It makes me laugh at the idea in my mind that I used to look up to these people in this respected position and think that they were admirable people and wonder what the hell else they might have known.

Speaker 12 Kai and former marketing manager Pamela Erickson have been connecting with hundreds of former Nygaard employees, many of whom want to help keep the investigation going.

Speaker 12 Because the legal system wasn't done with Peter Nygaard.

Speaker 12 A year after Gutzler's first trip to the Bahamas, he wasn't the only one digging into Nygaard's company. The FBI was now on the case.
The Eye of the Storm was moving north. Destination, Times Square.

Speaker 5 Coming up, a striking scene at Nygard headquarters.

Speaker 9 I saw detectives with the New York Police Department going in and out, taking stuff out. FBI agents were there.

Speaker 5 And then...

Speaker 15 Hi, Jenny.

Speaker 5 After all that's happened, an emotional meeting for Jenny and Kai.

Speaker 12 February 2020, less than two weeks after a class action lawsuit was filed against Peter Nygaard in civil court,

Speaker 12 the FBI descended on his company's New York headquarters.

Speaker 9 I saw detectives and photographed detectives at the New York Police Department going in and out taking stuff out. FBI agents were there.

Speaker 12 From there, things snowballed. Nygaard announced he was stepping down from his position as head of the company that same day.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 The federal indictment against Peter Nygaard is vast. Kristen Gibbons Fedden was a prosecutor on the Bill Cosby case.
She is a legal analyst for MSNBC.

Speaker 12 But the lead charge is the racketeering racketeering charge, and that describes an organized criminal enterprise wherein individuals and employees of the many Nygard entities assisted with recruiting, soliciting, and ultimately targeting young women to then provide them and hand them over to Nygaard.

Speaker 12 The racketeering charge, or RICO, was enacted in the 1970s to go after organized crime. In other words, the mafia.

Speaker 6 Peter Nygaard's enterprise was organized crime, where the objective was sex trafficking. This is exactly what RICO is meant to do.

Speaker 6 It's meant to get the kingpin when the underlings are acting at his or her or its instruction.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 Federal prosecutors used this charge successfully in the R. Kelly case, but Kristen Gibbons Fedden says it's not a slam dunk.

Speaker 12 The RICO statute is very difficult to pursue because you have to prove that there was a criminal enterprise, one, and two, that that criminal enterprise facilitated the main person at the top to engage in criminal activity.

Speaker 12 But if the prosecution is not able to show that the enterprise was connected, the jury may think, well, they tried to overreach.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 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.

Speaker 12 And she says the stories of Nygaard's payoffs to police and politicians are false. She also repeated what Nygaard's attorneys have said.

Speaker 12 He is a victim of a conspiracy of lies orchestrated and funded by Louis Bacon.

Speaker 12 To Jenny Gilmer, who says she was assaulted before the Bacon dispute began, that makes absolutely no sense.

Speaker 13 What happened to me in 98 would have nothing to do with the feud.

Speaker 13 that he has with his neighbor.

Speaker 12 Nygaard's lawyers have also said the Jane Does are, quote, jumping on what they think is a money train and hope to cash in. Is this about money for you?

Speaker 13 No, this isn't about the money. This is about justice.

Speaker 12 This is also a teaching moment

Speaker 30 for

Speaker 3 sexual predators that you literally

Speaker 12 may have to pay the cost of your wrongs.

Speaker 12 And sometimes having to literally pay the victim is language that the sexual predators can understand.

Speaker 12 Nygaard's fashion empire is shuttered. The day after he agreed to be extradited to the U.S., he was also charged with sexual assault in Canada.

Speaker 12 His son Kai feels a huge sense of relief knowing his father is going to face justice in court.

Speaker 15 That's a big weight off my shoulders, just knowing that he's not going to get away with it. He's not going to be able to hurt anybody else.

Speaker 12 Kai, who at one point stood to inherit part of his father's empire, has done all he can to separate himself from the company and even the Nygard name.

Speaker 15 I legally changed my name.

Speaker 15 I wanted to dishonor the Nygard name. It's something that he has a lot of vanity around that he's pushed that name.

Speaker 12 On top of the name change, he is working to create change through an organization called Child USA.

Speaker 15 They focus on changing laws that would be in support of justice for women and children and other victims of sexual crimes.

Speaker 12 Like his brother Kai, Trey has also separated himself from all things Nygard.

Speaker 12 He's 18 years old now, a man who says his life will be nothing like his father's.

Speaker 19 I don't want to treat women how he treated women. When it comes to relationships and other stuff like that, I don't want to be him.

Speaker 8 Treat a woman as you would your mother.

Speaker 19 Exactly, that's what she tells me all the time.

Speaker 12 The women who say they've been abused by Peter Nygaard are all working in their own ways to come to terms with what happened.

Speaker 14 He has left scars that are going to be there for the rest of my life.

Speaker 12 What do you think should happen to Peter Nygaard?

Speaker 14 I'm hoping that they put him in a jail

Speaker 14 until he passes away.

Speaker 12 Just this week, we watched Jenny Gilmer, now a married mother of two, take another step.

Speaker 15 Hi, Jenny.

Speaker 13 Hi.

Speaker 12 Jenny had not seen Kai since they were teenagers on Nygaard Key a long time ago. He drove Kai to meet her.

Speaker 15 Thanks for seeing me.

Speaker 21 Thanks for coming this way.

Speaker 12 A chance to replace awful memories with new ones.

Speaker 15 Your story was very impactful, not just for myself, but also for others.

Speaker 23 So

Speaker 15 thank you.

Speaker 12 Wow, it took a long time.

Speaker 12 Do you think of yourself as a survivor now?

Speaker 13 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?

Speaker 5 That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again next Friday at 10 9 Central.
And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News.

Speaker 5 Good night.

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