A Canadian billionaire was found guilty of sexually assaulting two women, and his lawyer's response was to call it no big deal. Frank Stronach, 93-year-old founder of auto parts giant Magna International, was convicted Friday on one count of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault. His attorney's official position: they are 'extremely happy' about the outcome.
What the Judge Actually Said
Ontario Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy handed down the verdict after a trial that began in February. According to the New York Post, Molloy found Stronach guilty of sexually assaulting a woman in the early 1980s, an assault the victim said took place at his Toronto condo after a dinner nearby. The judge's language about his conduct during the proceedings was not gentle. She described some of his behavior as, quote, 'gross and disgusting.'
Molloy also found Stronach guilty on a separate count of indecent assault in the late 1970s, involving a woman who said he groped her at his condo. The incidents are decades old. The convictions are not. Stronach did not testify during the trial, and the judge acquitted him on other charges including attempted rape and rape.
The Lawyer Quote That Should Keep You Up at Night
Here is the statement from Stronach's attorney Leora Shemesh, delivered after her 93-year-old client was convicted of sexually assaulting two women: 'We are disappointed by the convictions on the two very minor offenses.'
Sit with that for a moment. A judge found that Frank Stronach sexually assaulted a woman at his condo in the early 1980s and groped another woman in the late 1970s, and his legal team's public posture is essentially: could have been worse, honestly pretty good day. The New York Post reports Shemesh also said the defense team was 'extremely happy' that the rape charges and additional sexual assault counts were dismissed. The bar for happiness, it turns out, is flexible when you're billing by the hour for a billionaire.
Who Is Frank Stronach
Stronach is Austrian-born and founded Magna International, a Canadian auto parts company, back in 1957. He built it into one of the largest automotive suppliers in the world and became, in the process, one of the richest people in Canada. He relinquished control of the company in 2010, and Magna has been quick to note, as the New York Post reports, that it has had no affiliation with Stronach since that handover.
Police arrested and charged Stronach in 2024 with a range of criminal offenses including sexual assault and rape, covering alleged crimes stretching from the 1970s all the way to 2024. The span of that alleged timeline is staggering. We are talking about conduct allegedly running across five decades. Stronach was 93 years old when he stood trial. The women who said he hurt them have been living with what happened for most of their adult lives.
This Is Not Over
Stronach has not yet been sentenced on the two convictions handed down Friday. The New York Post reports he faces another sexual assault trial next year, meaning the legal proceedings are far from finished.
Sentencing in cases like this, involving a man of advanced age, will raise predictable arguments about health, infirmity, and the cost of incarceration. Those arguments will be made by expensive lawyers on behalf of a very rich man. The women who testified against him did not get to decide when their chapter of this story ended.
The Dingo Take
The phrase 'very minor offenses' is going to live rent-free in a lot of heads for a while, and it should. A defense attorney calling her client's sexual assault convictions minor is a window into a particular world, the one where enough money means the rules of basic human decency become negotiating positions. Two women came forward. Two women were believed by a judge. A court in Ontario looked at the evidence and said, yes, this happened. And the response from the defense table was essentially: we've seen worse scorecards.
Stronach is 93. His lawyers will argue that fact loudly at sentencing. But the age of the perpetrator does not rewind the age of the crime, and it certainly does not undo what the victims experienced. The assaults happened in the 1970s and 1980s. The women who reported them waited decades in a world that historically punished women for reporting powerful men. The least we can do is not call what they went through 'very minor' with a straight face.
There is another trial coming next year. More charges. More testimony. More opportunities for the legal team to locate the precise emotional floor of public shame and dig right through it. Frank Stronach built a billion-dollar empire and spent decades insulated by wealth from consequences that ordinary people face immediately. The verdict on Friday was one small correction to that ledger. The sentence, whenever it comes, had better be another.
