The Tribune

PETER Nygard once lived like a king – and acted like one – in his Bahamian complex. Now he is a convicted sex offender, who may be resorting to representing himself in court as he continues to lose lawyers.

The 82-year-old is guilty. Four times over. He is guilty of sex assaults. He is a sexual predator.

His son, Kai Bickle, did not draw the line at four for his father’s list of victims, saying that the list was long.

The guilty verdicts are just the tip of the iceberg.

Mr Bickle says that most of his father’s abuse happened here in The Bahamas. The cases that have reached court are simply the ones that fall under the court’s jurisdiction in Toronto.

Mr Bickle called his father “a systematic monster who used his business talents for evil to prey on others”.

There are further allegations surrounding The Bahamas – including of instances where women escaped Mr Nygard’s property, only to be taken back there by Bahamian police officers.

Police Commissioner Clayton Fernander said in November last year that he would search for the investigation files concerning complaints made by women in The Bahamas to see why charges were never brought against Mr Nygard.

More than half a year on, there is no word of whether his search has been successful, but there has been no sign of those charges either.

Will Mr Nygard only be held to account in foreign jurisdictions? Are we to believe that despite the many allegations he was faultless and blame- less here and only a sexual predator and abuser of women elsewhere?

Mr Nygard once boasted of possible immortality in his days here in The Bahamas. He talked of how he was reverse ageing thanks to stem cell technology. He said: “This is huge. This is a game changer. This could eliminate all disease. This perhaps is immortality.”

Mortality seems to have caught him up. He now tells a judge that his life could be at risk if he was to appear in person in court because of severe illness.

The judge was dismissive of Mr Nygard’s claim, telling him: “You’re not a doctor.”

Mr Nygard is also losing lawyers. A second lawyer representing him recently withdrew, citing “ethical reasons”.

This could mean that when Mr Nygard return to court for sentencing in two weeks that he will be representing himself.

As the old Abraham Lincoln saying goes, the man who represents himself has a fool for a client.

Mr Nygard is out of friends. He is out of lawyers. He is out of chances.

Time has caught up with him, making mockery of his claims of immortality. And justice is catching up with him at last.

It is just a shame that it is not Bahamian justice holding him to account for the crimes he committed here.

Will we be the only ones to turn a blind eye to his actions while other courts elsewhere hold him to account?

And if we are, what does that say about us?