NEW YORK, Dec 23 (Reuters) – Billionaire hedge fund manager Louis Bacon has won his long-running defamation lawsuit alleging that former fashion mogul and convicted sex offender Peter Nygard spread lies about him during a public spat over their adjacent properties in the Bahamas.
Justice Richard Latin in Manhattan said in an order on Monday that Nygard had admitted he had no evidence to back up his claims against Bacon, including that he was a murderer, narcotics trafficker and white supremacist. Bacon said in his lawsuit that Nygard’s claims were “brazen lies.”
Nygard’s lawyer, Peter Sverd, said in a statement on Tuesday that Nygard will continue to fight the case and expects to appeal.
Lawyers for Bacon, the founder of Moore Capital Management LP, did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment on Tuesday.
Nygard, the founder of Nygard International, who was once one of Canada’s richest men, is serving an 11-year prison sentence in Canada for sexual assault.
Bacon and Nygard were neighbors in an exclusive gated community in the Bahamas and became embroiled in a bitter dispute over Nygard’s efforts to expand his property, which Bacon opposed.
In his lawsuit filed in 2015, Bacon accused Nygard of orchestrating an obsessive and malicious smear campaign to falsely link Bacon to arson, bribery, drug smuggling, the Ku Klux Klan and murder.
Nygard was found guilty by a Toronto jury on four counts of sexual assault in 2023. He was acquitted of a fifth count of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement. Nygard has denied the allegations against him.
(Reporting by Jack Queen in New YorkEditing by Rod Nickel and Noeleen Walder)
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