Uncle Peter | Episode 4: Rage Monster

Summary

Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield Episode 4: Rage Monster Release Date: February 6, 2025

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Introduction

In the gripping fourth episode of Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield, titled "Rage Monster," host Ashleigh Banfield delves deep into the harrowing story of Peter Nygaard—a man whose public persona as an international playboy masked a sinister reality of heinous crimes. Through firsthand accounts and expert insights, Banfield unravels the complexities of Nygaard's manipulation, control, and the devastating impact on those around him.

The Public Facade of Peter Nygaard

Peter Nygaard was known publicly as a charismatic and generous business tycoon, often likened to figures like Hugh Hefner. His flamboyant lifestyle and constant entourage of women painted a picture of glamour and success. However, this veneer concealed a darker truth.

Narrator [02:28]: "They may have been called naughty, but they were rarely called criminals."

Nygaard's ability to evade scrutiny was partly due to the societal attitudes of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, which often turned a blind eye to the misconduct of powerful men. This ignorance allowed him to operate unchecked for decades, committing atrocious crimes such as rape, sex trafficking, and drugging women, sometimes keeping them captive for weeks.

Angela Diborn’s Personal Journey

Angela Diborn, Nygaard's niece and childhood friend, provides a poignant narrative of her experiences working for him. As a single teenage mother, Angela had limited options and found herself joining Nygaard's enterprise in hopes of building a stable future. However, her initial optimism quickly turned to despair.

Angela Diborn [01:17]: "My staff who are maintaining this place are not to be going ahead Driving with you somewhere."

Within weeks, Angela encountered Nygaard's volatile temper and abusive behavior, culminating in severe anxiety that even caused her to be hospitalized.

Peter Nygaard [05:51]: "...everything became my problem. I would show up and he'd show up and he would start screaming."

Angela Diborn [06:48]: "I wanted the right people to do the right job every single time. And I want them to be accountable for what they do, like any other place."

Despite repeated attempts to leave, Angela found herself continually drawn back, a testament to the suffocating control Nygaard exerted over his employees and family.

The Dual Nature of Nygaard’s Behavior

Nygaard exhibited a stark contrast between his public persona and his private actions. While he appeared generous and affable in public, behind closed doors, he was tyrannical, using charm and wealth to manipulate and abuse.

Narrator [03:23]: "On the outside, he came across as generous and gregarious, a business tycoon who wanted everyone around him to enjoy the good life."

Narrator [09:48]: "It was unbelievable. I kind of sacrificed my daughter and she didn't get abused and in fairness."

This duality allowed Nygaard to perpetuate his crimes without arousing suspicion, as those around him either feared his wrath or were too entangled in their dependency to break free.

Psychological and Financial Abuse

Nygaard's manipulation extended beyond verbal abuse. He employed psychological tactics to maintain control, fostering an environment of fear and dependency.

Angela Diborn [16:10]: "There were bottles and bottles of pee because he would just wind up peeing in a like peeing in a bottle just as he was on the telephone at his desk."

Peter Nygaard [22:56]: "He kept people poor. He kept people needing him."

Financially, Nygaard ensured that his employees remained in a state of economic vulnerability, making it nearly impossible for them to leave without facing severe consequences.

The Power of Family Loyalty

Family loyalty played a crucial role in Nygaard's ability to control and exploit those around him. For many, like Angela, the intertwining of family and business created an inescapable bond.

Angela Diborn [33:17]: "You're quitting the family. If you're quitting the company or if you've been fired by Peter, it's clearly you've done something wrong."

Dr. Julian Goger, a forensic psychiatrist, sheds light on how attachments and familial bonds can trap individuals in abusive environments, making it exceedingly difficult to sever ties even in the face of immense suffering.

Dr. Julian Goger [35:13]: "Attachment runs deep. Attachment begins fairly early on in life, and it's difficult to sever that attachment."

The Bahamas: A Haven for Hedonism and Horror

Nygaard's private island resort in the Bahamas, Nygaard Cay, epitomized excess and debauchery. What appeared to be extravagant parties and swingers' retreats were, in reality, scenes of horrific sex crimes orchestrated and controlled entirely by Nygaard.

Narrator [21:07]: "Nygaard Cay... was the scene of an excessively hedonistic lifestyle... and swingers retreats complete with awards for who slept with the most people."

These events were meticulously managed to ensure absolute control over the participants, often resulting in the exploitation and abuse of women who were drawn into Nygaard's twisted world.

Breaking the Cycle: Angela’s Courageous Stand

Despite the relentless abuse, Angela's journey towards recognizing the truth of her uncle's atrocities marks a pivotal moment in the narrative. Her transformation from a devoted family member to a courageous whistleblower underscores the profound impact of Nygaard's manipulations.

Angela Diborn [43:09]: "It was a bit of a process because at first I absolutely was a defender... And then I started looking at what nuggets of truth are in here."

Her eventual acceptance of the horrifying realities laid bare the extensive path of destruction Nygaard left behind, both personally and professionally.

Conclusion

Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield masterfully uncovers the chilling depths of Peter Nygaard's manipulative and abusive reign. Through Angela Diborn's heart-wrenching testimony and expert analysis, the episode not only exposes the multifaceted nature of Nygaard's crimes but also highlights the psychological traps that keep victims ensnared in abusive relationships. This episode serves as a stark reminder of the importance of vigilance and the courage required to break free from the shadows of manipulative power.

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Notable Quotes:

• Angela Diborn [07:09]: "Did you realize it was going to be horrible, or did you think this was temporary?"
• Peter Nygaard [24:38]: "Us just screaming about nonsensical stuff."
• Angela Diborn [28:56]: "It is chaotic the way you and Morton run that place."
• Dr. Julian Goger [35:13]: "Attachment runs deep. Attachment begins fairly early on in life, and it's difficult to sever that attachment."

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If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, please reach out to your local sexual assault hotline.

Transcript

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[Narrator]

Which may be unsuitable for some listeners.

[Angela Diborn]

My staff who are maintaining this place are not to be going ahead Driving with you somewhere.

[Narrator]

That's the voice of Peter Nygaard, who is today locked up for the horrific crimes of rape, sex trafficking, drugging and holding women against their will, sometimes for weeks at a time. It took a very long time for those crimes to surface. For decades, Nygaard lived in plain sight as an international playboy. Nobody really questioned his flamboyant behavior, with dozens of women always on his flank. Instead, many were envious of his jet setting life. And why is that? That's a very good question. Things were very different back in the 70s and the 80s, even, even the 90s. Men like Peter Nygaard and Hugh Hefner, they got a pass. They were called ladies, men, Casanovas, heartbreakers and playboys.

[Angela Diborn]

Thanks for the disco.

[Narrator]

They may have been called naughty, but they were rarely called criminals. The women in their entourage were often considered glamorous and lucky.

[Peter Nygaard]

Hi.

[Narrator]

It's beautiful. I love it.

[Peter Nygaard]

We're moving in. Yeah, we are.

[Narrator]

And that veneer allowed Peter Nygaard to commit his sex crimes one after the other, virtually undetected. But the attitudes of the day weren't the only reason that he could skate under the radar and avoid scrutiny. People were also terrified of Nygaard. They were genuinely terrified.

[Angela Diborn]

I want the right people to do the right job every single time. And I want them to be accounted for for what they do, like any other place. I want it to be transparent. Like every other place.

[Narrator]

On the outside, he came across as generous and gregarious, a business tycoon who wanted everyone around him to enjoy the good life.

[Angela Diborn]

That's good.

[Narrator]

But behind closed doors, it was Jekyll and Hyde. He was a monster who lured women with his charm and his wealth and his lavish parties and then unleashed his wrath in the bedroom and in the office, which were often one in the same thing. By now, many know about the sex crimes that he committed. But his abuse of women wasn't only sexual, it was psychological and it was financial. To many who know him, me included, he's a narcissist and an egomaniac who fed on power and control. And that power and control was exerted over everyone, including his women and his own family. Nygaard's niece is Angela Diborn. She's my childhood best friend and we grew up together with Uncle Peter. When I went off to college, Angela went off to work for Peter. As a single teenage mom, she really didn't have much of a choice. She was pregnant at 17 by a married 35 year old man. So she dropped out of college and she signed on with Nygaard. At first, Angela was kind of lured by the opportunity. Her uncle was a tycoon who might just bring her up through the family business. But within just a couple of weeks, Angela saw the real Peter Nygaard. This is Angela's story.

[Peter Nygaard]

Peter Nygaard.

[Angela Diborn]

We do the real people. That's our marketplace. You will not find another product as competitively priced as ours.

[Narrator]

Welcome back to Uncle Peter, a drop dead Serious podcast. When you moved down to Los Angeles from our hometown, from Winnipeg, you took a job with Peter Nygaard's company in the us it was a big, big deal. Describe those early, early times when you had moved to start working for him.

[Peter Nygaard]

When I first really worked directly for him, and it was something like I'd never experienced before he had first built me up. I came down to help with the boutique, opening this new store in Beverly Hills. I was built up, built up, built up. And then I was shattered. I was yelled at and screamed at. Things weren't happening on cue or to his liking. Speed of like the construction permits weren't coming through. But somehow all that wound up my fault. I had nothing to do with creating a project and I'm very conscientious worker. But everything became my problem. I would show up and he'd show up and he would start screaming. I remember one time I pulled up on site, on the project site. I saw his car there and I vomited in the Parking lot. Because I just had such a reaction. This was only a couple weeks, you know, no more than a month of moving down there.

[Narrator]

Wait, within a month of moving down there, you developed an anxiety that made you throw up upon the sight of him at a work site.

[Peter Nygaard]

And I wound up in the hospital for a night, myself and this other girl.

[Narrator]

So you get down there, you've got your single mom. Single mom, got this young daughter, fell.

[Peter Nygaard]

In love with my husband, who's now my husband, like Martin.

[Narrator]

So you're setting up a life down there, and you think, this job's gonna be great. And within weeks. Within weeks, you realize. Did you realize it was going to be horrible, or did you think this was temporary?

[Peter Nygaard]

A bit of both. I knew the reputation because, you know, obviously now at this point in your life, you heard. Yell at people, but you always kind of thought you understood that they caused this. So we hadn't experienced it necessarily directly, but what you'd hear is, oh, they made Peter's explanation afterward. Oh, they made me get upset with them. They, you know, they were the cause of.

[Narrator]

They were the cause of my rage. That was his excuse. Everybody else caused his rage. He had no responsibility for it.

[Peter Nygaard]

Yep. I kind of thought it might be temporary. I thought, okay, wait, if I can just work harder, do better, work longer, then maybe I can keep him happy and I can build a career and kind of continue and grow with the company.

[Narrator]

Did that ever happen?

[Peter Nygaard]

Nope, it never happened.

[Narrator]

Were there, like, flashes of, this is going to be okay, I'm over the hump?

[Peter Nygaard]

There's actually. There was flashes of, let's leave, quit, and then get lured back in. There was never. There was some better days than worse days. You could. You could play people learned how to manipulate, play people against each other.

[Narrator]

It was like gamesmanship. I'm gonna sink someone else so I can survive today.

[Peter Nygaard]

There were people that. There were people that played that that way.

[Narrator]

And did she know that?

[Peter Nygaard]

Yeah. Peter pitted people against each other. He was one of the primary people to do that.

[Narrator]

It's hard for anybody to understand, but there's some clips that have emerged that show him just filled with, like, rage and profanity. The clips that have aired, are they. Are they accurate? Like, is that the way he always was?

[Peter Nygaard]

They're. They're beyond. They're absolutely accurate.

[Angela Diborn]

That is how every business works, Angela. That is how my fucking business is supposed to be working, Angela.

[Peter Nygaard]

Approval.

[Angela Diborn]

I want to be sure that not only is the schedule sent to me, that then it resides in the correct place. It is Meant with the staff who understands it, with the communication that has occurred. You got that responsibility.

[Peter Nygaard]

It's in critical, so it's in Marine Admin.

[Narrator]

Critical.

[Peter Nygaard]

Critical. Concord Info 2019. There's the staff list, the poker list.

[Angela Diborn]

That the person that was operating should not be able to find it. There's no way that that should be readily available. So you also have that responsibility of pitching the next person who's in their training. All of that stuff that is supposed to be worked on and none of it is being worked on.

[Peter Nygaard]

That was just another Monday, Just another. That would happen at least once a day, but mostly multiple times. He'd go on like that. I think the clips people have seen are just minutes that could go on for hours. You could be. That level of intensity of screaming could go on for hours and hours. If you had him on the phone, it was easier than if you had him in person. If you had him in person, he'd be split. Spitting in your face and looking at you and glaring. And it was frightening. It was just. He was. There was something where someone said he turns into a monster sometimes. It was. He was in full monster mode, like a rage monster, a raging monster.

[Angela Diborn]

You obviously had a lot of confusion. And when the. Do you get the end of that confusion? Jesus Christ, you're just amazing to me. I said, look at you. Somebody else. You look after that information and it's in complete mess. Every time you phone there, It's a mess.

[Peter Nygaard]

December 9, 2018.

[Angela Diborn]

I don't want to hear your. What do you. You want me to come and clean up your mess? Holy Christ. And now you're sort of explaining that you're not at fault now. Now you say, oh God, we weren't us wrong. Okay, if you weren't at fault, who was at fault? Because there obviously was at fault.

[Narrator]

When you first went down to Los Angeles, what was your role like? What was your job with nygard?

[Peter Nygaard]

When I first went down, my job was supposed to be in retail. So I was going to be working with retail operations. But I very quickly got pulled into the house because I was staying at.

[Narrator]

The Marina facility, which was his home base in la. You had to run it.

[Peter Nygaard]

Correct.

[Narrator]

The Marina, as it was called, was Peter's home in Marina del Rey, California.

[Peter Nygaard]

I slowly started to become almost like a house manager. So I started to have to be responsible from everything from the housekeepers to which girlfriends were driving the cars to everything else. Peter would be touched during a trip there. And then when he wasn't there, I was also responsible for doing A lot with his kids. Like if paying their different school bills or arranging transportation and travel for them. Being the being basically the step in surrogate mother without being a parent to them. But the role that what a parent would normally do if your kid's heading off to camp, you're sending them off to camp.

[Narrator]

He also had illegitimate kids. And my assumption is that there was sort of a child support network that had to be handled. Somebody had to be doing all this. Did this all fall on you?

[Peter Nygaard]

I was involved in every single child. Any of the needs, any of the sort of the managing of their relate of them even trying to reach their dad, trying to reach their father, even like trying to connect them together, trying to remind him, hey, it's your daughter's birthday today, do you want to send something?

[Narrator]

So this is pre cell phones. And if his children of many different moms or the moms of his children wanted to reach him, they could not. They had to, they had to come through you to find where's Peter and how do I reach him?

[Peter Nygaard]

So we had to call the office and then we'd have to transfer them, we'd have to call him. Meanwhile, you're just trying to be business. You're trying to break free of the personal side, but because you're related to him. It was some crazy logic in the company or I guess you owe him. Yeah, you owe him and that you're the most natural person to be doing it. My husband, he would do the cooking and look after the housekeepers and that side.

[Narrator]

And driving.

[Peter Nygaard]

Yeah, I met him when he was the like driving for Peter and then I would sort of handle the other side. The, you know, the kind of what you, how you'd run a regular house. I was running his house for him.

[Narrator]

But it was not a regular house. There were a lot of needs, it.

[Peter Nygaard]

Was not a regular house. There was a lot of leads, a lot of girls.

[Narrator]

I remember that you had like family medical, child support, logistics, travel, clothes, shipping, accounting. And that the hours were just like relentless. This is how you described it to me back in the 90s.

[Peter Nygaard]

Oh yeah, the hours we would start. So he went a wake up call because he doesn't believe in alarm clocks. So you had to be in the office at 6am to give him his first wake up call and then run the business side of it as well as whatever anybody else in the household wanted to do for their agendas that day into the evening, into the dinner. And you'd have to be on call until he finally went to bed, which could be 3, 4 in the morning and then you'd start all over again the next day. So you were literally going around the clock.

[Narrator]

He wanted people available at his every.

[Peter Nygaard]

Available in his every call. If you got him on a wake up call and he'd had a bad night and bad night being he probably didn't have sex or something went wrong, he would be in a horrible mood, it's 6am he would start laying into you about stuff like it could be like just insane things like if you. But if you're working in the office, wait.

[Narrator]

He would lay into the person who did the wake up call. If he woke up on the wrong side of the bed like with some complaint about something.

[Peter Nygaard]

Yep. If the dinner wasn't right the night before, if somebody got like left too early like he would just. Whoever called him on the wake up call, he would, if he was in that mood he would just dive right in. You were in for it and it was going to be a very long day. So we started making my daughter do the wake up calls because he wouldn't yell at her. So we were sending. When he was in town, my 10 year old daughter would have to go to sleepover parties like with her little alarm clock and make a phone call. I mean I laugh, I'm laughing now because it's just listening to me say it.

[Narrator]

It's unbelievable.

[Peter Nygaard]

It's unbelievable. I kind of sacrificed my daughter and she didn't get abused and in fairness.

[Narrator]

She didn't get abused.

[Peter Nygaard]

He loved having her do it. And in the Nygaard world that was, you know, us getting generation number three now into the mix and starting to.

[Narrator]

Work and everybody's in the industry like the. It's a family, it's a family business.

[Peter Nygaard]

He did work a lot. I mean in fairness to him, the work ethic and that drive, especially in the early years, he did a large company, a successful company employed thousands and thousands of people. So that side of him I think and that really was that 24 hour, 48 hour work and drive that he had early on.

[Narrator]

You told me a story about like his bathroom habits. When he was working at his desk he wouldn't even break to go to the bathroom later.

[Peter Nygaard]

Yeah. At the marina the housekeepers would have to go up and at the end of the night when they go sort of clear his area and tidy up, there'd be bottles and bottles of pee because he would just wind up peeing in a like peeing in a bottle just as he was on the telephone at his desk.

[Narrator]

At his desk bottles of pee at his desk. He just wouldn't stop down to literally go to a bathroom. Was that lazy or was that because he was so focused on the work that he couldn't stop down to go to the bathroom?

[Peter Nygaard]

I think it was part. A bit of both. But I think it was just that he was just so into doing the work and just. He didn't think anything of it. I mean, who cares if someone has to clean up your pee? Which is, again, disgusting.

[Narrator]

He had a habit of actually going to the bathroom while on business calls and did not hide the fact that he was either urinating or worse.

[Peter Nygaard]

Nope. It was. A lot of us knew it as the waterfall. He would say, oh, I'm standing next to a waterfall. Or he'd make some little joke about being close to a waterfall, and that would be him urinating. So after we worked with him for a period of time, it would just be something normal. But I do remember a couple times where you'd be, like, hiring somebody new in the office, or you'd be on a call, like a training call, and that would happen, and people would just be.

[Narrator]

They'd be mortified.

[Peter Nygaard]

They'd be mortified, but it was so normal.

[Narrator]

Did he have. No. That it was inappropriate to subject his employees to his bathroom habits?

[Peter Nygaard]

On work calls, bathroom habits, nudity. I mean, he could answer, you know, especially in the residence, he could answer the door in nude, Even having. Going upstairs to bring some paperwork to him, and there could be a couple naked girls in the bed. That wouldn't have been a problem.

[Narrator]

It didn't faze him that employees would have to come in in the course of business and be subjected to naked women or naked Peter in the office.

[Peter Nygaard]

In the office, there were no boundaries, often between life and work life between work and life. Even having the bedrooms and the offices, because those two are so connected. If you're working for him, you were subjected to his nudity as well as.

[Narrator]

His business and his predilections, his habits. And he saw nothing wrong with that.

[Peter Nygaard]

Nothing wrong with that.

[Narrator]

Peter didn't have any homes. Like, he didn't have a home of his own, but he seemed to set up his homes literally in his office. Every office he had had a bedroom suite. Was it for sex or was it because he literally was a workaholic?

[Peter Nygaard]

Part of it was that he was a workaholic and is an absolutely great reason to have a bed in your suite is because you're a workaholic. But. But now looking at it, it was also a very convenient way to Also have sex.

[Narrator]

What was the pay like? Was it worth it? Why would you want to work for him?

[Peter Nygaard]

When I first went down there, I was maybe making $300, $400 every two weeks Canadian, because I was still being paid in Canadian, which in American was.

[Narrator]

Which would be about $200 to $250 a week American.

[Peter Nygaard]

And that was back in the 90s. For every two weeks? Yeah, in the 90s.

[Narrator]

So $125 a week. In the 90s. US dollars. So he gave you a place to live, gave you a car to drive, and 125 bucks a week.

[Peter Nygaard]

Yep.

[Narrator]

In the 90s, yeah.

[Peter Nygaard]

I think Morten, my husband, was maybe making about 400 every couple weeks too. So we're. We're nickel and diming it. From probably mid-90s till the company went to bankruptcy. I was making 25 bucks an hour. I was only ever hourly. Sometimes we'd make $100,000 in the year. At $25 an hour. That's a hell of a lot of hours when you're hourly. I mean, what were your regular work weeks?

[Narrator]

How many hours?

[Peter Nygaard]

It just all depended on the projects. So if he was in town, the regular work weeks, I mean, you're working easily 16, 18 hours a day. But we were only being paid to the maximum of 12 hours a day. So we were paid. We'd cap off at 12. So even if we worked 16 hours, we'd only get paid for 12. So you could pay 84 hours for the week you were maxed out at. He also had a bonus structure, but most people never got bonuses. He did this bonus. It was a penalizing bonus where it wasn't a performance. He'd say, Here's $500 every quarter. You're gonna get it as long as you don't break any rules. And the rules weren't, like, set things you could read and understand and say, okay, I'm cool with not breaking rules. They were arbitrary and they changed daily. And you could wake up one morning and all of a sudden you had charges against your bonus, which would pretty much eat up your bonus.

[Narrator]

So did anyone actually get the bonus, or did he find ways to just eat up the bonus?

[Peter Nygaard]

For the most part. For the most, most part, I'd say he found ways to eat up the bonus. Other people in the company, if you didn't work directly for him, if you're actually working in more of the corporate side, I think some of those people would get bonuses a bit. But if you work directly for Peter, there are people in Bahamas that sometimes would owe him money at the end of a week.

[Narrator]

The people in the Bahamas that Angela is referring to are Peter's employees at Nygaard Cay, his tropical home, a multi million dollar private island resort. It was the scene of an excessively hedonistic lifestyle. Wild week long sex parties with women clad only in body paint and feathers. And swingers retreats complete with awards for who slept with the most people.

[Shopify Advertiser]

The best sexual performance goes to the woman who claims to have had at least 99% of those attendees here, who claims that they were all worth having and all wonderful. And I know she's thinking to herself right now, oh my God, that sounds like me. You're all probably thinking that, but we only know of one who actually laid claim to this trophy. So son would come up here and grab the trophy for special performance. We came up with this trophy. We're calling it the Most Likely to Please. The one that you would definitely want to invite to a swing party. The most functional male and female most likely to Please. The male winner of our Most Likely to Please trophy, Vedran, my brother from Brazil.

[Peter Nygaard]

Get up here, buddy.

[Shopify Advertiser]

Ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome Simone to.

[Angela Diborn]

The front to accept the trophy.

[Narrator]

It was also the scene of horrific sex crimes, and Peter Nygaard was in complete control of everything. It sounds like he was not only like verbally abusive to you and the other employees who work for him, but also financially abusive.

[Peter Nygaard]

He kept people poor. He kept people poor. He kept people needing him. And he. The mental side of it. He'd build you up and then he'd pull you right down to the point where you were so broken that you felt you couldn't do anything else, that you just had to hold on, you had to stay, you had to hold on a little bit longer because that's.

[Narrator]

What I wanted to ask. Like, what was the hold that he had over employees? Why would people stay with someone so abusive?

[Peter Nygaard]

There's so many different. So many different scenarios. People that were healthy left. A lot of people that were healthy, they were gone.

[Narrator]

But the relationship Angela had with her uncle was anything but healthy.

[Peter Nygaard]

You'd be in the Bahamas and working and you'd go down with a team. So you kind of tended to work with the same teams, often in different events. And you had to have your event team all laying on the floor, practically crying, trying to figure out who's gonna go tell Peter that something happened because everybody's so brutalized and beaten down.

[Narrator]

You've described some phone calls to me that are unbelievable unless you hear them Describe what he used to do on the phone regularly.

[Angela Diborn]

So that we don't have this kind of idiotic that's going on right now. And our schedule, then it's going to be very clearly laid out in the exact place in that goddamn wall where it's posted in a wall or whatever, and it's just gonna be just piled up in a bunch of shit. This personal operation is not gonna be run the way you run your life.

[Narrator]

Okay?

[Peter Nygaard]

So you could be on a screaming phone call with him. 30 minutes to 4,5 hours.

[Narrator]

4,5 hours of a phone call of.

[Peter Nygaard]

Us just screaming about nonsensical stuff. And just when you start to get him to calm down and he start to mellow out. He tried to get you to engage, but if you didn't engage with him, he'd mellow out. But he'd shoot right back up and pick a different issue to get upset about.

[Angela Diborn]

That is what the job they do there. Now, Larry said this for the most poker, Dubour's panther fighting. Who is working on that now? Today is when we do the Pamper party tomorrow.

[Peter Nygaard]

Gianna is working on the Pamper day. It was illogical. And people say, why don't you hang up? If you hung up, he would call you right back. If you didn't answer from him, somebody else would call you back. If you didn't answer to them, you'd be fired. We were traveling. We went on a camping trip as a family. We did the whole trip from Southern California, from Los Angeles up to the Central coast, set up camp, did two or three other things. So a good six, seven hour period block, I was on the same phone call the entire time, six to seven.

[Narrator]

Hours, the same phone call, Phone call of relentless abuse. Yeah, the phone call was just to point out whatever he thought was wrong and how you were all at fault.

[Angela Diborn]

Yes, your thinking is wrong. Yes, you are always wrong. Yes, if we establish one F system and one disclosure is you guys are always wrong. This is just a perfect example of you're being always wrong. You've never yet been right. And now you make it seem like.

[Narrator]

It was like he was just fixated on like a torrent of abuse. It almost sounds like psychological torture.

[Peter Nygaard]

Oh, it's absolutely psychological torture. Emails made it easier because with emails you could at least like email each other back and forth. And you get screaming emails. You get things in red, bold, 97, all caps. But back then when you got that type of memo, then you were obligated though, to call him to discuss what the issue is. So you'd get it on paper and then you'd get it on the phone.

[Narrator]

Just seems like someone who was so successful had lost the plot, was spending untold energy and time on useless things like huge time wasters as well. Not just abusing your employees, but just an ineffective use of your four hours to just berate someone.

[Peter Nygaard]

You know, it was. And that's sort of one of the ultimate downfalls of the company. Right. The company was a successful company. He was a tough boss. Some areas in there were great. He was a taskmaster. You learned how to do things and you were, you worked at a very.

[Narrator]

High level of detail.

[Peter Nygaard]

Yeah. That's a skill that most people you know, well, you can carry anywhere. Where it crossed the line sort of was when it started to really become those irrational time wasting the focus fixations.

[Narrator]

Yeah, I mean, irrational fixation seems to be the perfect description for why he would spend upwards of seven hours on the phone screaming, Jesus Christ.

[Angela Diborn]

Just continue to rattle around with these fucking silly fucking excuses. What don't you get that is what you do here at that office.

[Peter Nygaard]

I mean, I would shower with my phone. Like I'd have to put my phone in a plastic bag, put it inside just in case I got a call. Because if you didn't pick up that phone call, whatever you were calling about.

[Narrator]

Vitamin C, I didn't hear about it.

[Peter Nygaard]

But if you didn't pick up that phone call in the first ring, which was the top rule of the company wide that phones, calls, phones must be answered at all times, it would just the hell to pay from not doing. It would be worse than what you're actually picking up. Call for you.

[Angela Diborn]

That make you fear me? It's chaotic, Angela. It is chaotic the way you and Morton run that place.

[Narrator]

Angela and her husband Morton eventually reached a breaking point. The abuse simply became too much. And she quit. Not once, but several times. But like so many other abuse victims, Angela always went back.

[Peter Nygaard]

So shortly after starting to work with him, I lasted maybe eight months. Then we decided to quit and he kicked us out the property. And my daughter was still in school, so I was trying to hold on until just she finished school and her school year, but.

[Narrator]

So you quit and he instantly evicted you, his own niece. Like, you're out. Get out. I don't care that you brought your daughter all the way from another country to live and work here. You're evicted.

[Peter Nygaard]

If you don't follow by my rules, you're out of here. And it's no different than what he'd do to girlfriends as well, if they didn't follow the rules, they're out of there.

[Narrator]

Morton once wrote a memo to Peter about how relentless and abusive the work environment was. And it sort of had at the top like get off our back or something like that.

[Peter Nygaard]

It's called the get off our back memo. Yes.

[Narrator]

What was Peter's reaction to it?

[Peter Nygaard]

Peter's reaction was a two page message back to me memo about all the failings and inadequacies of my husband, that he had no right to say that. That he's the boss. And that by Morton saying that to him, by telling him to back off a bit, that we were out of there, that we'd made a choice, that we. But that was it.

[Narrator]

You were done.

[Peter Nygaard]

We were it.

[Narrator]

Both of you.

[Peter Nygaard]

We're done.

[Narrator]

I'm holding copies of the letters from back in 1994 that Angela just referred to. Morton's letter in handwriting entitled Get Off Our Back. In it, he says that they are quitting. And he writes that he's worried about his wife saying this. I'm tired of seeing Angela with tears in her eyes every time she talks to you. I'm tired of seeing her crying. He continues, we are working extremely hard from early morning to late at night. And when we are not in the office, we're across the street, one phone call away. And then Peter's response is a typed letter dated March 20, 1994, which references misguided judgment. Let me read from it. What amazes me is your misguided judgment that Morton can take such an aggressive attitude and not expect ramifications and still continue to hold the accommodations aggressively like some kind of squatter does indeed continue to add fuel to the fire. I do not accommodate anybody who intends on doing battle with his boss. And then he continues to say, if you or Morton are not prepared to live with your emotional outburst decision, then you beg for forgiveness. But don't tell me that you are doing me a favor or that I have some obligation to either of you. Fired and evicted.

[Peter Nygaard]

And I even tried to say, hey, can we try to balance this out? Can we try to make this work? Can we have a cooling down period? But it was. I think he ended it with you. People don't get it. Get the fuck out of my life.

[Narrator]

You quit a lot.

[Peter Nygaard]

I did.

[Narrator]

How many times?

[Peter Nygaard]

At least. At least a half a dozen, I think. I was fired two or three times and I'd quit at least a half a dozen.

[Narrator]

Why did you keep going back?

[Peter Nygaard]

I asked myself that often. Family. I mean, you can't quit Your family, right. Like, it was still. At the end of the day, it was still family. There's different situations at different times. When I went back, if you quit work, you're also quitting your family. My mom was still my mom, but my grandma, who I love dearly, she pretty much had to shun you. She pretty much couldn't. You could talk on the phone, but you couldn't expect them to go down to the Bahamas for Christmas, so you weren't gonna.

[Narrator]

With the extended family for Christmas, there'd be no visiting grandma, grandpa anymore. Like, literally, they could hardly quit. If you quit Peter's employment, you'd be shunned by the family.

[Peter Nygaard]

You're quitting the family. If you're quitting the company or if you've been fired by Peter, it's clearly you've done something wrong. And if you've done something wrong to Peter, then you've done something wrong to him, something wrong to my grandparents.

[Narrator]

Family loyalty was another control mechanism that was weaponized by Nygard, loyalty that was perhaps ingrained in Peter as a young child. He, along with his mother, his father and his sister, were immigrants from Finland arriving in the frigid Canadian prairies to live in a coal shack. They were dirt poor, and they survived together as a unit with one stove and two beds. They really only had each other. I asked Dr. Julian Goger, a forensic psychiatrist, about family loyalty and the abuse of it. Nygaard's niece worked for him on and off for 30 years. She said she was, you know, fired and quit about a half dozen times, but every time went back. And when I asked her why she would go back to such an abusive boss, her uncle, she said leaving the company was like leaving your family and that you'd be shunned. Can you speak to that dynamic?

[Dr. Julian Goger]

You know, with family, there's another component that we have to understand, and that is attachments. Attachment runs deep. Attachment begins fairly early on in life, and it's difficult to sever that attachment. So that's just why many people stay in bad relationships. People stay in bad companies, people stay in bad jobs because they develop a variety of attachments. And the attachments fulfill certain needs that the person might have or the person might not be able to extricate themselves from unhealthy attachments because of those needs.

[Narrator]

It wasn't just family that Peter Nygaard kept under his thumb. He used the same dynamic on his girlfriends when he promised them modeling careers and provided them a place to live. Peter had to control everyone and everything and always on his terms, there was.

[Peter Nygaard]

Kind of a progression where there'd be people to be brought in as a girlfriend, but to be able to give them in the Hef model, to be able to give them their allowance. Hef gave an allowance. Peter gave him pay, put him on payroll. And they had to sort of perform different jobs. There'd be dog walkers and there'd be coffee Carters and just all these different mail collector.

[Narrator]

I remember you told me that some of the women who lived in his Los Angeles house back in the day.

[Peter Nygaard]

Would have to bring him down. They had rules.

[Narrator]

They had to find rules. Dog walker, male collector, kitchen tidier.

[Peter Nygaard]

Yeah, yeah. They'd help us quicker. Pretty much. Yeah.

[Narrator]

But they were all in their 20s. They were all around the same age as us.

[Peter Nygaard]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Cause that was like really early on when you first came down. That's right.

[Narrator]

I remember thinking it was creepy, not illegal. They seemed all be of age and they all seemed to be very willing. But I remember thinking, this is the creepiest guy. Like, he's not what I used to think he was. He's creepy.

[Peter Nygaard]

And. And that was just growing. It was gonna get creepier later on. So. Yeah, no, there was different roles. He would wind up with a girl, would spend the night and he'd want to move her in, into the staff apartments. All this structure of rules and keeping everybody else at a really financially low survival rate survival mode where you're just, you know, there's a layer of people that you bond with. You have a lot of trauma bonds. So you also don't quit or you come back because you want to make sure that the person you left is not going to suffer, that you can help support them with all the other.

[Narrator]

Employees who got abused in this way, financially, physically, sometimes, obviously, and mentally and verbally. Like, how much did you guys bond over that?

[Peter Nygaard]

So, because I was connected and part of that family and sort of my trust circle was a little bit tighter. I have a tighter circle. So there's maybe eight of us that were very tight and commiserated all the time.

[Narrator]

I was so mad, though, when you would tell me how he. What you were making.

[Peter Nygaard]

Yeah.

[Narrator]

Because I kept saying, well, Angela, you're always working. You are literally at his beck and call. You're driving at 3:00 in the morning, some shipment somewhere, you know, oh, pick up this box of something that came to the airport, the clothes have arrived and get it.

[Peter Nygaard]

Drive this girl back to San Diego at 2 in the morning.

[Narrator]

Yeah. And yet all that time I thought you were Making a fortune because you were working for such a tycoon. And then when you sort of broke it to me that you could barely make ends meet, I said, well, why do you stay? What would happen if you stood up to Peter, either to challenge him or to give him advice to save him from himself?

[Peter Nygaard]

Most time you wouldn't.

[Narrator]

Why?

[Peter Nygaard]

He does not accept being wrong ever. So his reaction, depending on who the person is, would either to be to completely annihilate you by yelling at you and by berating you and screaming and pushing back at you for hours and hours on end. You get fight. You could get fired. People were terrified of him. You just never knew we had this thing. Don't make eye contact when he was walking through the building. Really, when he's walking through the building, everybody, they either ran and hid, like, literally hid. People would hide, or you look at somebody else, you do something else you like, you. If you. If you caught it, that you were standing there, it's too late to hide. Then you just don't make eye contact.

[Narrator]

Critics will say it was just a job, that employees like Angela could leave at any time, that if they enabled Peter's crimes and the abuse of women and girls, that they should share the blame. But it may not be quite that simple. Simple, according to forensic psychiatrist Dr. Julian Goger. Can you help me to understand? The people who worked for Peter Nygaard regularly were berated, abused, they were financially penalized for rules that, you know, heretofore had not existed. He exacted a power structure and a control over his family and over his employees that I've never seen before. They seem to operate in constant fear. If they supported Peter Nygaard in his transgressions, how culpable are they?

[Dr. Julian Goger]

There are different degrees of culpability, and it depends on the motivation of each individual under that hierarchy. So each individual has to be assessed at a unique level and understood as to what degree they complied with, went along with a certain behavior as perpetrated by a person in power and authority. So it's a difficult question to unanswer because there's no blanket culpability. The culpability depends on each individual's circumstance, and therefore it should be contextualized.

[Narrator]

Does it make a difference when you're dealing with someone like Peter Nygaard who was so psychologically abusive and financially abusive to his staff, to the people who worked for him? Is that something that needs to be taken into account when looking at whether they had any. Any culpability in his crimes?

[Dr. Julian Goger]

It does need to be taken into consideration. And it's difficult for sometimes the person who's in that abusive situation to extricate themselves because they feel trapped. And that might be one extreme where the person becomes helpless. And then rather than blame the victim, it's to understand the victim's perspective and how they feel trapped in that situation. And that again, might go to the heart of the issue of culpability.

[Narrator]

When you talk about family members. There were a number of Peter Nygaard's family members that worked in the Nygaard organization. And although none of them has been charged, many critics believe that they supported Peter Nygaard and should be shouldering the blame. But at the same time, a family dynamic is different. Can you explain how someone in a family dynamic has a different added layer because they're also employees?

[Dr. Julian Goger]

Well, family may have a different relationship with the individual, and the individual may relate to family members in a different manner. So again, without talking about Mr. Nygaard, I'm talking about it in a general context. We have to evaluate each family member and the nature of the dynamics between that family member and a person in authority and what are the advantages that that person might receive, whether they be financial, social, or even media attention. If the person's in a, in a public forum, so to say that one shoe fits all would be wrong. Each person may have a unique association with the person in power and control. And that doesn't apply to Mr. Nygaard alone. It applies to people all over the world in positions of power and authority and who have money.

[Narrator]

In fact, Peter Nygaard's family stuck by him. They defended him against multiple lawsuits that accused him of sexual assault. Angela knew her uncle Peter was a cruel boss and a sleazy womanizer too. But it took a long time before she could really admit that the atrocities he was accused of were actually true. How did you finally see the light and go from defender to believer?

[Peter Nygaard]

It was a bit of a process because at first I absolutely was a defender. I'd been a defender my entire life and conditioned to defend. I think after that first case and after the first iteration of the class action was one of the first times that I started looking at what nuggets of truth. Truth are in here, not what nuggets of lies.

[Narrator]

And, and the truth started lining up. I mean, even just the, the filthy stories of his. His kink matched what you had to face. You'd see some detail that didn't match up and you'd seize.

[Peter Nygaard]

And maybe that's a self protection thing, right? Like you don't want to see it like, this is. Like, this is this person that has. As crappy as he's been to you.

[Narrator]

All his life, it's Uncle Peter.

[Peter Nygaard]

It is still Uncle Peter, still my uncle. And all through time, you've only ever been conditioned to say, no, no, this isn't true, this isn't true, this isn't true. And it's like, holy hell, this is true. It's heartbreaking. And it's left a path of destruction.

[Narrator]

Much more on the path of destruction Peter Nygaard left in his wake. On the next episode of Uncle Peter. You've been listening to Uncle Peter, a drop dead serious podcast. If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, please, please call your local sexual assault hotline.