{"id":721843,"date":"2026-06-07T23:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T23:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/721843\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T23:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T23:00:09","slug":"judge-throws-out-lawsuit-against-winnipeg-power-broker-sandy-riley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/721843\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge throws out lawsuit against Winnipeg power broker Sandy Riley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Sanford Riley, former board chair at Manitoba Hydro, speaks to reporters after a speech to business leaders in Winnipeg in December, 2017. Riley said in an e-mail that he was pleased with the decision.The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

A Manitoba judge has thrown out a lawsuit against Winnipeg businessman Sandy Riley that alleged he sexually assaulted the co-founder of a startup he invested in, ruling the case was motivated by the plaintiff\u2019s \u201cpersonal animus\u201d toward Mr. Riley.<\/p>\n

Court of King\u2019s Bench Justice Sheldon Lanchbery dismissed the lawsuit launched by Susan Bonk in which she alleged that Mr. Riley, the chief executive of Richardson Financial Group Ltd, assaulted her on four occasions between 2014 and 2017.<\/p>\n

In the decision, a summary judgment that did not involve a formal trial, the judge concluded that Ms. Bonk was not credible and that she launched the lawsuit to recover money from Mr. Riley and damage the businessman\u2019s reputation<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the allegations of sexual assault should be examined in light of Ms. Bonk\u2019s personal animus towards Mr. Riley,\u201d the judge wrote in the recent decision. \u201cI find Ms. Bonk was not only motivated to recover money against Mr. Riley, but also to destroy his reputation in the eyes of the general public.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winnipeg power broker Sandy Riley sued by startup founder over alleged sexual harassment<\/a><\/p>\n

In an e-mail Ms. Bonk said she intends to appeal the decision but declined to comment about the judge\u2019s findings of animus. <\/p>\n

Mr. Riley said in an e-mail that he was pleased with the decision. He also declined further comment.<\/p>\n

Ms. Bonk, who co-founded Precision Weather Solutions, a weather-monitoring service, in 2013 and raised $500,000 from Mr. Riley, filed an initial lawsuit in 2022 while representing herself at the time. <\/p>\n

She accused Mr. Riley of using his power as chair of Galton Corp., the parent company of PWS, to bully and harass her and try to get her fired after she rebuffed him. He denied the allegations.<\/p>\n

That suit also named three other members of the board of directors of Galton Corp., the parent company of PWS \u2013 Charles Loewen, William Watchorn and Robert Silver \u2013 and accused them of negligence, which the defendants all denied. <\/p>\n

A judge dismissed that suit in 2023.<\/p>\n

After hiring counsel, Ms. Bonk filed an amended claim that same year that included the four sexual-assault allegations against Mr. Riley, which he denied. The amended lawsuit again named the other three board members, but last year the cases against them were dismissed.<\/p>\n

The judge cited a lack of evidence presented by Ms. Bonk with regards to the assaults in reaching his decision, which awarded unspecified court costs to Mr. Riley.<\/p>\n

The judge also said his examination of the assault allegations was \u201cimpacted by the personal animus\u201d shown by Ms. Bonk toward Mr. Riley. <\/p>\n

The judge cited media coverage of the case, including a 2023 report by The Globe and Mail, a complaint she made to the Manitoba Securities Commission, posts on X (formerly Twitter) from an account that published allegations from the lawsuit, and that Ms. Bonk contacted the board of Molson Coors, on which Mr. Riley sits, about his alleged sexual misconduct. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis personal animus became evident once Ms. Bonk lost control of Galton,\u201d the judge wrote. <\/p>\n

The board, led by Mr. Riley, took control of Galton sometime after 2017. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Sanford Riley, former board chair at Manitoba Hydro, speaks to reporters after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":721844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,22073,883,913],"class_list":["post-721843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-winnipeg","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=721843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}