Peter Nygard stands accused of dredging up more sand in the Bahamas again — and this time he might get buried up to his neck.
The Canadian fashion magnate was caught illegally dredging the lagoon on his beachfront Caribbean estate in mid-December, according to lawyers for his longtime nemesis and next-door neighbor, New York hedge-fund tycoon Louis Bacon.
That’s despite more than a decade of legal battles with Bacon and Bahamian authorities that have focused particularly on the dredging, which neighbors and local environmentalists have blasted as an ecological threat.
In response, a Bahamian court is now weighing whether Nygard should be sent to prison for contempt of court, having allegedly thumbed his nose at a court order against any further dredging, according to legal filings.
Late last month, Bacon’s lawyers submitted a private investigator’s report that showed alleged pictures of workers dredging sand from a canal at one end of Nygard’s property, then dumping it and spreading it around with backhoes and other big machinery to enlarge the beach at the other end.
At one point, Nygard himself was caught by cameras, personally directing the work “in a light blue sweatsuit,” according to the report.
“Do what I tell you to f- -king do, and if you don’t do the job right I will fire your ass,” Nygard told workers, according to the report.
A spokesman for Nygard called it “maintenance” and said his lawyers believe the court injunction allows it.
“He is not disturbing or digging up the seabed but is simply moving sand that the currents have carried from the northwest of his property to the southeast, clearing the channel at his marina dock so that his yacht has ingress and egress,” the spokesman said.
But those permits specifically prohibited Nygard from using the sand to enlarge his own beachfront, according to lawyers for the Coalition to Protect Clifton Bay, an environmental group backed by Bacon.
The case took an even more bizarre turn this month as Nygard’s lawyer in the Bahamas, Keod Smith, failed to appear for a Jan. 6 hearing on a contempt-of-court charge leveled against him last month after he had accused a judge of bias.
