An advertising agent accuses the director of “collision” and screenwriter of “Million Dollar Baby” of having forced him to have sex in 2013, acts he considers as granted.
Le Monde with AFP
Canadian filmmaker Paul Haggis was recognized on Thursday, November 10, responsible for rape committed on an advertising agent in January 2013. He will have to pay his victim $ 7.5 million ($ 7.38 million) , while the jurors of this New York civil court also plan to grant additional punitive interest damages.
The 69 -year -old director, whose responsibility trial had started on October 19, has been accused since December 2017 by Haleigh Brest, working in the cinema, of having raped her when she was 26 years old. In the process, in full wave #MeToo of speech liberation on sexual violence and sexism with regard to women, Paul Haggis had been targeted by accusations of sexual assault of three other women.
But he appeared in New York only for the facts denounced by Haleigh Brest, which the filmmaker has always denied. He is not prosecuted for these rape accusations. “I will continue, with my team, to fight to rehabilitate my name,” he said by leaving the courthouse.
During the civil trial, the filmmaker’s lawyers suggested that the complaint of Haleigh Brest had been remote -controlled by the Church of Scientology, with which Paul Haggis had broken and which he has since criticized. A thesis swept by lawyers from the complainant.
arrested in June for suspicions of sexual assault on another woman
In his complaint, Haleigh Brest said that on the evening of January 31, 2013, after a film screening in Manhattan, the director had insisted so that she came to have a drink at home, when she said she preferred to go out in a bar. Once in his apartment, Paul Haggis had made her many advances before forcing her to make her fellatio then rape it again.
“I am grateful to have had the opportunity to go to a court to obtain justice and establish responsibility, and that the jury decided to follow the facts and believe me,” said the complainant Haleigh Breest in a press release.
For his part, the director said that Ms. Breest initiated kisses and oral sex in a fully consensual report. He said he didn’t remember if they had had sex.
Recently, last June, Paul Haggis was arrested in southern Italy, again under the suspicion of sexual assault against a young woman, facts he also denied.
Known for having been one of the creators of the Walker Texas Ranger series, Paul Haggis had received the Oscars for the best film and the best original scenario for collision in 2006. He was also the scriptwriter of Million Dollar Baby, Memoirs of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima by Clint Eastwood, as well as episodes of the James Bond saga, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.