The filmmaker Paul Haggis is ordered to pay $7.5 million for rape suit
The Oscar-winning screenwriter and director was found guilty by a jury for the 2013 rape in his Manhattan apartment of a woman.
Oscar-winning filmmaker Paul Haggis was ordered to pay $7.5 million in rape case. Thursday in New York, Haggis, 69, was ordered to pay compensation for raping Haleigh Breest in 2013. Breest's lawyers, Zoe Salzman and Ilann Maazel, said in a statement after the verdict: "We are pleased that justice has been served for our client. We congratulate Breest for bravely stepping forward and telling her experiences. She defended herself and all other women."
Haggis, on the other hand, said he was disappointed with the decision and said, "I will continue to fight with my team to prove my innocence." It has been reported that the jury, consisting of three women and three men, will meet again on Monday to evaluate additional punitive damages. Breest, 36, filed a lawsuit in 2017 against Haggis, the director of 2004's Crash.
The filmmaker Paul Haggis is ordered to pay $7.5 million for rape suit
Breest claimed that she went to the filmmaker's house in January 2013 and that Haggis raped her there. Haggis, on the other hand, claimed that everything between them happened by mutual consent, while first denying that he had sexual intercourse, and then claimed that he could not remember whether or not he had sex.
Breest said that one of the reasons for filing a lawsuit was Haggis' criticism of US filmmaker Harvey Weinstein on his social media account. In his defense at the trial, Breest said, "The hypocrisy was on a whole other level. It made me very angry and I wanted to take action. I talked to my friends, did research, and then hired a lawyer."
