Preparing to part ways? Amy Robach and her husband, Andrew Shue, sold their New York City apartment one week before the Good Morning America co-anchor was photographed getting cozy with coworker T.J. Holmes.
11.11.2022 - 00:55 / deadline.com
A New York jury today found filmmaker Paul Haggis liable on all three counts of rape and sexual abuse in his treatment of Haleigh Breest, who left a party in Manhattan with him in 2013 and then sued the Oscar winner in 2017 claiming he repeatedly forced sex on her in his apartment that night.
RELATED: Paul Haggis Sexual Assault Civil Trial: Deadline’s Complete Coverage
The unanimous jury of four men and two women — whose makeup changed on the first day of deliberations — deliberated for nearly six hours before awarding Breest $7.5 million in compensation. It also recommended punitive damages, the amount of which will be decided Monday.
Seated between his lawyers, Haggis looked straight ahead as the verdicts were read.
It was the latest judgment in a spate of cases growing out of a #MeToo movement that has called out powerful men in the entertainment industry as sexual abusers. The jury was asked to decide whether Haggis was one of them. Breest and her lawyers sought to prove that Haggis had forced her to submit to intercourse and to perform oral sex on him and pushed his fingers inside of her even as she said “no.”
She spent four days in total on the stand describing the encounter and defending her interpretation of it against a skeptical cross-examination by a lawyer for Haggis, Priya Chaudhry. In closing arguments on Wednesday, Chaudhry asked jurors to use their “fabulous New York common sense” to see through Breest’s story.
Jurors ruled on three specific charges: first-degree rape and two third-degree charges of sex abuse and a criminal sexual act under New York law. About one hour into their deliberations, jurors asked the judge for several pieces of trial testimony and evidence including texts between Breest
Preparing to part ways? Amy Robach and her husband, Andrew Shue, sold their New York City apartment one week before the Good Morning America co-anchor was photographed getting cozy with coworker T.J. Holmes.
EXCLUSIVE: Slave Play author Jeremy O. Harris and New York Jets tight end CJ Uzomah are the latest high-profile names to sign on as co-producers of a currently running Broadway production: The two join the recently announced NBA champ Dwyane Wade, actor Gabrielle Union and Drag Race star RuPaul on the producing team of Ain’t No Mo’, a Lee Daniels production of Jordan E. Cooper’s comedy in previews at the Belasco Theatre.
It’s back and better than ever! The Standard Grill at The Standard, High Line hotel officially reopened in October with a fresh new menu courtesy of executive chef Paul Hargrove.
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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences says it is reviewing the status of Paul Haggis’ membership after a civil trial that resulted in the director being ordered to pay $7.5 million in compensatory damages and $2.5 million in punitive damages. “The Academy will address this matter according to our Standards of Conduct and the due process requirements under California nonprofit corporation law,” the organization said in a news release.
The New York Times has hired top Axios national political reporter Jonathan Swan, who won an Emmy for his 2020 interview with then-President Donald Trump.
The Taylor Sheridan-verse keeps expanding. With an entire “Yellowstone” empire on the air, several spin-offs in the work (“Yellowstone: 1923,” “Bass Reeves”), and dozens more unrelated shows coming soon (“Lioness,” “Land Man”), the writer, director, producer, showrunner and exec (known for his Academy Award nominated “Hell Or Hight Water” and the film “Sicario” before he moved to TV) has built out a Paramount+ TV dynasty, that is absolutely unrivaled on television outside of Marvel.
Leah Remini is standing up for a fellow former Scientology member — which would ordinarily be commendable. But this time the friend is Paul Haggis — and the setting is his civil rape trial.
Paul Haggis had an “awkward one-night stand” in 2013 with an infatuated young woman, Haleigh Breest, who wanted more intimacy from the Oscar-winning filmmaker and, when there was none, made up a rape allegation for a #MeToo-adjacent 2017 lawsuit that has “utterly destroyed him,” a lawyer for Haggis told jurors Wednesday in the three-hour first closing argument of his New York sexual assault civil trial.
Leah Remini testified Monday that Paul Haggis, and not his accuser, is the real victim in his New York sexual assault civil trial.
Italian director Mario Martone said that his latest film Nostalgia is very similar to his 1995 film L’amore molesto (Troubling Love).During a panel discussion at Deadline’s Contenders Film: New York event, Martone explained the connection between adapting Elena Ferrante’s first novel L’amore molesto and Ermanno Rea’s book Nostalgia for the big screen. “In L’amore molesto we followed this woman,” Martone said. “We walk alongside her, and we enter into her past.
Jennifer Lawrence’s Excellent Cadaver producing partner Justine Ciarrocchi said the Oscar-winning actress was “itching to do something small and intimate” after years of doing bigger studio movies when she signed on to make Lila Neugebauer’s Causeway.
Paul Haggis sparred with a lawyer Friday over the meaning of a woman saying “no,” explaining again that when Haleigh Breest said “no” to him peeling off her tights she was not refusing sex.
Paul Haggis was back on the witness stand today and said the only sex he remembers having with Haleigh Breest at his apartment in 2013 was consensual and limited to oral sex initiated by her.
A swank affair! An A-list crowd including celebrities, models, editors and influencers flocked to Casa Cruz New York on Tuesday, November 1, to celebrate skincare guru Dr. Barbara Sturm’s newly opened NYC spas and boutiques — and a grand time was had by all.
Paul Haggis took the witness stand today in his Manhattan trial for sexual assault, and the Oscar-winning Crash filmmaker and former Church of Scientology member’s first words when asked by his lawyer Priya Chaudhry how it felt to be testifying were: “I’m incredibly nervous, of course, and I’m very happy. Because for five years I’ve been unable to clear my name.”