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.
21.10.2022 - 21:59 / deadline.com
Haleigh Breest, the woman accusing Oscar-winning Crash director Paul Haggis of raping her in 2013, finished her direct testimony Friday with a last round of friendly questioning from one of her lawyers, Zoe Salzman — and then faced a more combative interrogation lasting almost three hours without a break.
A Haggis lawyer, Priya Chaudhry, confronted Breest about her sex life, drinking, prescription drug use and her actions on the night she went to Haggis’ apartment in Manhattan.
As a six-person jury of three men and three women looked on, with three alternates also seated, Chaudhry walked Breest through her earlier testimony in the sexual assault civil trial in New York. Under a cross-examination that sometimes turned sharp, Breest, a freelance film publicist at the time, said she went willingly to the moviemaker’s apartment after a film screening after-party that she had helped to organize and run, and drank wine with him after she had been drinking at the party.
In testimony steered by questions from Chaudhry, with Breest often straining at being limited to yes or no answers, she said she stayed in the apartment even after Haggis had kissed her without warning. “He slobbered over my face,” she testified, with Chaudhry pushing back, “Yes or no, did he kiss you for a few seconds?” “Yes,” Breest replied.
She said that as they drank wine in the kitchen, Haggis suddenly backed her up against a refrigerator and said, “You’re scared of me, aren’t you?” He also asked her age, and when she said 26, he replied, “Don’t act like a f*cking 18-year-old.”
She said she really was scared — “I was so scared and embarrassed” — but answered “no” to his question, which she said on cross-examination wasn’t true. She put on a “front,” she
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.
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.
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.”
Paul Haggis will testify Wednesday in the New York sexual assault civil case brought against him by Haleigh Breest, a lawyer for Haggis said Tuesday. The lawyer, Seth Zuckerman, said that Haggis’ ex-wife, Deborah Rennard, is scheduled to go first, followed by Haggis.
UPDATED with afternoon session: The oldest daughter of filmmaker Paul Haggis said Monday there is “circumstantial” evidence of a Church of Scientology plot against her father, who is facing a rape accusation in New York civil court, after he walked away from the religious organization and became a vocal Scientology critic.
A former high-ranking official in the Church of Scientology said Friday that the organization never forgets its enemies “until they are destroyed,” and he said that filmmaker Paul Haggis, who quit Scientology, remains one of its biggest targets.
A psychologist who testified for Anthony Rapp in his failed case against fellow actor Kevin Spacey took the stand Friday, again for the plaintiff, in the New York sexual assault civil trial of filmmaker Paul Haggis.
UPDATED with afternoon session: A friend of Haleigh Breest’s who texted her in 2013 that filmmaker Paul Haggis had committed “borderline rape” against Breest dropped the “borderline” qualification in court on Thursday.
A fourth Jane Doe testifying in the sexual assault civil trial of filmmaker Paul Haggis said Thursday that she was the target of an “attempted rape” by Haggis outside of her apartment building at night after an event at the Toronto Film Festival in 2015.
Haleigh Breest finished testifying Tuesday in her sexual assault civil trial against filmmaker Paul Haggis, and jurors began watching the video deposition of another Haggis accuser who has said she went to his office in Los Angeles in 2008 to discuss a possible book adaption and wound up fleeing the building when he suddenly tried to kiss her.
The sexual assault civil trial of Oscar-winning Crash writer-producer Paul Haggis continued today in Manhattan, with accuser Haleigh Breest back on the witness stand.
The sexual assault civil trial of Oscar-winning Crash writer-producer Paul Haggis began today in Manhattan with opening arguments from both sides citing a text exchange by the accuser.
The Associated Press. She said Breest finally went public when she saw Haggis condemning revelations about Harvey Weinstein.“The hypocrisy of it made her blood boil,” Salzman said.Haggis’ attorney, reading from that same text exchange, pointed out that Breest added “lol” when mentioning performing oral sex, and that she hoped to “see what happens” when she was alone with him again.“I don’t care too much,” defense attorney Priya Chaudhry read for the jury.
Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Opening statements began on Wednesday in a civil trial against Oscar-winning filmmaker Paul Haggis, who has been accused of raping a publicist nearly a decade ago. Haleigh Breest, who filed a lawsuit against Haggis in 2017, alleges that the screenwriter and director forced her to perform oral sex and then raped her after she reluctantly agreed to have a drink at his Soho apartment following a movie premiere. Her attorneys asserted to jurors that the director used his fame and position in Hollywood to pressure Breest, who was 26 at the time. “The defendant, Paul Haggis, is a famous movie director and screenwriter. He’s won two Oscars. He’s talented. He’s powerful. He’s also manipulative,” the plaintiff’s lawyer Zoe Salzman told the jurors in a Lower Manhattan courtroom. “The evidence in this case will show Mr. Haggis used his storytelling skills and fame to prey on, manipulate and attack vulnerable young women in the film industry.”
Kevin Spacey’s lawyers on Wednesday wrapped up their case in Star Trek: Discovery actor Anthony Rapp’s $40 million sexual misconduct suit against the embattled former star, with a psychiatrist hired by Spacey’s team as the last witness before jurors hear closing arguments scheduled for Thursday.
Kevin Spacey remained composed Tuesday during cross examination at a civil trial, repeatedly rejecting suggestions that he wasn't telling the truth when he denied an actor’s claims that he made a sexual advance on him when he was 14 in the 1980s. His testimony for several hours on cross examination by a lawyer for actor Anthony Rapp, 50, went smoothly enough that Spacey's lawyer did not ask any questions after the examination was completed by early afternoon.