Paul Haggis Rape Trial Hears Fourth Jane Doe Testify About Alleged Assault At 2015 Toronto Film Festival
27.10.2022 - 22:15
/ deadline.com
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.
Jurors watched a videotaped deposition taken in 2019 of the woman, a freelance television and events producer who was working for a Canadian DJ when she was introduced to Haggis at a house party during the festival that September.
The woman, who Deadline is not identifying, said over the course of that day and the next, Haggis “relentlessly” pursued her sexually and ultimately tried to force himself on her as she fought him off and loudly and repeatedly screamed “stop.”
The assault ended, she said, when she screamed an expletive loudly enough to draw the attention of a passing stranger. Haggis then stepped back, she testified, realizing “he was going to be seen doing something very awful,” and in that pause she got into the lobby with her electronic key fob, leaving Haggis locked outside, and went to her apartment.
Her last sight of Haggis was of him through the glass doors, standing outside with his hands raised in a “come on” gesture. The woman did not report what happened to police but said she went into therapy soon after.
Later that night, she testified, Haggis texted her an invitation to breakfast at his hotel. She didn’t respond and took the invitation as Haggis “gaslighting what happened.”“He was pretending as if he did nothing wrong,” the woman testified. She was asked on cross-examination by a Haggis lawyer, Priah Chaudhry, why she consented to join Haggis for lunch and wine earlier that day at his hotel, even though she said he was, by that time, already