Canadian filmmaker Paul Haggis, winner of the Oscars for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for “Collision” (2005), began his trial in New York on Wednesday for alleged sexual abuse committed in 2013.
The co-writer of “Million Dollar Baby” (2004) and “007 – Casino Royale” (2006) arrived in court in the morning, according to the news agency France-Presse (AFP).
Paul Haggis, 69, has been accused since December 2017 by publicist Haleigh Brest of having raped her in January 2013, when the target was 26 years old.
The filmmaker had also been accused of sexual assault by other women, but in New York he only responds to the accusations of Haleigh Brest.
In June, Haggis was arrested in southern Italy on suspicion of sexually assaulting a young woman, which he denied.
According to several US media, the filmmaker’s lawyers suggested on Wednesday, before the popular jury of the New York court, that Haleigh Brest’s complaint had been guided by the Church of Scientology, with which Paul Haggis broke and since then has been He has been critical of her. A thesis challenged by the defense of the quijosa.
In her complaint, Haleigh Breest said that on the night of January 31, 2013, after a movie was shown in Manhattan, the director insisted that the woman go to his house for a drink, when she had said that she preferred to go to a pub. . At her apartment, Paul Haggis made many advances on her before forcing her to perform oral sex on him and raping her.
Known for being one of the creators of the television series “Walker, the Texas Ranger”, which aired in Portugal in the 1990s, Paul Haggis received an Oscar for “Collision” in 2006.
The director was also a screenwriter for Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby (2004) and “The Flags of Our Fathers” (2006), and Martin Campbell’s “007 – Casino Royale” (2006), “007 – Quantum of Solace ( 2008), by Marc Foster.
Source: TSF
