Paul Haggis’ civil rape trial got underway Wednesday in New York, where the Oscar-winning “Crash” director aims to argue that Scientology and greed are behind claims of rape from a publicist and three other women who say he sexually assaulted them in separate incidents dating back to 2013.
Opening statements began in the case of publicist Haleigh Breest, who is suing Haggis for unspecified damages, with her own text messages used by lawyers for both sides. Breest, who was an events publicist when she met Haggis at a New York movie premiere in 2013, has chosen to self-identify in the civil lawsuit.
Breest claims Haggis forced her to perform oral sex and raped her after she agreed to come up to his apartment that night for drinks. Haggis has maintained that the entire encounter was consensual, and that the lawsuit is just Breest’s latest attempt at getting a payout.
Breest never went to police, but texted friends about the encounter at the time – messages used both for and against her case in court Wednesday.
“He was so rough and aggressive. Never, ever again … And I kept saying no,” Breest’s lawyer Zoe Salzman read for the jury, according to 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. “I just hope I don’t now have [professional] enemies.”
Breest’s lawsuit caused three other women to come forward with similar sex assault allegations against the filmmaker. While Breest is the only plaintiff in this case, their testimony of encounters between 1996 and 2015 will be included to support her claims.
Haggis’ lawyer said she will show how Scientology helped cook up Breest’s lawsuit to smear him for leaving the church and becoming one of its most high-profile critics.
The prosecution scoffed at that theory.
“Scientology has nothing to do with this case,” Salzman said – a position the Church of Scientology has strongly maintained.
The church loomed in another celebrity rape trial this week – although from a very different angle – as prominent Scientologist Danny Masterson faces criminal sex assault charges in a Los Angeles court. Though his lawyers won a hard-fought agreement from the judge that Scientology talk should be severely limited, Tuesday’s opening arguments focused almost squarely on the influence the church had on Masterson’s accusers, also Scientologists.
But in New York, the accusers’ attorney kept the spotlight on Haggis’ alleged repeat behavior.
“Mr. Haggis used his storytelling skills and his fame to prey on, to manipulate and to attack vulnerable young women in the film industry,” Salzman said. “He doesn’t stop when women say no.”
In June, a British national accused Haggis of raping her at a film festival. Haggis was arrested and held at his hotel room for more than two weeks before an Italian judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence to continue to detain him there, and details in that case will not be allowed in the Breest trial.