Both sides came out swinging during closing arguments in the trial of Oscar-winning director and writer Paul Haggis as a jury retired to determine his fate.
Haggis’ lawyers clashed with counsel for plaintiff Haleigh Breest, the former publicist who accused the 69-year-old Canadian filmmaker of sexually assaulting her at his penthouse suite after a film premiere afterparty nearly 10 years ago.
Priya Chaudhry, Haggis’ defense counsel, took aim at Breest in her closing arguments, framing the 36-year-old as an “absolute liar” and “jealous woman” whose flirtatious crush on Haggis ultimately turned vindictive when he “politely rejected” her following a one-night stand with her client.
ADVERTISEMENT
“There are three ‘r’ words that happened here: rejection, regret and revenge,” Chaudhry told the jury. “And none of these ‘r’ words are rape.”
“Paul Haggis is not Harvey Weinstein,” she told jurors Wednesday. “He has never been Harvey Weinstein. He will never become Harvey Weinstein.”
During the trial, which has spanned 15 days, the court heard testimony from both Breest and Haggis, as well as four other Canadian women who also accused the Million Dollar Baby writer of raping or attempting to sexually assault them during incidents between 1996 and 2015.
Paul Haggis with his two Oscars in 2006.
David LivingstonOn Wednesday afternoon, Breest’s lawyer, Ilann Maazel struck back, painting Haggis a serial predator and manipulator, who used his fame and storytelling skills to prey on Breest and the case’s four other alleged victims.
“We have to face the cold, hard truth—Paul Haggis is a monster,” Maazel told the jury. “He is a psychopath. He is cunning and deceitful and manipulative. He sexually assaulted five women and he has the gall to get up on that stand and play the victim.”
Maazel said that Haggis, an “important Hollywood director” pressured Breest into having a drink with him at his home and that Haggis became agitated when she told him “stop.”
“‘No,’ never means no to Paul Haggis,” Maazel said.
He added: “It’s a case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Haggis.”
At one point, Maazel suggested Haggis deserved a third Oscar for his “performance” on the stand.
“This is a horror film by Paul Haggis and only you can end it,” Maazel told jurors, his voice rising audibly, before Breest’s team rested its case Wednesday.
Jurors will now decide whether Haggis raped Breest at his New York luxury high-rise in 2013.
Haggis has long-maintained the incident involving Breest was consensual. He’s denied any sexual misconduct involving four Jane Does.
Chaudhry stated that Breest gave conflicting accounts of the 2013 incident in court records and on the witness stand, suggesting to jurors the rape accuser had possibly invented the account as a fantasy—or had misremembered the event entirely.
“They want you to think where there’s smoke there’s fire, but sometimes there's just a smoke machine,” Chaudhry said.
Chaudhry told jurors that Breest filed the lawsuit against her celebrity client in search of a payday. She seized on the fact Breest never alerted authorities over the incident—and instead said Breest waited four years to file her lawsuit.
“Ms. Breest knows that if she went to the police and they didn’t believe her, she knew it could hurt her chances of getting Paul Haggis’ money from you,” Chaudhry told the jury. “This trial isn’t about justice for her—it’s a blatant cash grab.”
Chaudhry also accused Breest of falsely harnessing the momentum of the #MeToo movement to bolster her claims. She repeatedly cited convicted sex offender and film mogul Harvey Weinstein, who in 2013, Haggis had disavowed on social media and in newspapers, comments which in turn motivated Breest to file lawsuit against Haggis.
In June, Haggis was also temporarily placed under house arrest in Italy while attending a film festival after an unidentified British woman accused him of raping her “for days” at a southern Italy hotel. His lawyers, who denied those accusations as well, countered that the victim had sought a role in a James Bond film. Haggis, who previously co-wrote 007 blockbusters Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, was later freed after an Italian judge ruled there wasn’t sufficient evidence to allow the case to proceed to trial.
As his lawyer spoke, Haggis, dressed in a black suit, deep blue dress shirt, and a navy tie, stoically observed, periodically taking sips from a yellow thermos on the table in front of him. The embattled 69-year-old producer spent three days on the stand testifying in lower Manhattan last week, contradicting and rejecting much of his accuser’s account.
Haggis, who at times wept on the stand during his testimony, described Breest, then 26, as a “cartoony” and “bashful” “Betty Boop,” whom he came to adore after months of trading “flirtatious” work-related emails.
Haggis claimed Breest sent “mixed signals” but willingly gave him oral sex after the pair caught a chauffeured SUV home following a 2013 red carpet event attended by a number of prominent celebrities including Jude Law, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones.
(L-R) Actors Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones and director Paul Haggis in 2015.
Craig BarrittThe filmmaker, who has cast himself as a victim in the case, said the drawn-out litigation has “decimated” his finances and derailed his career. His lawyers also argued that Haggis, who had been wearing a back brace at the time of the incident involving Breest due to a recent surgery, would have been physically incapable of carrying out the violent rape.
Meanwhile, Breest, herself also offered compelling testimony earlier at trial, at times in graphic detail, recounting how Haggis straddled her face while orally raping her before ripping off her tights and sexually assaulting her in a guest bedroom at his SoHo loft. Breest said she felt like a “trapped animal,” during the encounter.
“He’s trying to pull my tights down and I’m trying to pull them up,” Breest testified. “He looked like the devil—he looked totally different than I’d seen him before.”
At times, under cross examination, however, Haggis’ memory of the encounter appeared vague. His lawyers also struggled to explain how his seminal fluid wound up on tights Breest wore the night of the alleged tryst, despite Haggis testifying he had no memory of having vaginal intercourse Breest or whether or if he had ejaculated at all that night.
Angela Butler, a forensic DNA expert, testified at trial that there was a high probability that DNA found in the interior crotch of Breest’s tights belonging to Haggis was his seminal fluid. Chaudhry, meanwhile, pointed out earlier that the DNA of four other men had been found on the tights in question.
The incident, Breest testified, exacerbated crippling anxiety and body image issues, which her lawyers told jurors persist to this day. Breest told jurors the alleged rape hijacked her dating life—scarring her so deeply that she claimed she only attempted sexual intercourse once since the suspected encounter with Haggis.
Breest’s former therapist, Dr. Catherine Baker-Pitts, as well as Dr. Lisa Rocchio, an independent forensic psychologist, who coincidentally served as an expert witness at Kevin Spacey’s recent federal sexual assault suit, testified that the alleged event triggered post-traumatic stress disorder in the 36-year-old, explaining that her symptoms were consistent with that of sexual abuse survivors.
Breest is seeking unspecified damages.
The case, which was filed in 2017 on the heels of the #MeToo movement, garnered significant media attention particularly because Haggis, an ex-Scientologist and whistleblower of the controversial religion, argued Breest—and the four Canadian Jane Does—had been paid off by the Church of Scientology to fabricate the allegations against him in a coordinated effort to smear and bankrupt him as retribution for publicly defecting from the church in 2009.
In September, the case’s presiding judge, Hon. Sabrina Kraus ruled Haggis’ legal team could use the Scientology defense at trial.
Academy Award winning producer/screenwriter Paul Haggis appears with Actor/writer/producer Leah Remini.
Debra L RothenbergA number of former Scientologists and celebrities also testified at trial in defense of Haggis, including both sitcom actress Leah Remini and former Scientology executive Mike Rinder, who co-hosted the Emmy-winning A&E series Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath.
“One can never tell the story of Paul Haggis without talking about Scientology,” Chaudhry stated Wednesday. “For most of his life—and for the rest of his life—Scientology is permanently attached to him like a dark shadow. Scientology will be the first thought he has when someone breaks into his apartment. It will always be around a dark corner and that is always true for Paul. That is true for Mike Rinder. That is true Leah Remini. You cannot tell these people’s stories without talking about Scientology.”
Haggis’ team, however, struggled to draw, a clear, direct connection to their claims of Scientology’s involvement in the case to the rape he’d been accused of. Breest, her attorneys, and the case’s four other alleged victims have all denied any affiliation with the religion.
On Wednesday, Maazel told jurors that Haggis’ Scientology defense was a contrived, malicious, and desperate attempt to distract from the sexual assault allegations at hand.
“The Church of Scientology is a bad organization and some of them want to find dirt on Paul Haggis,” Maazel said. “The church is a cult and Mr. Haggis is a rapist. Both are true.”
The Church of Scientology has also denied involvement in the sexual assault case—or having any connection to any of the civil suit’s victims in a statement sent to The Daily Beast in October.
Shortly before 4:50 p.m., Kraus dismissed the jury panel to initiate deliberations beginning Thursday morning.
If Haggis is found liable in the rape case, jurors will determine the possible damages owed by the screenwriter. Prior to filing the suit in 2017, Breest’s lawyers had unsuccessfully demanded a $9 million settlement from Haggis.
Haggis, who lit a cigarette on the court steps after his trial concluded, declined to comment as he exited the courtroom for the day.
