NEW YORK (AP) — Filmmaker Paul Haggis informed jurors Wednesday that he believed he had a consensual encounter with a lady who later accused him of rape, portraying himself as a “flirt” who acted on what he thought was mutual attraction.
Publicist Haleigh Breest alleges that he compelled her to carry out oral intercourse after which raped her in 2013 as she repeatedly informed him no.
As Haggis took the stand because the defendant within the civil rape trial, he stated she “by no means gave me any indication it was something apart from consensual” till he heard from her attorneys in 2017. She sued quickly after.
“For 5 years, I’ve been unable to clear my identify, and now I’ll,” Haggis informed jurors.
Breest earlier gave the jury an extensive account of the alleged assault.
“I stated, ‘Cease! Cease! Cease!’” she testified. She is in search of unspecified damages; there aren’t any felony costs in the case.
Haggis’ testimony, resulting from proceed Thursday, hasn’t but addressed all of Breest’s accusations, together with the second at which she stated he shoved her onto a mattress, pulled off her garments and compelled oral intercourse. Nor has he detailed his account of the purpose at which she alleges he raped her.
However earlier that night, when she maintains Haggis startled her with kisses that she didn’t return and shortly backed out of, he stated she initially deflected him with an ambiguous “ooh!” Then, when he made one other go, “she was kissing me again,” he testified.
Haggis agreed with some elements of his accuser’s account of how she ended up alone with him in his downtown Manhattan loft: He supplied her a journey dwelling from a film premiere and invited her for a drink at his condominium. She responded by suggesting a bar as a substitute. When he stated he most well-liked the condominium, she accepted however informed him she wasn’t spending the evening.
However the place Breest stated she made clear that she wasn’t concerned about a bodily liaison, Haggis stated he acquired a distinct sign.
As soon as they acquired to his dwelling, “she was having a very good time, it appeared to me,” and so they had been each “flirtatious,” smiling and “very engaged” as they chatted over glasses of wine, he stated.
Breest’s attorneys haven’t but gotten their likelihood to cross-examine Haggis, who is thought for writing the early-2000s finest image Oscar winners “Million Greenback Child” and “Crash.” Breest was a publicist who moonlighted at premieres that he generally attended.
The 69-year-old moviemaker testified that he thought Breest, 36, flirted with him at screenings and in occasional emails about events and show business. He stated he discovered her “lovely.”
When she greeted him with a hug on the evening in query, he took it as “an escalation in our relationship,” he stated.
Breest has stated she simply confirmed skilled friendliness to Haggis, who’s older than her father.
Haggis hasn’t but informed the jury his model of interactions with 4 different girls who testified that he sexually assaulted them on separate events between 1996 and 2015. One stated he raped her.
In testimony that veered from self-deprecating humor to a couple tears as he recalled a failed marriage, Haggis did say he has “at all times been an enormous flirt” and acknowledged having “plenty of affairs” whereas married to his second spouse, actor Deborah Rennard, from 1997 till a 2010 separation and a divorce six years later.
Hours of Haggis’ testimony targeted on his decades-long membership and extremely publicized 2009 cut up with the Church of Scientology, a system of beliefs, teachings and rituals targeted on non secular development. It was based by science fiction and fantasy writer L. Ron Hubbard within the Nineteen Fifties.
Haggis’ attorneys have floated the notion that the church by some means generated the lawsuit to take down a well-known dissenter, although they’ve agreed there’s no proof that Breest has any ties to the faith. Nor have any witnesses testified that they know of a hyperlink between Scientology and Breest’s attorneys or between the religion and Haggis’ different accusers.
However certainly one of Haggis’ attorneys, Priya Chaudhry, has stated the “circumstantial proof of Scientology’s involvement right here can be highly effective.”
Ex-Scientologists, together with certainly one of his daughters, have associated what they portrayed as church efforts to scrounge up damaging details about him or his household after he left the group and known as it “a cult” in a 2011 New Yorker article.
The church stated in a press release because the trial opened that it “has nothing to do with the claims towards Haggis, nor does it have any relation to the attorneys behind the case.” Breest’s attorneys say the identical.
The Related Press usually does not establish individuals who allege they’ve been sexually assaulted until they arrive ahead publicly, as Breest has finished.
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