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Crash producer Paul Haggis is due to go to court in New York City to fight claims he raped a publicist in 2013.
The Oscar-winner has not been criminally charged but is being sued by Haleigh Breest, 36, a Manhattan publicist who says he attacked her in his apartment after a premiere for the movie Side Effects.
Breest was 26 at the time and Haggis, now 69, was nearly 60.
She claims he brought her back to his apartment for a ‘drink’ then forced her to perform oral sex on him and raped her.
Oscar-winning producer Paul Haggis (shown left earlier this month) is expected in court in New York City this week. He is being sued by Haleigh Breest, who says he raped her in 2013. She is shown, right, a year before the alleged attack
In her lawsuit, she claims he told her not to ‘worry’ because he’d had a vasectomy so couldn’t impregnate her. Haggis – who was previously arrested in Italy on separate rape claims – denies Breest’s allegations.
He says the entire case is being driven by the Church of Scientology as punishment for his speaking out against it – Haggis used to be a member of the church but deserted in 2009.
Jury selection for the civil trial begins today in Manhattan. Breest is expected to testify, as are three other women who have accused Haggis of rape.
Those women have not been named.
It remains unclear if any of the women reported their allegations to police, or why Haggis has never been arrested over their claims.
The Italian case was dropped six weeks after the woman, who is British, first reported her claims to police in the town of Lecce.
Breest came forward in 2017, galvanized by the #MeToo movement and allegations against Harvey Weinstein.
Haggis maintains that the encounter she describes in her lawsuit was consensual.
His attorneys say that Breest demanded $9million from him before filing her lawsuit, and that the case is one of ‘simple extortion’.
The lawsuit describes how Breest, then 26, was working as a publicist at the event on the Upper West Side.
Haggis was a ‘celebrity guest’. Once the party was over, she says he insisted on giving her a ride downtown, and that he asked her to join him for a drink in his apartment.
Haggis, shown with Jack Nicholson and co-producer Cathy Schulman, won an Oscar for Crash. He also wrote the screenplay for Million Dollar Baby
Breest in 2009 with Madonna and Andy Cohen at another New York City event. Haggis said they often ran into each other at industry events and that the 2013 incident was consensual
She claims she asked to go to a public bar instead but that he ‘insisted’ on the privacy of his own home.
Once inside, she claims he led her to a bedroom where he removed her tights, took off his own Banana Republica boxers, and forced her to perform oral sex, instructing: ‘Put my d**k in your mouth.’
Haggis then digitally penetrated Breest, telling her ‘you’re nice and tight’, and telling her he liked ‘anal sex’, according to the 12-page complaint filed in 2017.
She says he then raped her without using a condom, telling her: ‘I’ve had a vasectomy, so you’re fine. You can’t get pregnant.’
After the alleged attack, she says she ‘lost consciousness’ in the bedroom and later woke up to find him in a different part of the apartment.
She says she felt ‘trapped’ and that the only way out of the apartment was from a personal elevator that opened onto the home.
Haggis is shown in Italy in June. He was accused of rape by a British woman in Lecce and was arrested but the charges were later dropped
Records indicate that Haggis paid $1.2million for the apartment on Mercer Street in 2012.
He was spotted returning to New York City ahead of the trial earlier this month.
Haggis, like many other celebrities, defected from the Church of Scientology in 2009.
He has since spoken out against the church and its support of a 2008 law in California that stripped gay couples of marriage rights.
He also cited concerns over widespread allegations of physical violence within the church.
At the time of the alleged attack, he was married to actress Deborah Rennard.
She has spoken in defense of him since the allegations were made.
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