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The civil trial in New York of Oscar-winning Canadian filmmaker Paul Haggis, accused by an agent of rape in 2013, opened on Wednesday. The accused denies the facts.
The director of “Crash” (“Collision”) and screenwriter of “Million Dollar Baby” and “Casino Royale”, 69, arrived in court in the morning, noted an AFP photographer.
After the #MeToo wave of freedom of speech on sexual violence and sexism once morest women, the filmmaker was accused of sexual assault by three women. But he only appears in New York for the facts denounced by the agent.
More recently, last June, Haggis was arrested in southern Italy, once more on suspicion of sexually assaulting a young woman, facts he has once more denied.
«Walker Texas Ranger»
According to several American media, the filmmaker’s lawyers suggested on Wednesday before the popular jury of the New York court that the complaint had been guided by the Church of Scientology, with which Paul Haggis had broken up and which he has since criticized. The thesis was swept away by the plaintiff’s lawyers.
In her complaint, the latter said that on the evening of January 31, 2013, following a film screening in Manhattan, the director had insisted that she come and have a drink at his house, when she said she preferred to go out to a bar. Once in her apartment, Paul Haggis had made many advances to her before forcing her to perform oral sex and then raping her once more.
Known for being one of the creators of the “Walker Texas Ranger” series, Paul Haggis received the Oscars for best picture and best original screenplay in 2006 for “Crash” (“Collision”). He was also the screenwriter of Clint Eastwood’s “Million Dollar Baby”, “Memoirs of Our Fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima”, as well as episodes of the James Bond saga, “Casino Royale” and “Quantum of Solace”. “.
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