Paul Haggis Accuser Wraps Her Testimony In New York Sexual Assault Civil Trial

deadline.com:

Haleigh Breest finished testifying Tuesday in her sexual assault civil trial against filmmaker Paul Haggis, and jurors began watching the video deposition of another Haggis accuser who has said she went to his office in Los Angeles in 2008 to discuss a possible book adaption and wound up fleeing the building when he suddenly tried to kiss her.

Breest spent nearly 10 hours total in the witness box over four days in an old Manhattan courtroom being cross-examined by a lawyer for Haggis, Priya Chaudhry.

Today, Breest was again confronted with texts that didn’t characterize what allegedly happened between her and Haggis as rape, and she was asked why she never went to the police and never sought a sexual assault forensic examination, often referred to as a “rape kit.”  Breest is suing Haggis claiming he raped her in his apartment in Soho in 2013 after a movie screening party put on by Breest’s boss, which Haggis attended and where Breest was working as a freelance events publicist.

Haggis has said the sex was consensual. Breest testified today that she feared police would mishandle a rape investigation, and she kept the tights she wore to work that night — the ones she said Mr.