Paul Haggis’ Lawyer Calls Rape Claim “Awkward One-Night Stand” In Closing Argument

deadline.com:

Paul Haggis had an “awkward one-night stand” in 2013 with an infatuated young woman, Haleigh Breest, who wanted more intimacy from the Oscar-winning filmmaker and, when there was none, made up a rape allegation for a #MeToo-adjacent 2017 lawsuit that has “utterly destroyed him,” a lawyer for Haggis told jurors Wednesday in the three-hour first closing argument of his New York sexual assault civil trial. “There are three ‘R’ words that happened here: rejection, regret and revenge,” said the lawyer, Priya Chaudhry. “And none of these ‘R’ words are rape.” Breest was, in Chaudhry’s portrayal, a liar who wanted the affections of a famous, accomplished man, and as it dawned on her that he wasn’t interested and had moved on, she shopped different versions of the encounter to different friends and ultimately to lawyers as part of a plan to “get even” — to quote one of her texts — and shake Haggis down for money. RELATED: Paul Haggis Sexual Assault Civil Trial: Deadline’s Complete Coverage Chaudhry appealed to the jurors as skeptical, common-sensical New Yorkers to ask whether Breest was, as she testified, the victim of “an extremely violent rape” when she didn’t report it to police and kept the un-damaged but reportedly semen-stained tights that she wore that night as evidence.

She said the DNA testing produced no conclusive evidence of any semen belonging to Haggis, and she asked jurors to consider why they haven’t seen those tights, even though Breest’s lawyers have shown them her dress and sweater from that night.

She also said she expected that Breest’s lawyers, when they deliver their closings, will invoke the name “Harvey Weinstein” often. “This is not a ‘Did she feel uncomfortable saying no because of the power