NEW YORK (AP) — Jurors began hearing Thursday in the civil trial involving Oscar-winning director Paul Haggis and the publicist who accused him of rape.
Jurors heard testimony that lasted three weeks. Haggis and accuser Haley Brest spent several days on the witness stand giving different explanations for what happened between them on January 31, 2013.
Both agree that he invited her to his apartment for a drink after they met at a movie premiere.
Brist, 36, says Haggis quickly became sexually aggressive and, even though she told him she didn’t want to, forced her to perform oral sex and raped her.
Haggis, 69, says the meeting was consensual and that Brest initiated part of it.
“Brest” demands compensation for unspecified damages from the screenwriter-producer. He was a longtime television writer before he wrote and directed the early 2000s Academy Award winners Million Dollar Baby and Crash.
The Associated Press doesn’t usually name people who say they were sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Brest did.
