Jury deliberations are due to start Thursday in a rape civil case against filmmaker Paul Haggis, tasking a six-person panel with sifting through duelling narratives about what happened between him and a publicist on a night in 2013.
In accuser Haleigh Breest's telling, she reluctantly agreed to a drink at the "Crash" and "Million Dollar Baby" screenwriter's apartment, then was subjected to unwelcome kisses, forced to perform oral sex and raped as she repeatedly refused.
"This lawsuit has utterly destroyed him," defense lawyer Priya Chaudhry said in her closing argument, urging jurors to "set Paul free of these false allegations." After a screening on Jan. 31, 2013, both sides agree, Haggis offered Breest a ride home and invited her to his loft for a nightcap. She suggested a bar instead.
Chaudhry portrays Breest as a star-struck young woman who was excited about her night with the screenwriter-director, became disappointed that he didn't ask her out again and twisted "a consensual, somewhat awkward one-night stand" into a sexual assault to try to get a payout -- and payback.
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