The MeToo movement is having another moment in the U.S. spotlight, with a slate of high-profile sexual assault trials playing out in courtrooms from coast to coast.
Besides their #MeToo reverberations, both Haggis’ case and Masterson’s have become forums for scrutinizing the Church of Scientology, though from different perspectives., publicist Haleigh Breest claims that the “Crash” and “Million Dollar Baby” screenwriter forced her to perform oral sex and raped her after she reluctantly agreed to a drink in his Manhattan apartment after a 2013 movie premiere. She’s seeking unspecified damages.
sexually assaulted them, or attempted to do so, in separate encounters. One of them testified Wednesday, via videotaped questioning, that Haggis raped her during an after-hours meeting in her office in 1996, when both worked on a Canadian TV show.Haggis maintains that his encounter with Breest was consensual, and defense attorney Priya Chaudhry noted that the other women who are set to testify never took legal action of their own against him.
Promising “circumstantial evidence,” she suggested that Scientologists ginned up Breest’s lawsuit to discredit him after he became a prominent detractor. “Scientology has nothing to do with this case” or with any of Haggis’ accusers, she told jurors. The church has said the same.
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