Paul Haggis Cross-Examined With Focus On The Word “No”; Sides Debate Leah Remini Testimony; Closing Arguments Eyed For Monday

Paul Haggis sparred with a lawyer Friday over the meaning of a woman saying “no,” explaining again that when Haleigh Breest said “no” to him peeling off her tights she was not refusing sex.

“She did not say ‘no’ in the way that one means ‘no,’” Haggis said in a 2019 deposition played for jurors by Ilann Maazel, a lawyer for Breest, in the Oscar-winning Crash filmmaker’s New York sexual assault civil trial. Breest says Haggis raped her in his Manhattan apartment after a movie-screening party in 2013 where he was a guest and she was working as a publicist. She is suing him for unspecified damages.

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A lawyer for Haggis said Friday that they want jurors to hear testimony from former the King of Queens star Leah Remini, who, like Haggis, is a former member of the Church of Scientology and a prominent critic of the organization. A lawyer for Breest, Zoe Salzman, objected, saying Remini would just duplicate testimony from other ex-Scientologists.

With jurors out of the courtroom, Priya Chaudhry, a lawyer for Haggis, called the duplication argument “laughable” given that Breest’s lawyers have enlisted four women to testify that Haggis sexually assaulted them or tried to. Chaudhry also said Remini — who won Emmys for her documentary series, Scientology and the Aftermath, which featured Haggis as a guest — might be ill with the flu.

“If we’re done today I’m not holding it up for her, because this trial needs to come to an end,” Judge Sabrina Kraus said.

The judge added that she wants closing arguments on Monday because court will be dark on Election Day Tuesday.

Haggis testified Thursday that Breest was saying no as an expression of unease with her body image. “At that point she started squirming and laughing and said, ‘No, no, I don’t want you to see me. I’m fat.’ I said, ‘You’re not fat, you’re adorable,’” Haggis told jurors when questioned by Chaudhry. He said Breest helped him remove her tights after he turned off the light in the bedroom, and they had oral sex initiated by her.

On Friday, Maazel said, “‘No’ does not always mean no to you, is that fair?” drawing an objection from Chaudhry. Maazel then played back a piece of Haggis’ 2019 deposition in which he talked about “texts and subtexts” and putting “the word in context.”

Maazel’s cross-examination, which began Thursday, offered jurors a different context: Breest suggesting they go to a bar instead of Haggis’ apartment, then agreeing to go to his place but insisting she wouldn’t spend the night, and then breaking off a string of kisses in the apartment by saying, “We shouldn’t.”

Maazel played back a piece of Haggis’ deposition in which he said that when a woman says “I’m not spending the night out of the blue like that it usually means we can have sex, but I’m not going to sleep here.”

Breest testified last month that Haggis swore at her and pinned her against a refrigerator, forced her to perform oral sex on him and submit to intercourse, and pushed his fingers inside her as she repeatedly said no. Breest has testified that she had no romantic interest in Haggis, but felt “pressured” to go home with him as a publicist working on movie screenings and afterparties in New York or a friend of Haggis who often invited him to attend.

Haggis’ lawyers have pointed to texts and emails between Breest and her friends indicating interest in seeing him again after the night she says she was raped.

Haggis has testified that the two were expressing “interest” in each other for months beforehand at events and were “playful” and “flirty” at the January 31, 2013, party and afterward at his apartment.

Haggis has testified that Breest’s protestations of “I shouldn’t” were offered in a “kitten-y” way that reminded him of the vintage female cartoon character Betty Boop. He also said that when Breest boasted of her skill at oral sex, it reminded him of an animated female character from the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit. “The way she said it was kind of adorable,” he said. “It was almost like her Jessica Rabbit imitation.”

On Friday, Maazel posted illustrations of Betty Boop and Jessica Rabbit, cartoon characters with exaggerated female bodies and revealing clothing, for jurors to look at. Maazel asked Haggis if he was aware of Boop as “a sexist and degrading cartoon character” but was cut off by an successful objection from Chaudhry.

Erik Pedersen contributed to this report.

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