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

deadline.com:

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. RELATED: Paul Haggis Sexual Assault Civil Trial: Deadline’s Complete Coverage 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.