Suit over rape claim against filmmaker Haggis heads to trial

By JENNIFER PELTZ
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Opening statements are expected Wednesday in a civil case brought by a publicist who accused Oscar-winning filmmaker Paul Haggis of raping her almost a decade ago. Jury selection began Monday in a New York courtroom. His accuser says the screenwriter and director lured her to his Manhattan apartment and raped her after a 2013 movie premiere. Haggis maintains the encounter was consensual, and his lawyers have suggested that the Church of Scientology engineered false accusations of sexual misdeeds to discredit him after he left the church and denounced it. The church has said it’s not involved in the allegations against Haggis. Haggis wrote back-to-back best picture Academy Award winners “Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash” in the mid-2000s.