‘Crash’ director Paul Haggis detained in Italy over sexual assault charges

Oscar-winning director and screenwriter Paul Haggis was on Sunday detained over sexual assault charges and personal injury accusations in Italy’s Ostuni town by a ‘foreign’ woman who is not of Italian origin. The Hollywood Reporter reported that the woman who pressed the charges against the director claimed that he forced her to engage in sexual intercourse with him in the city for two days.

Haggis was in the Italian city to conduct a few master classes at a Los Angeles-based event called the Allora Fest.

The woman was brought to the Papola Casale airport in Italy’s Brindisi, the Italian police said, adding that despite her ‘precarious physical and psychological conditions,’ she left the premises. The woman was then taken to a hospital with the help of the airport crew and police officers, and after reaching there, she pressed formal charges on Haggis.

The woman had ‘formalized her complaint and cited circumstances which were subsequently looked into for confirmation by investigators’, the prosecutors claimed, without disclosing her age and nationality.

Previously, in 2018, Paul Haggis had faced similar sexual misconduct accusations by a film publicist named Haleigh Breest. She sued the director for allegedly raping her in 2013 at his apartment after a movie premiere. Later, three more women opened up about being victims of sexual assault by Haggis.

However, Haggis had denied the claims of these women, saying he was used to defending himself against ‘false allegations’ because he was a notable critic of Scientology.

Haggis is an Academy Award-winning director and writer. He won the best picture and original screenplay awards for his 2004 film ‘Crash’ and also earned an Oscar nod for best-adapted screenplay for ‘Million Dollar Baby’.

(With agency inputs)