Where is the $10 million?
Disgraced 'Crash' director Paul Haggis is charging more than $300 for acting classes in Italy while fending off a rape accuser who owes him $10 million in damages.
Haggis, 70, began emailing fliers in September for a three-day intensive course titled “Acting Workshop with Paul Haggis.” The Daily Beast reported.
According to the paper, the Academy Award winner promised 20 participants the chance to practice scenes during a class scheduled to take place in Rome.
The courses, which will “fill up quickly,” cost $350 each, according to an ad in November.
The “Million Dollar Baby” screenwriter plans to teach a revamped workshop this month focused on the audition process, The Daily Beast reported in an email sent from the account “haggisclass@gmail.com.” I told it as a story.
However, although Haggis is looking to launch new gigs overseas, he has yet to pay a penny of the $10 million in compensatory and punitive damages he is owed to Hayley Breast, the outlet said. did.
Brest, a former film publicist, sued Haggis in 2017, accusing him of raping her after a 2013 premiere.
Mr Brest was 26 years old and Mr Haggis 59 at the time of the alleged attack.
During his 2022 sexual assault trial, Haggis' lawyers argued that the acclaimed filmmaker's $25 million fortune had been “diminished” by legal costs and two divorces.
“He won't be able to pay the judgment you've already entered. And he won't be able to pay any more,” lawyer Priya Chaudhry said in court, the Post reported at the time.
However, the jury ultimately ordered Haggis to pay Brest $7.5 million in compensatory damages and $2.5 million in punitive damages.
Since the verdict, which Haggis dismissed as a lie, Brest has continued to fight to make the director pay compensation.
In late December, a court granted Haggis' request to force the sale of her $2.9 million SoHo apartment and give her the proceeds, The Daily Beast reported.
Brest also filed a complaint against Haggis' ex-wife, actress Deborah Leonard, alleging that she conspired with her ex-husband to hide his assets, the newspaper continued.
Over the summer, Brist filed a petition alleging that Haggis gave money and property to Leonard to avoid paying damages.
Leonard has been ordered to appear in court later this month for allegedly sending $20,000 to a former woman in violation of a restraining order, The Daily Beast reported.
In a separate lawsuit filed last month, Mr. Brest also accused Mr. Leonard and Mr. Haggis of “attempting to take Haggis' assets out of his hands and into Leonard's hands, thereby avoiding enforcement of a prospective judgment and accused of “long-standing efforts to obstruct, delay, or defraud the United States.”
Leonard, who was married to Haggis from 1997 to 2016, “vehemently denies the plaintiff's claims and allegations and intends to rely on her written response, which has been filed with the court and is pending,” her lawyer told the Daily. told the Beast.
In addition to Mr. Brest's damages, Mr. Haggis is also looking at a lawsuit from a legal services firm used by his lawyer before his sexual assault trial, which owed him more than $73,000 in unpaid fees. The newspaper reported that he claimed that
The case is scheduled to be heard in New York Supreme Court in November, but Mr. Haggis has not yet responded.
