A civil lawsuit was previously filed against the Oscar-winning filmmaker, prompting three more women to come forward.

A civil lawsuit charging Oscar-winning filmmaker Paul Haggis with raping a publicist has prompted three additional women to come forward with their own sexual misconduct accusations, including another publicist who says he forced her to perform oral sex, then raped her.

One of the other women speaking out told The Associated Press that Haggis tried to sexually assault her. "I need to be inside you," she recalled him saying, before she managed to run away.

Another of the new accusers said Haggis held down her arms, forcibly kissed her on a street corner, then followed her into a taxi. She said she later escaped his clutches.

When asked about the new accusations, Christine Lepera, attorney for the 64-year-old screenwriter of Million Dollar Baby and Crash, said, "He didn't rape anybody."

Haggis has denied the original rape allegation in an extortion lawsuit filed against that woman, and said she and her lawyer had demanded a $9 million payment to avoid legal action.

The plaintiff in the lawsuit, filed Dec. 15 in Manhattan, is identified in court papers as Haleigh Breest. The other three women subsequently came forward to Breest's New York attorneys. They spoke to the AP on the condition that they not be identified for fear of retribution. The AP generally does not identify people who say they were the victims of sexual assault.

On Friday, Breest amended her complaint against Haggis to include the claims of the three Jane Does.

In separate interviews with the AP, the three new accusers provided detailed accounts of encounters they say occurred between 1996 and 2015. The women were early in their careers in the entertainment business when, they say, the Hollywood heavyweight lured them to private or semi-private places under the guise of discussing productions or a subject of a professional nature.

They all said Haggis first tried to kiss them. In two of the cases, they said, when they fought back, Haggis escalated his aggression.

The new rape accuser said she was a 28-year-old publicist working on a television show being produced by Haggis in 1996 when he called to ask to review photos from the show that night in her office.

"I thought it was odd, but I agreed. He was the ultimate boss. I didn't feel inclined to say no," she said.

When Haggis arrived, she said, everyone else had left the office for the night and he insisted they speak in a back office. She said Haggis began kissing her as soon as they walked into the room.

"I just pulled away. He was just glaring at me and came at me again. I was really resisting. He said to me, 'Do you really want to continue working?'" the woman said. "And then he really forced himself on me. I was just numb. I didn't know what to do."

She said he made her perform oral sex, then pushed her to the floor and raped her.

When she returned to work the next day, she was so scared of Haggis that she asked a friend to come to work with her, she said.

Her account was corroborated by another friend, who said that in the weeks after the attack the woman lost weight and appeared to be depressed. When she asked what happened, the woman said Haggis had raped her a few weeks earlier, the friend said.

The friend spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because she still works in the entertainment industry and feared possible retaliation.

The accuser said she considered calling the police but feared that no one would believe her and worried that Haggis could end her career.

"The power, the anger, the financial resources, you feel like you are not really a match for that," she said.

The woman said she felt inspired to come forward after seeing Haggis' photo and a news story about Breest's lawsuit, amid the growing #MeToo movement of women speaking out about sexual misconduct by powerful men in Hollywood, politics, the media and other industries.

Breest accuses Haggis of raping her after he lured her back to his apartment in Manhattan following a film premiere in 2013.

She had accepted his offer of a ride home. Instead, she said, he brought her to his apartment in SoHo and invited her inside for a drink. Fearing she would insult him if she declined the offer, Breest went into his apartment and had a glass of wine.

Quickly, Haggis became "sexually aggressive," she said in her lawsuit, and began kissing her.

She was "petrified and felt paralyzed," the suit said, when Haggis asked her, "You're scared of me, aren't you?"

Haggis then forced her into a bedroom and onto a bed and tried to tear off her tights, she said. She called out "no," but he wouldn't stop, she said.

He forced her to perform oral sex on him, he fondled her, asked if she liked anal sex, then raped her, according to the lawsuit.

When she woke up hours later, feeling sore, scared and humiliated, she saw Haggis sleeping in another bedroom, and left.

Breest said she went to a clinic to be checked for sexually transmitted diseases, then told several friends and a psychologist.

The third accuser was in her 30s when she met with Haggis at his Los Angeles office in the late 2000s to pitch him a potential television show. When she arrived for the meeting, set for 9 p.m., there were other employees around, but all quickly left. She said he had a bottle of wine open on his desk, too, and that when she sat down on a couch in his office, Haggis told her he had an arrangement with his wife to have extramarital relationships.

Panicked, she said, she looked for her car keys and an escape route, as Haggis came around a table and tried to kiss her.

She said the thought to herself, "How am I going to escape alive?"

"I felt like my life could have been over," she said.

She ran to her car. Haggis followed her outside, but she managed to get in and drive off before calling her sister and several friends to tell them what happened, she said. A friend told the AP she remembered being told about the incident.

The new accuser who said Haggis forcibly kissed her, then followed her into her taxi, said the encounter occurred in 2015 in Canada. She said she was in her late 20s at the time and knew Haggis from film events.

She said that when the taxi arrived at her apartment, Haggis threw money at the driver, chased her and kissed her again before she was able to get into her residence and shut the door. She said Haggis waved his hands at her once she was inside and sent her harassing text messages for the next 24 hours, until she blocked him.

After years of working in television, Haggis broke out in the mid-2000s when he became the first screenwriter to write back-to-back best picture winners, Million Dollar Baby and Crash, which he also directed. He also gained attention for his defection from Scientology in 2009, and public criticism of the religion in a 2011 New Yorker article, a book and an HBO documentary. All the women interviewed denied any connection to Scientology.

Haggis has presented himself as an advocate of the underdog in his films, addressing racism, euthanasia and war. He also is known for his involvement with charities, including the Haiti-focused Artists for Peace and Justice, and his condemnation of Harvey Weinstein.

In an interview with The Guardian in October, Haggis said that while he didn't think sexual harassment and abuse were endemic in Hollywood, it was a "fairly sexist" town. He also spoke further about Weinstein.

"A lot of people are compromised by Harvey's alleged actions," said Haggis. "Although everyone thinks it is vile behavior, you have got to focus on those who may have colluded and protected him. For me, they are as guilty as he is and in some cases more so, if I can say that. I mean, he was a predator and a predator is a predator. But what about those who would rather look the other way?"

In a statement Thursday, Breest's lawyers responded to Haggis' complaint.

"We view Mr. Haggis's claims against Haleigh Breest as ludicrous, and a further act of aggression. In our system of justice, those who have been wronged have the clear right to seek redress and hold those responsible accountable for their misconduct," said Jonathan Abady of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP. "In an act of remarkable hubris, Mr. Haggis has the temerity to claim that he, not her, was the victim. It is a preposterous and transparent PR stunt that will not succeed. Ms. Breest will not be intimidated or deterred from seeking justice."

Read the statement from Haggis' lawyer in full below.

Mr. Haggis denies these anonymous claims in whole.



In a society where one of a person’s fundamental rights is the ability to confront an accuser, that right has now been eviscerated when it comes to anyone being charged in the press with any sort of sexual misconduct.



Notably, no one has reached out to anyone on Mr. Haggis’ team other than the press to report this.



He views the fact that these reports appear to be spearheaded from the law-firm representing Ms. Breest, as a further tactic to try to harm him and continue their effort to obtain money.



Mr. Haggis also questions whether Scientology has any role here, which he notes has been attacking him for years with false accusations.



We reiterate our claim against Ms. Breest, and note again that we initiated the legal proceedings, not Ms. Breest.</s>Paul Haggis, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter behind Million Dollar Baby and Crash (the latter of which he also directed), has been accused of sexual misconduct by four women, according to a new Associated Press report. Two of the victims claim the Hollywood veteran raped them.

The first accuser, named in court documents as publicist Haleigh Breest, has filed a civil lawsuit against the Haggis, alleging that he raped her after luring her back to his Manhattan apartment following a film premiere back in 2013. Haggis has denied Breest’s rape allegation in a counter-complaint, suggesting that her demand of a $9 million payment settlement was a form of extortion.

Despite his denial, Breest’s lawsuit has since inspired three additional women to speak up about their disturbing encounters with Haggis, all of which took place between 1996 and 2015. In each of their accounts, Haggis was painted as a Hollywood predator, whose MO involved inviting women early in their careers to “private or semi-private places under the guise of discussing productions or a subject of a professional nature,” as AP notes. When his sexual advances were refused, he’d often turn aggressive, said two of the women.

One of the new accusers said she was assaulted while working as a publicist for one of Haggis’ TV shows in 1996. During a supposed meeting over press photos, the woman, then 28, claimed Haggis began kissing her. “I just pulled away,” she told AP. “He was just glaring at me and came at me again. I was really resisting. He said to me, ’Do you really want to continue working?’” the woman said. “And then he really forced himself on me. I was just numb. I didn’t know what to do.” She said Haggis then forced her to perform oral sex on him and then raped her while on the floor.

The second accuser met with Haggis at his Los Angeles office in the late 2000s in order to pitch him a potential TV show when he made a pass at her. She said she managed to leave the room and run to her car, though Haggis tried to catch up with her outside. “I felt like my life could have been over,” she recalled.

It was in Canada in 2015 that the third accuser was allegedly assaulted by Haggis, whom she knew from various film events. The woman, who was in her late 20s at the time, said Haggis forcibly kissed her while on a street corner and then followed her into a taxi that was headed to her home.

“She said that when the taxi arrived at her apartment, Haggis threw money at the driver, chased her and kissed her again before she was able to get into her residence and shut the door,” writes AP. “She said Haggis waved his hands at her once she was inside and sent her harassing text messages for the next 24 hours, until she blocked him.”

When asked to comment on the three new accusers, Christina Lepera, an attorney for the 64-year-old Haggis, simply said, “He didn’t rape anybody.”

Haggis, of course, is one of many, many Hollywood fixtures who’ve been accused of sexual misconduct since Harvey Weinstein.</s>A civil lawsuit charging Oscar-winning filmmaker Paul Haggis with raping a publicist has prompted three additional women to come forward with their own sexual misconduct accusations, including another publicist who says he forced her to perform oral sex, then raped her.

One of the other women speaking out told The Associated Press that Haggis tried to sexually assault her. "I need to be inside you," she recalled him saying, before she managed to run away.

Another of the new accusers said Haggis held down her arms, forcibly kissed her on a street corner, then followed her into a taxi. She said she later escaped his clutches.

When asked about the new accusations, Christine Lepera, attorney for the 64-year-old screenwriter of "Million Dollar Baby" and "Crash," said, "He didn't rape anybody."

Haggis has denied the original rape allegation in a counter-complaint to the lawsuit, and said the accuser and her lawyer had demanded a $9 million payment to avoid legal action, which he characterized as extortion.

The plaintiff in the lawsuit, filed Dec. 15 in Manhattan, is identified in court papers as Haleigh Breest. The other three women subsequently came forward to Breest's New York attorneys. They spoke to the AP on the condition that they not be identified for fear of retribution. The AP generally does not identify people who say they were the victims of sexual assault.

In a phone interview with NBC News on Friday, one of Breest’s lawyers responded to Haggis’ counter-complaint.

“Mr. Haggis’ lawsuit against Ms. Breest is retaliatory,” said attorney Ilann Maazel. “It is, in my view, designed to intimidate her. I personally find it appalling.”

After years of working in television, Haggis broke out in the mid-2000s when he became the first screenwriter to write back-to-back best picture winners, "Million Dollar Baby" and "Crash," which he also directed. He also gained attention for his defection from Scientology in 2009, and public criticism of the religion in a 2011 New Yorker article, a book and an HBO documentary. All the women interviewed denied any connection to Scientology.

Related: Here are the men accused of sexual misconduct since Weinstein

In separate interviews with the AP, the three new accusers provided detailed accounts of encounters they say occurred between 1996 and 2015. The women were early in their careers in the entertainment business when, they say, the Hollywood heavyweight lured them to private or semi-private places under the guise of discussing productions or a subject of a professional nature.

They all said Haggis first tried to kiss them. In two of the cases, they said, when they fought back, Haggis escalated his aggression. NBC News could not confirm their accounts.</s>LOS ANGELES (AP) — Four women accuse Oscar winner Paul Haggis of sexual misconduct, including two rapes.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>Director Paul Haggis arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscars party in West Hollywood, California on March 2, 2014. Danny Moloshok / Reuters file

When asked about the new accusations, Christine Lepera, attorney for the 64-year-old screenwriter of “Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash,” said, “He didn’t rape anybody.”

Haggis has denied the original rape allegation in a counter-complaint to the lawsuit, and said the accuser and her lawyer had demanded a $9 million payment to avoid legal action, which he characterized as extortion.

The plaintiff in the lawsuit, filed Dec. 15 in Manhattan, is identified in court papers as Haleigh Breest. The other three women subsequently came forward to Breest’s New York attorneys. They spoke to the AP on the condition that they not be identified for fear of retribution. The AP generally does not identify people who say they were the victims of sexual assault.

In a phone interview with NBC News on Friday, one of Breest’s lawyers responded to Haggis’ counter-complaint.

“Mr. Haggis’ lawsuit against Ms. Breest is retaliatory,” said attorney Ilann Maazel. “It is, in my view, designed to intimidate her. I personally find it appalling.”

After years of working in television, Haggis broke out in the mid-2000s when he became the first screenwriter to write back-to-back best picture winners, “Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash,” which he also directed. He also gained attention for his defection from Scientology in 2009, and public criticism of the religion in a

2011 New Yorker article, a book and an HBO documentary. All the women interviewed denied any connection to Scientology.

Here are the men accused of sexual misconduct since Weinstein

In separate interviews with the AP, the three new accusers provided detailed accounts of encounters they say occurred between 1996 and 2015. The women were early in their careers in the entertainment business when, they say, the Hollywood heavyweight lured them to private or semi-private places under the guise of discussing productions or a subject of a professional nature.

They all said Haggis first tried to kiss them. In two of the cases, they said, when they fought back, Haggis escalated his aggression. NBC News could not confirm their accounts.</s>Three new women have accused filmmaker Paul Haggis of sexual misconduct, the Associated Press reported Friday afternoon. The accusations follow a civil lawsuit filed in December against Haggis, 64, by New York publicist Haleigh Breest, who says he raped her in 2013.

Haggis is best known as the director, producer and co-writer of 2004’s “Crash,” which netted him two Oscars, for writing and best picture. He was also nominated for writing “Million Dollar Baby” and co-writing “Letters From Iwo Jima,” and he recently directed the 2015 HBO miniseries “Show Me a Hero.”

The new accusers, who were in their late 20s or 30s when the incidents reportedly occurred, all told the AP that Haggis tried to forcibly kiss them. One woman said he attempted to sexually assault her in the late 2000s, and another said he followed her into a taxi after forcibly kissing her on a street corner in 2015. (She told the AP that she managed to escape, though he harassed her via text messages until she blocked him.)

The third, who worked as a publicist in 1996 on a TV show Haggis produced, said he forced her to perform oral sex and then raped her after their colleagues had left work for the night.

“I just pulled away. He was just glaring at me and came at me again. I was really resisting,” the third woman told the AP. “He said to me, ‘Do you really want to continue working?’ And then he really forced himself on me. I was just numb.”

When asked for comment on the new accusations, Haggis’s attorney, Christine Lepera, told the AP, “He didn’t rape anybody.”

Haggis sued Breest in December, according to the Hollywood Reporter, claiming that she was extorting him for $9 million.

“The clear goal of Defendant’s demand for such an absurd amount of money from Plaintiff is to scare him into giving this windfall to her to avoid his public hanging,” Lepera wrote in the lawsuit. “Defendant thinks she can capitalize on the current headlines, believing she will have to prove nothing, and will only have to threaten to destroy Plaintiff.”

Breest countered with her own lawsuit, according to the Hollywood Reporter. She says Haggis raped her at his apartment in SoHo after the 2013 premiere of the Steven Soderbergh movie “Side Effects.”

Breest’s lawyers provided a statement to the Associated Press on Thursday in response to Haggis’s claims.

“In our system of justice, those who have been wronged have the clear right to seek redress and hold those responsible accountable for their misconduct,” said Jonathan Abady of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP. “In an act of remarkable hubris, Mr. Haggis has the temerity to claim that he, not her, was the victim. It is a preposterous and transparent PR stunt that will not succeed. Ms. Breest will not be intimidated or deterred from seeking justice.”</s>Paul Haggis Accused of Rape by 2 Women, 2 More Claim Sexual Misconduct

Paul Haggis -- the Oscar-winning director and writer of "Crash" -- is being accused of sexual misconduct by 4 different women ... including 2 rapes.

Haggis was sued in December for allegedly raping film publicist Haleigh Breest in 2013 at his apartment after a movie premiere. Haggis denied the claims and countersued ... alleging she tried to score a $9 million settlement out of it.

Still, Breest's suit reportedly led to 3 new women coming forward with their own claims of sexual misconduct -- one similarly accusing Haggis of forcing her to perform oral sex then raping her.

Haggis had previously said he's used to defending himself against 'false allegations' because he's a notable critic of Scientology. He famously left the church in 2009 ... and appeared in the 2015 documentary 'Going Clear' about his experience.

We've reached out to Haggis' team ... so far no word back.</s>Oscar-winning director Paul Haggis has denied accusations of sexual misconduct made by four women, including two who accused him of rape.

On Friday, the Associated Press reported accusations by three women who worked in the entertainment industry including that Haggis had forcibly kissed them, or forced them to perform oral sex, in encounters between 1996 and 2015.

One of the three women also accused Haggis of raping her. The women were not identified in the report.

“Mr. Haggis denies these anonymous claims in whole,” his attorney Christine Lepera said in a statement.

A fourth woman named in the report, Haleigh Breest, who accused Haggis of raping her in 2013, was sued by Haggis last month in New York state court in Manhattan.

In the lawsuit, Haggis denied the allegation and accused Miss Breest of extortion and of demanding $9 million in order to avoid her claims becoming public.

Miss Breest and the other three accusers could not be reached for comment on Friday.

Haggis (64) won screenplay and best picture Oscars in 2006 for “Crash.” The Canadian writer and director’s other work includes the movies “Million Dollar Baby” and “Quantum of Solace.”

He is also known for publicly breaking away from the Church of Scientology in 2009 after 35 years as a member.</s>After a woman filed a civil lawsuit last month accusing Paul Haggis of rape, three more women have come forward with their own allegations of sexual misconduct against the director of Crash.

The director is denying all the women's allegations, suggesting they may be motivated by financial reasons or that they are seeking retribution against him for speaking out against Scientology.

In her December civil suit, entertainment publicist Haleigh Breest claimed that Haggis lured her to his New York apartment after a film premiere in 2013 and became "sexually aggressive." She alleges he said, "You're scared of me, aren't you?" before forcing her to perform oral sex on him and then raping her.

Haggis denied Breest's claims, and countersued over what he said was "extortion."

On Friday, three other women told the Associated Press that Haggis was sexually aggressive toward them, with one of the women saying he raped her.

The three women chose to remain anonymous, but have claims that go from 2015 all the way back to 1996. Be it at a meeting about a television show or after a film event, the women said Haggis found a way to be alone with them, then tried to forcibly kiss them, and either raped them, as another publicist alleges, or intensely harassed them once they'd escaped.

The second publicist to accuse Haggis of rape says he set up a late-night meeting with her to go over photos for a 1996 TV show he was producing. As she resisted his advances, she alleges he said, "Do you really want to continue working?" She describes going numb after that, alleging that Haggis forced her to perform oral sex and then raped her on the floor of the office they were in.

The other two women allege Haggis forcibly kissed them before they were able to escape as he chased them out the building. In one 2015 alleged incident, the director then repeatedly called and texted one of the women for 24 hours before she blocked him.</s>LOS ANGELES — A civil lawsuit charging Oscar-winning filmmaker Paul Haggis with raping a publicist has prompted three additional women to come forward with their own sexual misconduct accusations, including another publicist who says he forced her to perform oral sex, then raped her.

One of the other women speaking out told The Associated Press that Haggis tried to sexually assault her. “I need to be inside you,” she recalled him saying, before she managed to run away.

Another of the new accusers said Haggis held down her arms, forcibly kissed her on a street corner, then followed her into a taxi. She said she later escaped his clutches.

When asked about the new accusations, Christine Lepera, attorney for the 64-year-old screenwriter of “Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash,” said, “He didn’t rape anybody.”

Haggis has denied the original rape allegation in a counter-complaint to the lawsuit, and said the accuser and her lawyer had demanded a $9 million payment to avoid legal action, which he characterized as extortion.

The plaintiff in the lawsuit, filed Dec. 15 in Manhattan, is identified in court papers as Haleigh Breest. The other three women subsequently came forward to Breest’s New York attorneys. They spoke to the AP on the condition that they not be identified for fear of retribution. The AP generally does not identify people who say they were the victims of sexual assault.

In separate interviews with the AP, the three new accusers provided detailed accounts of encounters they say occurred between 1996 and 2015. The women were early in their careers in the entertainment business when, they say, the Hollywood heavyweight lured them to private or semi-private places under the guise of discussing productions or a subject of a professional nature.

They all said Haggis first tried to kiss them. In two of the cases, they said, when they fought back, Haggis escalated his aggression.

The new rape accuser said she was a 28-year-old publicist working on a television show being produced by Haggis in 1996 when he called to ask to review photos from the show that night in her office. She said he insisted they speak in a back office and Haggis began kissing her as soon as they walked into the room. He then made her perform oral sex, pushed her to the ground and raped her, she said.

The woman said she felt inspired to come forward after seeing Haggis’ photo and a news story about Breest’s lawsuit, amid the growing #MeToo movement of women speaking out about sexual misconduct by powerful men in Hollywood, politics, the media and other industries.

Breest accuses Haggis of raping her after he lured her back to his apartment in Manhattan following a film premiere in 2013. She said he had accepted a ride home but instead he brought her to his apartment in SoHo and invited her inside for a drink.

Quickly, Haggis became “sexually aggressive,” she said in her lawsuit, and began kissing her.

She said Haggis asked her, “You’re scared of me, aren’t you?”

Haggis then forced her into a bedroom and onto a bed and tried to tear off her tights, she said. She called out “no,” but he wouldn’t stop, she said.

He forced her to perform oral sex on him, fondled her, asked if she liked anal sex, then raped her, according to the lawsuit.

The third accuser was in her 30s when she went to a 9 p.m. meeting at Haggis’ Los Angeles office in the late 2000s to pitch him a potential television show. She said other employees quickly left, and that when she down on a couch in his office, there was a bottle of wine open on his desk. She said Haggis told her he had an arrangement with his wife to have extramarital relationships.

Panicked, she said, she looked for her car keys and an escape route, as Haggis came around a table and tried to kiss her.

She ran to her car. Haggis followed, but she managed to get in and drive off before calling her sister and several friends, she said. A friend told the AP she remembered being informed about the incident.

The new accuser who said Haggis forcibly kissed her, then followed her into her taxi, said the encounter occurred in 2015 in Canada. She said she was in her late 20s at the time and knew Haggis from film events.

She said that when the taxi arrived at her apartment, Haggis threw money at the driver, chased her and kissed her again before she was able to get into her residence and shut the door. She said Haggis sent her harassing text messages, until she blocked him.

After years of working in television, Haggis broke out in the mid-2000s when he became the first screenwriter to write back-to-back best picture winners, “Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash,” which he also directed. He also gained attention for his defection from Scientology in 2009, and public criticism of the religion.

The women interviewed denied any connection to Scientology.
Four women accuse film and television producer, director, and writer Paul Haggis (Crash and Million Dollar Baby) of sexual misconduct including two rapes.