Fast forward to December, when Haggis was hit with a lawsuit filed in the New York State Supreme Court, charging him with rape. Filed by Haleigh Breest, the court papers state that Haggis committed the assault on the evening of January 31, 2013. Ms. Breest, who was a 26-year-old publicist at that time for the film Side Effects, claims that Haggis invited her for a drink following the after-party.
“Ms. Breest told him she was willing to go to a public bar, but stated she did not want to go to his apartment,” the court papers state. “Mr. Haggis insisted they go to his apartment. Recognizing that Mr. Haggis was a powerful member of the Hollywood elite who could influence her career, and faced with his persistence, Ms. Breest ultimately relented and went with Mr. Haggis to his Mercer Street residence.”
The court document goes on to claim that, once in his apartment, Haggis forcibly kissed her, despite her telling him repeatedly to stop. At one point, according to the complaint, Haggis said, “You’re scared of me, aren’t you?”
The court statement then documents that Haggis got Breest into a bedroom, “where he began violently to try and remove her tights. She resisted, struggling to push him off, but he continued. After multiple forcible attempts to remove her tights, he succeeded. Mr. Haggis forced her to give him oral sex and aggressively inserted his finger into her vagina. He told her he liked anal sex. Then, he raped her.” Based on the testimony of Haleigh Breest, Haggis knew whereof he spoke when he said, “a predator is a predator.”
Haggis’s postings about this episode ring phony in light of his past. Recall his much-ballyhooed exit from the Church of Scientology in 2009, during which he concocted a tale about supporting California’s Proposition 8 measure allowing gay marriage. He struck a pose of being loyal to his gay daughters, never mentioning that the Church—owing to its status as a tax-exempt religious and charitable entity—is barred from taking any political positions, which he used as his excuse to depart.
Haggis was outed in this by the very man, former anti-Scientology “kingpin” Marty Rathbun, who helped him fashion the lie. In a YouTube video, Rathbun reveals that he approached Haggis and coached him on his “principled decision” over gay rights. What’s more, Rathbun says Haggis asked him to lie to Wright so that he would put this false narrative into his hit-piece on the Church.
Rathbun states: “He [Haggis] said, ‘Look, for the sake of my image with my daughters, can you please avoid telling Larry Wright that you were the person … that you prompted me?’”
This outright lie served as the opening anecdote for a New Yorker diatribe by Lawrence Wright and later was repeated in his book, a story based on a false premise featuring a wicked dishonest man.
