Oscar-winning director and screenwriter Paul Haggis has found himself on the wrong side of the law in Italy, as news broke yesterday that Italian authorities detained Haggis for alleged sexual assault against a woman in Southern Italy, via the Associated Press.
According to reports, a “young foreign woman” was forced to have “non-consensual” sexual relations over two days with Haggis. Prosecutors said the woman in question was “forced to seek medical care” following the sexual act and after a couple of days “of non-consensual relations, the woman was accompanied by the man” to Brindisi airport on Sunday. Brindisi is a nearby city near Ostuni on the Italian peninsula.
The woman was subsequently “left there at dawn, despite (her) precarious physical and psychological conditions.” As of this writing, Haggis nor his attorney immediately responded about the alleged incident. Prosecutors Antonio Negro and Livia Orlando said airport staff and police noticed the woman’s “obvious confused state” and ”and after lending initial treatment, took her to Brindisi’s police headquarters, where officers accompanied her to a local hospital for examination.
Haggis won a 2006 screenwriting Oscar for Best Picture winner, Crash. He also spent more than 20 years in television, before moving into feature films. He became the first screenwriter to receive two Best Film Academy Awards back-to-back for his scripts Million Dollar Baby, directed by Clint Eastwood, and Crash. His other films include Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, the latter for which he earned his third Best Screenplay Oscar nomination. He also co-wrote the James Bond film Casino Royale.
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