Seven years after a Time survey In allegations of sexual harassment against filmmaker James Toback, a New York State jury granted $ 1.68 billion to 40 women, holding Toback responsible for a plan of sexual assault, false imprisonment, coercion and psychological violence.
The jury granted a total of $ 280 million in compensatory damages and $ 1.4 billion for punitive interest to complainants.
“It will be his heritage, absolutely,” said Mary Monahan, one of the complainants, in Times shortly after the verdict. “It will not be” Bugsy “. And this validates immensely. A jury heard us and a jury believed us. »»
“We have very clearly asked the jury to send a message to the whole of the industry that the #MeToo movement is unfinished and in some respects already forgotten, and that they had to hold the line and leave everyone from New York to Hollywood in Washington, DC, and between the two, know that this type of driving is not ok and will not be accepted, period,” added Counsel Lead Counsel. Brad Beckworth In a separate call from his office in New York.
Toback, who obtained an Oscar appointment for writing the 1991 criminal drama “Bugsy”, did not appear during the one -week trial before the Supreme Court of New York State. He tried twice to reject the case last year. After a judge rejected his second request, Toback ceased to participate and was not represented in the trial, leading to a partial judgment by default for the complainants.
The trial, submitted in December 2022, also originally appointed the Harvard Club of New York, a private place for former students of Harvard University where the pursuit alleged that Toback met several of the women, as a defendant. Subsequently, the Social Club was voluntarily dismissed from the prosecution by agreement.
By taking the language of the 2017 Times survey, the prosecution said that, for decades, Tobback tirelessly forced women at meetings formulated as interviews or hearings that have quickly become sexual.
Twenty women testified in person with 20 other testimonies on a pre -recorded video.
“You feel valued, be able to talk about it,” the plaintiff Marianne Hettinger said in Times. “We were all ashamed. You don't talk about it, not even your family. So being heard with such humanity and then receiving this award … I can't tell you how healing is.”
“The whole week was intense,” added Monahan. “To hear all the stories of these women, it strengthened the feeling of” I was not a Surgeon. I did not ask for that ”. And that changes life. “”
The trial was brought under the New York adult survivors, which, in 2022, opened a one -year window allowing survivors of sexual abuse to file civil complaints, regardless of the duration of the abuse.
“We had the complainants testify that the first abuses were from 1979 and we had complainants who were mistreated in 2014, so he lasted four decades of people who had somehow refused this opportunity before the adult survivors,” said lawyer Ross Leonoudakis, member of the trial team.
The tobable trial is the second notable case to be judged under the law, according to the trial in 2022 of the author E. Jean Carroll against Donald Trump. A jury found Trump responsible for sexually and defamation of Carroll in 2023, ordering him to pay $ 5 million in damages. The actor Bill Cosby, the mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani and the musician Sean “Diddy” also continued under the law.
Toback denied allegations when they were contacted by Times in 2017, saying that he had never met any of these women or, if he did it, it was “for five minutes and that I did not remember”. He also said on several occasions that during the previous 22 years, he had been “biologically impossible” for him to engage in behavior described by women, saying that he suffered from diabetes and heart disease that required medication.
In the months following the Times investigation, Nearly 400 women contacted the press organization With accusations of sexual harassment by him.
After Wednesday's verdict, the complainants' lawyers will now try to recover part of the money awarded. But financial restitution was not the main objective of the trial, noted Monahan.
“It was really good to be in a courtroom and say,” I want James Toback in prison, “she said. “I realize that the jury cannot do this, but it was great to be able to say it and be heard. We didn't do that for money. We just wanted justice and now we have it. ”
