Director James Toback ordered to pay out $1.68 billion to victims following sexual assault trial
Disgraced writer/director James Toback has been ordered by a New York City court to pay an eye-watering $1.68 billion to 40 victims who accused him of sexual harassment.
The verdict was reached after a seven-day trial, which the 80-year-old didn’t attend. Acting as his own attorney, Toback also didn’t show up for pre-trial hearings, and this led to a default judgment being levied against him. The jury awarded the victims a combined total of $280 million in compensatory damages and $1.4 billion for punitive damages.
Lead attorney Brad Beckworth told the Los Angeles Times, “We asked the jury very clearly to send a message to the entire industry that the #MeToo movement is unfinished and, in some ways, forgotten already, and that they needed to hold the line and let everyone from New York to Hollywood to Washington, D.C. and in between know that this kind of conduct is not OK and will not be accepted, period.”
Toback, a filmmaker who was nominated for an Oscar for his Bugsy screenplay in 1991, was first accused of impropriety in 2017 when a Los Angeles Times article published claims of 38 victims of sexual harassment over a 40-year period.
It was claimed Toback would approach young women in New York and tell them he was a famous director who could get them a part in his next movie. The conversation would quickly move to sexual matters, and he was subsequently accused of harassing them at the Harvard Club and other Manhattan locations, such as his apartment, editing studio, and even his mother’s apartment. Some of the victims claimed he tried to coerce them into sex and others said he masturbated in front of them.
“This will be his legacy, absolutely,” said Mary Monahan, one of the plaintiffs in the case. “It won’t be Bugsy. And that is immensely validating. A jury heard us, and a jury believed us.”
Toback has always denied any wrongdoing and argued that any sexual encounters were entirely consensual. In 2017, he told Rolling Stone, “The idea that I would offer a part to anyone for any other reason than that he or she was gonna be the best of anyone I could find is so disgusting to me.”
For help, advice or more information regarding sexual harassment, assault and rape in the UK, visit the Rape Crisis charity website. In the US, visit RAINN.
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