The suit claimed that, for decades, Toback relentlessly coerced women into meetings framed as interviews or auditions that quickly turned sexual. Photo: TNS
Seven years after a Los Angeles Times investigation into sexual harassment allegations against filmmaker James Toback, a New York state jury has awarded US$1.68bil (RM7.43bil) to 40 women, holding Toback responsible for a pattern of sexual assault, false imprisonment, coercion and psychological abuse.
The jury awarded a total of US$280mil (RM1.23bil) in compensatory damages and US$1.4bil (RM6.19bil) for punitive damages to the plaintiffs.
"This will be his legacy, absolutely," Mary Monahan, one of the plaintiffs, told The LA Times shortly after the verdict. "It won't be Bugsy. And that is immensely validating. A jury heard us and a jury believed us."
"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, DC, and in between, know that this kind of conduct is not OK and will not be accepted, period," added lead counsel Brad Beckworth in a separate call from his office in New York.
Toback, who earned an Oscar nomination for writing the 1991 crime drama Bugsy, did not appear during the weeklong trial in New York state's supreme court. He twice attempted to have the case dismissed last year. After a judge denied his second request, Toback stopped participating and was not represented in the trial, resulting in a partial default judgment for the plaintiffs.
The lawsuit, filed in December 2022, also originally named the Harvard Club of New York City, a private venue for Harvard University alumni where the suit alleged Toback met several of the women, as a defendant. Subsequently, the social club was voluntarily dismissed from the suit by agreement.
Taking language from The Times' 2017 investigation, the suit claimed that, for decades, Toback relentlessly coerced women into meetings framed as interviews or auditions that quickly turned sexual.
Twenty women testified in person with another 20 testifying on prerecorded video.
"You feel valued, being able to talk about it," plaintiff Marianne Hettinger told The Times. "We were all so ashamed. You just don't talk about it, not even to your family. So to be heard with such humanity and then receive this award... I can't tell you how healing that feels."
"The whole week was intense," Monahan added. "To hear all these women's stories, it reinforced the feeling of 'I wasn't a sucker. I did not ask for this.' And that is life-changing."
The lawsuit was filed under New York's Adult Survivors Act, which, in 2022, opened a one-year window allowing survivors of sexual abuse to file civil claims regardless of how long ago the abuse occurred.
"We had plaintiffs testify the earliest abuse was 1979 and we had plaintiffs who were abused in 2014 so it spanned four decades of people who had kind of been denied that opportunity before the Adult Survivors Act," said attorney Ross Leonoudakis, a member of the trial team.
The Toback trial is the second notable case to be tried under the law, following author E. Jean Carroll's 2022 lawsuit against Donald Trump. A jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll in 2023, ordering him to pay US$5mil in damages. Comedian Bill Cosby, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and musician Sean "Diddy" Combs have also been sued under the act.
Toback denied the allegations when contacted by The Times in 2017, saying that he had never met any of these women or, if he did, it "was for five minutes and I have no recollection." He also repeatedly claimed that for the prior 22 years, it had been "biologically impossible" for him to engage in the behaviour described by the women, saying he had diabetes and a heart condition that required medication.
In the months following The Times' investigation, nearly 400 women contacted the news organisation with accusations of sexual harassment by him.
Following last week's verdict, the plaintiffs' attorneys will now attempt to recover some of the money awarded. But financial restitution wasn't the primary aim of the lawsuit, Monahan noted.
"It felt really good to be in a courtroom and say, 'I want James Toback in jail,'" she said. "I realise that the jury cannot do that, but it felt great to be able to say that and be heard. We weren't doing this for money. We simply wanted justice and now we have it." – Los Angeles Times
