After a seven-day trial in New York, James Toback was ordered on Wednesday to pay $1.68 billion to 40 women who accused the disgraced director of sexual harassment.
The jury awarded the plaintiffs a total of $280 million in compensatory damages and $1.4 billion for punitive damages.
“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,” lead counsel Brad Beckworth told the Los Angeles Times.
According to Variety, Toback, who is 80 years old, did not attend the trial and previously issued a blanket denial, including a claim that any sexual activity was consensual. The outlet added that the director was acting as his own attorney at the time and did not appear for pre-trial hearings, which lead to a default judgment against him.
In October 2017, the Times first reported Toback had been accused of sexual harassment over the course of four decades after speaking to 38 of the director’s alleged victims. The investigation arrived just weeks after dozens of actresses brought similar claims against producer and convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein.
According to the Times, Toback often approached younger women unsolicited in New York, telling them he was a famous director and told some of the women, often non-actresses, that they would be perfect for his next film. In almost all cases, Toback reportedly navigated the conversation from the young woman’s role in an upcoming film to sexual matters. He was accused of sexually harassing them at the Harvard Club and at other locations around Manhattan, including his editing studio, his apartment, hotel rooms, public parks, and even his mother’s apartment. Some of the women alleged Toback masturbated in front of them or attempted to coerce them into sex.
The plaintiffs initially sued New York’s Harvard Club for permitting “Toback’s abuse to continue unchecked,” and later discontinued the case against the establishment in January 2024.
Toback, who garnered an Oscar nomination for writing 1991’s Bugsy, previously denied the allegations following The Times‘ report, telling Rolling Stone in 2017: “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.”
Following Wednesday’s verdict, Mary Monahan, one of the plaintiffs, told The Times, “This will be his legacy, absolutely,” adding, “It won’t be Bugsy. And that is immensely validating. A jury heard us and a jury believed us.”
From Rolling Stone US
