A New York jury gave $ 1.68 billion on Wednesday in damages to 40 women who accused the writer and director James Toback of sexual abuse and other crimes in a period of 35 years, in accordance with the lawyers representing the plaintiffs.
The decision voice of a lawsuit filed in Manhattan in 2022 after the state of New York instituted a one -year window for people to submit demands on claims of sexual assault, even if they touch decades ACO.
It marks one of the largest jury awards since the advent of the #MeToo movement, as well as in the history of the state of New York, said lawyer Brad Beckworth, of the law firm Nix Patterson LLP, in an interview.
The plaintiffs, he said, believe that such a large verdict will send a message to powerful people “who do not treat safe women.”
The court had not yet published documentation of the verdict until Wednesday night. Beckworth said the verdict included $ 280 million in compensatory damages and $ 1.4 billion for punitive damages for the plaintiffs.
“This verdict is justice,” Beckworth said in a statement. “But most importantly, it is about recovering the power of abusers, and their facilitators, and returning it to those whom he tried to control and silence.”
Beckworth said the toks place between 1979 and 2014.
Tooback was nominated for an Oscar for writing “Bugsy” of 1991, and his career in Hollywood has covered more than 40 years.
The accusations that participated in years of sexual abuse arose at the end of 2017 as the #MeToo movement was attentive. They were first reported by Los Angeles Times.
In 2018, Los Angeles prosecutors said the limitations statutes had reviewed in five cases they reviewed, and refused to present criminal charges against Toback.
The plaintiffs then filed a lawsuit in New York a few days after the Law of Adult Survivors of the State entered into force.
The lawyers said they discovered a coughing pattern trying to attract young women in the streets of New York to find a falsely promising role in their films and then submitting the issue to sexual acts, threats and psychological coercion.
Mary Monahan, a main plaintiff in the case, described the “validation” of the jury award for her and the other women.
“For decades, I took this trauma in silence, and today, a jury believed me. Believe us. That changes everything,” he said in a statement.
“This verdict is more than a number: it is a statement. We are not disposable. We are not liars. We are not collateral damage to the power of another person. The world now knows what we always know that it was real was real.”
Toback, 80, who had recently represented himself, denied numerous occasions in the judicial documents that “committed any sexual crime” and that “any sexual encounter or contact between the plaintiffs and the accused was consensual.”
Hey also argued that the New York Law that extinguishes the statute of limitations in cases of sexual abuse violated their constitutional rights.
A message sent to an email address listed for hygienic comment was not responded immediately.
In January, the judge in the case issued a default sentence against TOOBACK, which had not appeared in the Court when he was ordered to do so.
Then, the judge scheduled a trial for only damage last month to determine how much Toback had to pay women.
