Academy Award-winning film director Paul Haggis was detained in Italy on Sunday under investigation of allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman, Italian news media said, quoting local prosecutors.
Haggis, 69, has been in Italy for the Allora film festival that begins on Tuesday in Ostuni, a tourist town in Puglia, the region that forms the “heel” of the Italian peninsula.
The news agency LaPresse, and several additional Italian media groups, carried a written statement from prosecutors in the city of Brindisi that they were investigating allegations a “young foreign woman” — meaning non-Italian — was forced to have “non-consensual” sexual relations over two days with the Canadian screenwriter.
Prosecutors Antonio Negro and Livia Orlando, who are conducting the investigation, said in the statement that the woman was “forced to seek medical care” following the sexual encounters.
Fox News Digital has contacted Haggis’ legal representatives for comment.
After a couple of days “of non-consensual relations, the woman was accompanied by the man” to Brindisi airport on Sunday and “was left there at dawn despite (her) precarious physical and psychological conditions.”
The Brindisi prosecutors’ office was closed on Sunday. Haggis’s attorney didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Prosecutors said airport staff and police noticed her “obvious confused state” and after initial treatment, took her to Brindisi’s police headquarters, where officers accompanied her to a local hospital for examination.
Authorities said they weren’t authorized to give out information about the case, including whether Haggis was being held at the police station or at a hotel or other lodging following the arrest.
Prosecutors also were quoted as saying that the woman “formalized her complaint and cited circumstances which were subsequently looked into for confirmation by investigators.”
They didn’t cite her nationality or age.
Haggis won an Oscar in 2006 for best original screenplay for “Crash,” which was inspired by a…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Yahoo News – Latest News & Headlines…