NOTE: This article contains sexually explicit language and disturbing content. Read at your own discretion.
A New York jury has ordered writer and director James Toback to pay US$1.68 billion in damages to 40 women who accused him of sexual abuse and other crimes over a span of 35 years, according to lawyers representing the plaintiffs.
Toback, 80, was accused of abusing his power in the film industry to sexually assault women across four decades. Accusations that he engaged in years of sexual abuse surfaced in late 2017 as the #MeToo movement gained attention. They were first reported by the Los Angeles Times.
The decision stems from a lawsuit filed in Manhattan in 2022 after New York state instituted a one-year window for people to file lawsuits over sexual assault claims even if they took place decades ago.
Wednesday’s decision marks one of the largest jury awards since the #MeToo movement began, as well as in New York state history, said lawyer Brad Beckworth, of the law firm Nix Patterson LLP, in an interview.
He said the verdict included $280 million in compensatory damages and $1.4 billion for punitive damages to the plaintiffs. The court has not yet released documentation of the verdict as of Thursday morning.
Beckworth added that the plaintiffs believe such a large verdict will send a message to powerful individuals “who don’t treat women appropriately.” He said that the abuse took place between 1979 and 2014.
“This verdict is about justice,” Beckworth said in a statement. “But more importantly, it’s about taking power back from the abusers — and their and enablers — and returning it to those he tried to control and silence.”
Los Angeles prosecutors said that the statute of limitations had expired in five cases they reviewed in 2018 and declined to bring criminal charges against the Bugsy writer.
The plaintiffs then filed a lawsuit in New York a few days after the state’s Adult Survivors Act went into effect. Their lawyers said they discovered a pattern of Toback attempting to lure young women on the streets of New York into meeting him by falsely promising roles in his films and then subjecting them to sexual acts, threats and psychological coercion.
The women also claimed Toback “falsely imprisoned, sexually abused, assaulted, and/or battered them” before blacklisting them from the entertainment industry.
Toback, who most recently had represented himself, denied numerous times in court documents that he “committed any sexual offense” and that “any sexual encounter or contact between Plaintiffs and Defendant was consensual.”
The disgraced director also argued that New York’s law extending the statute of limitations on sexual abuse cases violated his constitutional rights.
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Toback did not attend the trial and did not show up for pre-trial hearings, which led to a default judgment against him. He has not released a statement about Wednesday’s hearing.
Over the course of the trial, 20 women testified in person and another 20 women submitted video depositions that were also played to the six-person jury.
Lawyers will have to assess whether Toback has any assets they can pursue in order to pay the plaintiffs the amount awarded. According to IMDb, the director and screenwriter hasn’t worked on any projects since 2017, so it’s unclear what income, if any, he has.
“We’ll try to recover it, but that’s not the only motivating factor,” Ross Leonoudakis, one of plaintiffs’ lawyers, said, according to Variety. “We saw a unique opportunity to help these survivors seek justice.”
Mary Monahan, a lead plaintiff in the case, called the jury-awarded $1.68 billion “validation” for her and the other women.
“For decades, I carried this trauma in silence, and today, a jury believed me. Believed us. That changes everything,” she said in a statement. “This verdict is more than a number — it’s a declaration. We are not disposable. We are not liars. We are not collateral damage in someone else’s power trip. The world knows now what we’ve always known: what he did was real.”
Karen Sklaire Watson, another plaintiff, said the verdict will make New York a safer place for women.
“We’re drawing a line in the sand: Predators cannot hide behind fame, money, or power,” she said in a statement. “Not here. Not anymore.”
Many female actors have spoken out about their alleged experiences with Toback, including Selma Blair, who described a meeting in 1999 to discuss his film, Harvard Man.
In 2017, Blair told Vanity Fair that while waiting for the director in a restaurant where they had planned to meet, a host approached her and said that Toback requested Blair join him in his hotel room instead.
“Against my better judgment, I went upstairs,” Blair said.
In his hotel room, Toback allegedly asked Blair to remove her clothes and perform a monologue. She said when he asked her to have sex with him, Blair refused, but Toback insisted she let him pleasure himself in front of her and said, “You cannot leave until I have release.”
“He walked me back to the bed. He sat me down. He got on his knees. And he continued to press so hard against my leg. He was greasy and I had to look into those big brown eyes,” she told the magazine. “I tried to look away, but he would hold my face. So I was forced to look into his eyes. And I felt disgust and shame, and like nobody would ever think of me as being clean again after being this close to the devil. His energy was so sinister.”
Blair claimed that Toback had intimidated her into staying quiet about their interaction by threatening to kill her.
“There is a girl who went against me,” she said, quoting him. “She was going to talk about something I did. I am going to tell you, and this is a promise, if she ever tells anybody, no matter how much time she thinks went by, I have people who will pull up in a car, kidnap her and throw her in the Hudson river with cement blocks on her feet. You understand what I’m talking about, right?”
Canadian actor Rachel McAdams also came forward with details about her alleged encounter with Toback.
McAdams spoke with Vanity Fair in 2017 about sexual harassment she claimed happened at the hands of Toback when she was 21 years old and still attending theatre school in Toronto.
Up-and-coming actors, especially young ones, are especially susceptible to suggestion, and being newbies to the game, are unaware of the ropes and rules. McAdams considered herself one of those people trying to make sense of her surroundings while learning how to be a great actor.
She claimed Toback “used language” encouraging her to “take risks.”
“[Toback] used the same language during my audition — that you have to take risks and sometimes you’re going to be uncomfortable and sometimes it’s going to feel dangerous,” said McAdams. “And that’s a good thing — when there is danger in the air and you feel like you are out of your comfort zone.”
“I did not want to talk about this ever again,” she continued. “However, even though it is a really bad memory, I feel like some good could come from talking about it now.”
She said she was invited to audition for the same movie as Blair and claimed he insisted she come to his hotel room.
“So I went over to the hotel, went to the room, and he had all of these books and magazines splayed out on the floor,” she told Vanity Fair. “He invited me to sit on the floor, which was a bit awkward. Pretty quickly the conversation turned quite sexual and he said, ‘You know, I just have to tell you. I have masturbated countless times today thinking about you since we met at your audition.’”
According to McAdams, he then started using “manipulative” talk; she hypothesizes that this was his method to get naive young women to submit to his whims. He allegedly asked her questions like, “How brave are you?” and “How far are you willing to go?”
McAdams excused herself and left, she said, before any assault or physical activity took place. She also said that she told her agent, who then said to her that this wasn’t a new accusation and that Toback had been known to do this sort of thing before.
Toback previously said he had no comment on the allegations made by McAdams and Blair.
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If you or someone you know is experiencing abuse or is involved in an abusive situation, please visit the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime for help. They are also reachable toll-free at 1-877-232-2610.
— With files from Global News’ Chris Jancelewicz and The Associated Press
