A judge in southern Italy on Monday ordered film director Paul Haggis released from detention at his hotel while prosecutors decide whether to pursue their investigation of whether he allegedly had sex with a woman without her consent over two days, his lawyer said.
Michele Laforgia told The Associated Press that his client, who is also a screenwriter and an Academy Award winner, that Haggis was still in Italy. The ruling was made by Judge Vilma Gilli, based in Puglia, which is the region that forms the "heel" of the Italian peninsula.
The Canada-born Haggis, 69, was detained by police on June 19 in Puglia after a woman told authorities that he had non-consensual sex with her over two days while he was in Italy to participate in an arts festival in the tourist town of Ostuni.
He had proclaimed his innocence, according to the lawyer.
Laforgia said in text messages that the judge had ruled there were neither signs of violence nor abuse found on the woman, who prosecutors have described as young and foreign and by Italian media as a 28-year-old Englishwoman.
The courthouse was closed Monday evening and Gilli couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
Corriere della Sera, quoting from the judge's ruling, said she concluded there was an "absence of constrictive violent behavior" by Haggis. The judge also noted in the ruling that the woman's decision to be with Haggis in his lodgings was "spontaneous," the Italian daily said.
It was Gilli who on June 22, after a closed door hearing, had ordered Haggis to remain in detention while the investigation continued.
Prosecutors didn't immediately say if they would move to drop the investigation or pursue it after the judge's ruling.
Asked if the case might be closed, Laforgia replied "let's see what the prosecutor's office will do at this point."
Haggis, who resides in the United States, has had other legal problems. In recent years, four women in the United States have alleged sexual misconduct by him.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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