James Toback ordered to pay $1.68 Billion to 40 women in Landmark sexual abuse case
James Toback found liable in massive sexual abuse damages verdict.
According to the plaintiffs’ attorneys, a New York jury on Wednesday granted $1.68 billion in damages to 40 women who accused writer and director James Toback of sexual abuse and other offenses over a 35-year period.
The ruling is based on a Manhattan complaint that was filed in 2022 after New York State established a one-year statute of limitations for sexual assault lawsuits, even if the alleged incident occurred decades prior.
In an interview, lawyer Brad Beckworth of the law firm Nix Patterson LLP stated that it is one of the biggest jury awards in the history of New York state and since the start of the #MeToo movement. According to him, the plaintiffs think that a ruling this size will send a message to influential people “who don’t treat women appropriately.”
As of Wednesday evening, the court had not yet made the verdict’s documents public. According to Beckworth, the plaintiffs received $1.4 billion in punitive damages and $280 million in compensatory damages as part of the ruling.
In a statement, Beckworth stated, “This verdict is about justice.” “But more importantly, it’s about taking power from the abusers and their supporters and giving it back to the people he tried to control.”
According to Beckworth, the abuse occurred from 1979 to 2014.
Toback has almost 40 years of Hollywood experience and was nominated for an Oscar for writing “Bugsy” in 1991. As the #MeToo movement gained momentum in late 2017, allegations that he had committed years of sexual abuse began to surface. The Los Angeles Times was the first to report about them.
In 2018, Los Angeles prosecutors declined to charge Toback with a crime, stating that the statutes of limitations had passed in five of the cases they examined.
A few days after the state’s Adult Survivors Act took effect, the plaintiffs then filed a case in New York. According to the attorneys, they found a pattern of Toback trying to get young women on the streets of New York to meet him by making false promises about parts in his movies, followed by sexual harassment, threats, and psychological pressure.
