Paul Haggis found liable in rape case; hit with $7.5-million judgment and more to come
The woman who was raped in the summer of 2007 by 20-year-old Phillip Wayne Dillard filed a lawsuit against three men — including Phil Dillard, who is currently serving a prison sentence for the attack.
Now, a jury handed Dillard a $7.5-million jury verdict Wednesday in his criminal case, and another $7.5-million in the civil suit involving his sister, the woman who was raped.
That same jury also found Dillard guilty of a lesser charge for failing to alert authorities when he changed his phone number, or when he left the state. He was sentenced to serve six years in prison.
This week, Haggis and Dillard were among a handful of defendants who were found liable in the criminal case. He was found guilty of sexual battery by threat. Haggis was found liable for a lesser charge of child custody interference — but not guilty of molestation.
Now, Haggis is fighting for more than $14-million in damages from the court and another $7-million from both the court and the insurance company that insured Haggis’s home and business.
This is not Dillard’s first run-in with the law.
Dillard, now 24, was convicted in December 2008 of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in a Fort Worth apartment. The victim, who was 15 at the time, said that Dillard raped her, forced her to have sexual intercourse with him, and threatened to kill her family.
The case inspired the 2007 film “The Puffy Stix,” with an all-male cast of teen actors.
Haggis and Dillard were accused of having sex in Dillard’s Fort Worth home and at his sister’s home in Dallas.
The woman who was raped testified in court that she had gone to Dillard’s apartment one day in May 2007 so that he would take her to the Dallas home.
Later that night, Haggis and another man, Robert Mixon, who is now serving a prison sentence for robbery, returned to the Dillard apartment.
