Director Roman Polanski is sued over extra allegations of sexual assault of a minor

LOS ANGELES — A girl has sued director Roman Polanski, alleging he raped her in his residence when she was a minor in 1973.

The lady aired the allegations, which the 90-year-old Polanski has denied, in a information convention along with her lawyer, Gloria Allred, on Tuesday.

The account is much like the still-unresolved Los Angeles felony sexual assault case that prompted Polanski in 1978 to flee to Europe, the place he has remained since.

The lady who filed the civil lawsuit mentioned she went to dinner with Polanski, who knew she was beneath 18, in 1973, months after she had met him at a celebration. She mentioned Polanski gave her tequila photographs at his residence beforehand and on the restaurant.

She mentioned she grew to become groggy, and Polanski drove her residence. She subsequent remembers mendacity subsequent to him in his mattress.

“He informed her that he wished to have intercourse along with her,” the lawsuit says. “Plaintiff, although groggy, informed Defendant ‘No.’ She informed him, ‘Please don’t do that.’ He ignored her pleas. Defendant Polanski eliminated Plaintiff’s garments and he proceeded to rape her inflicting her great bodily and emotional ache and struggling.”

Protection lawyer Alexander Rufus-Isaacs mentioned in an electronic mail Tuesday that Polanski “strenuously denies the allegations made towards him within the lawsuit and believes that the correct place to do that case is within the courts.”

The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Courtroom in June beneath a California regulation that quickly allowed folks to file claims of childhood sexual abuse after the statute of limitations had expired. Beneath the regulation, Polanski additionally couldn’t be named initially, so the lawsuit was not reported on by media retailers. It seeks damages to be decided at trial.

A decide has since given the plaintiff approval to make use of his identify within the case. The decide on Friday set a 2025 trial date.

In his authorized response to the lawsuit, Polanski’s lawyer denies all of its allegations and asserts that the lawsuit is unconstitutional as a result of it depends on a regulation not handed till 1990.

The lady first got here ahead along with her story in 2017, after the girl in Polanski’s felony case requested a decide to dismiss the fees, which he declined to do.

On the time, the girl who has now filed the civil lawsuit gave her first identify and center preliminary and mentioned she was 16 on the time of the assault.

Within the lawsuit and at Tuesday’s information convention, she didn’t give her identify and mentioned solely that she was a minor on the time. She spoke solely briefly.

“It took me a extremely very long time to determine to file this swimsuit towards Mr. Polanski, however I lastly did make that call,” she mentioned. “I wish to file it to acquire justice and accountability.”

The Related Press doesn’t sometimes identify individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused.

A minimum of three different ladies have come ahead with tales of Polanski sexually abusing them.

A significant determine within the New Hollywood movie renaissance of the Sixties and Seventies, Polanski directed motion pictures together with “Rosemary’s Child” and “Chinatown.”

In 1977, he was charged with drugging and raping a 13-year-old lady. He reached an settlement with prosecutors that he would plead responsible to a lesser cost of illegal sexual activity and wouldn’t need to go to jail past the jail time he had already served.

However Polanski feared that the decide was going to renege on the settlement earlier than it was finalized and in 1978 fled to Europe. In response to transcripts unsealed in 2022, a prosecutor testified that the decide had in truth deliberate to reject the deal.

Polanski’s attorneys have been combating for years to finish the case and raise a global arrest warrant that confined him to his native France, Switzerland and Poland, the place authorities have rejected U.S. requests for his extradition.

He continued making movies and gained an Oscar for greatest director for “The Pianist” in 2003. However the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences expelled him in 2018 after the #MeToo motion gained momentum.