©Roman Polanski : Wanted and Desire
A rape charges against director Roman Polanski have been dismissed and he will no longer have to face a trial, which had been scheduled for August of 2025. Polanski, now 91, fled the United States after he admitted to statutory rape charges against a 13-year-old girl in 1973. He was incarcerated for 42 days after a plea bargain in 1977.
The latest lawsuit made the allegation that Polanski had raped another young woman at his Benedict Canyon home after plying her with tequila. The suit stated in part: “Plaintiff remembers waking up in Defendant’s bed with him lying in the bed next to her. He told her that he wanted to have sex with her. Plaintiff, though groggy, told Defendant ‘No.’ She told him, ‘Please don’t do this.’”
Replying to these accusations, the director’s lawyer Alexander Rufus-Isaacs declared that “Mr. Polanski strenuously denies the allegations in the lawsuit and believes that the proper place to try this case is in the courts.”
A civil case had been filed against Polanski last year in Los Angeles by the alleged victim, but it has now been withdrawn as part of a settlement. Rufus-Isaacs was quoted as saying that the case was “settled in the summer to the parties’ mutual satisfaction and has now been formally dismissed.”
The settlement was confirmed by Gloria Allred, the lawyer for the plaintiff, who had filed the suit just before the expiration of the statue of limitations, which had been extended under California law. Allred said that “a settlement of claims was agreed to by the parties to their mutual satisfaction.”
Over the years, Polanski had also been accused by several other women that he had sexually assaulted them when they were minors. In 2009, he was arrested in Switzerland, jailed for two months, then placed under house arrest, but was released after Swiss authorities declined to extradite him to the United States.
Polanski directed 23 feature films during his long career, including Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Chinatown (1974), and An Officer and a Spy (2019). He won an Oscar for best director for The Pianist (2002).