Accusation of rape

After agreement: US trial against Polanski canceled

The civil case for the coming year was settled to the "mutual satisfaction" of the parties.

(Bild: APA/AP Photo, File)

The civil trial in the USA against Roman Polański for alleged rape scheduled for next year has been canceled. On Wednesday, the director will have to stand trial again in Paris in a different case. A return to the USA remains unlikely for Roman Polański.

As the Oscar-winning director's lawyer, Alexander Rufus-Isaacs, announced in an email on Tuesday, the case was "settled to the mutual satisfaction of the parties in the summer and has now been formally" canceled.

Settlement "with reservations"
According to court documents filed in the US state of California in July, a settlement was reached "with reservations". The alleged victim's lawyer, Gloria Allred, said in an email late on Tuesday night that "the parties have reached an agreement to their mutual satisfaction".

The alleged victim had sued Polański last year. The woman accuses the filmmaker of taking her to dinner at a restaurant in Los Angeles when she was a minor in 1973. He allegedly gave her tequila there and, when she became dizzy, drove her home and raped her there.

Roman Polański at the Cannes Film Festival in 1986 with British actress Charlotte Lewis. She also brought charges against the director.

(Bild: APA/AFP)

Paris: accusation of defamation
On Wednesday, Polański will have to stand trial again in another case. The trial in Paris is about the accusation of defamation. Polański was acquitted at first instance, while British actress Charlotte Lewis appealed.

Lewis accuses Polański of falsely accusing her of lying. Polański had accused Lewis of "despicable lies" in an interview in 2019. He had pointed out that the actress had boasted in a tabloid that she had seduced the director.

Lewis explained during the trial that she had been misquoted. She had previously publicly accused Polański of sexually abusing her in the 1980s when she was 16 years old and starred in Polański's film "Pirates". She refrained from pressing charges because, according to her own statement, she assumed that the case was time-barred.

Roman Polański now lives in Paris with his wife Emmanuelle Seigner and their two adult children.

(Bild: www.PPS.at)

Escape in 1978
Over the years, various women have made serious accusations against Roman Polański: In 2019, a French photographer accused Polański of abusing and raping her in 1975 when she was 18 years old. In 2017, a former German actress came forward and claimed to have been raped by the filmmaker as a 15-year-old in the 1970s. 

Director Roman Polański has stayed away from the USA for almost 40 years. The Oscar-winning Polish-French filmmaker, who is now 90 years old, faces a prison sentence if he returns to the USA because of a sex crime he committed in 1977. A Californian court refused to dismiss the abuse proceedings against Polański back in 2017. The judge responsible did not want to give the director any assurances that he would be spared further imprisonment if he returned. It insisted that Polański had to appear in person for the sentencing, which posed a considerable risk for him. 

Since his escape from the USA in 1978, Polański has had his main residence in Paris. The director strictly avoids traveling to countries where he could face extradition to the USA. His center of life therefore remains Paris, where, as a French citizen, he is protected from prosecution by the US justice system. Polański has not returned to the USA since then.