Roman Polanski escapes civil trial for child rape after California settlement

The civil trial of Franco-Polish director Roman Polanski for rape of a minor in 1973 in California, scheduled for August 2025, was canceled after an agreement between the parties. The case was “settled during the summer after mutual satisfaction of the parties” and the trial was “formally canceled”wrote in an e-mail to Agence France-Presse, Tuesday October 22, M^e Alexander Rufus-Isaacs, Mr. Polanski’s American lawyer.

His presence in court would have been very hypothetical, the 91-year-old filmmaker having fled American justice in 1977 after a conviction in another case in which he was charged with rape of a minor.

According to the complaint filed last year, Roman Polanski took this teenager – anonymized in the document – ​​to a Los Angeles restaurant in 1973. He made her drink tequila then took her home before attacking her . “She told him, ‘Please don’t do that’”his lawyer Gloria Allred, a figure in the #metoo movement and representative of victims of fallen producer Harvey Weinstein, told the press in March.

“She maintains that he refused her requests. She also alleges that Defendant Polanski removed the plaintiff’s clothes and then sexually assaulted her, causing her immense physical and emotional suffering.she added.

International arrest warrant from American justice

This woman, whose age is not known, made these accusations public in 2017. The director’s defense had then already affirmed that his client “strongly contested any accusation of rape”. The plaintiff sought damages, without a specific amount.

His complaint was filed in June 2023, just before a window of time closed during which, according to Californian legislation, litigants could file complaints for rape or sexual assault dating back years earlier.

Roman Polanski, who won three Oscars and a Palme d’Or, has been accused of sexual assault and rape by around ten women throughout his career, accusations that he has always contested and which have not stopped him from to work.

He has been considered a fugitive in the United States for more than forty years after being convicted of “illegal sexual relations” with a 13-year-old minor, Samantha Gailey (now Geimer). In 1977, arrested, accused of having drugged and raped this teenager, he spent 42 days in prison before being released and then fleeing to Paris facing the risk of being imprisoned again.

He is the subject of an international arrest warrant from the American justice system but has escaped extraditions. Samantha Geimer has since requested several times that the charges be dropped.