“Our client […] has demonstrated enormous courage in filing her lawsuit against a famous director,” said lawyer Gloria Allred, who represented Doe throughout proceedings. “Although the defendant has appeared to return to business as usual in his life, our client has not been able to return to business as usual.”
An attorney for Roman Polanski has announced that the 91-year-old director has agreed to settle claims that he sexually assaulted a young girl in the 1970s.
According to The Guardian, the lawsuit had been expected to proceed to trial next summer.
In her complaint, the pseudonymous “Jane Doe” plaintiff claims that she was 13 years old in 1973, when Polanski invited her to dinner at an upscale Los Angeles restaurant. There, Polanski plied her with tequila, then offered to drive her home when she said that she had started to feel dizzy. But, instead of taking the girl back to her house, Polanski brought her to his mansion.
After arriving at Polanski’s Benedict Canyon home, the woman—who was underage at the time of the alleged assault—became “groggy” and gradually lost consciousness as Polanski began pressuring her to have intercourse.
“He told her that he wanted to have sex with her,” the lawsuit says. “Plaintiff, though groggy, told Defendant ‘No.’ She told him, ‘Please don’t do this.’ He ignored her pleas.”
“Defendant Polanski,” the complaint claims, “removed Plaintiff’s clothes and he proceeded to rape her causing her tremendous physical and emotional pain and suffering.”
The woman has since said that filing a lawsuit was a difficult decision, but one that was necessary to obtain “justice and accountability.”
“It took me a really long time to decide to file this suit against Mr. Polanski, but I finally did make that decision,” the woman said during a March 2024 press conference. “I want to file [a lawsuit] to obtain justice and accountability.”
However, Polanski’s attorney in the United States—Alexander Rufus-Isaacs—told the Agence France-Presse that the lawsuit was recently “settled in the summer to the parties’ mutual satisfaction and has now been formally dismissed.”
“Our client […] has demonstrated enormous courage in filing her lawsuit against a famous director,” said lawyer Gloria Allred, who represented Doe throughout proceedings. “Although the defendant has appeared to return to business as usual in his life, our client has not been able to return to business as usual.”
Allred has also confirmed the settlement, telling the Guardian that the case has been settled to “their mutual satisfaction.”
Polanski has been living in self-imposed exile in Europe since 1978, when he pleaded guilty to having unlawful sexual intercourse 13-year-old Samantha Geimer.
Geimer, who is now in her 60s, still maintains that the encounter was “never a big problem” for her and that having to continuously repeat “that it wasn’t a big deal [is] a terrible burden.”
Sources
Roman Polanski Identified as Defendant in Sex Abuse Lawsuit, Court Sets Tentative Trial Date
Roman Polanski Lawsuit, Alleging Director Raped Minor in 1973, Has Been Settled
Roman Polanski: lawsuit alleging director raped teenager in 1973 settled and dismissed
Roman Polanski settles underage rape case that was headed to trial in 2025
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