Thursday, October 24, 2024 –Film director, Roman Polanski has reached a settlement agreement in a lawsuit related to the alleged rape of a 13-year-old girl more than 40 years ago.
The case against Polanski, 91, was due to proceed in civil
court in Los Angeles next August, but has now been settled.
The French-Polish director fled the United States decades ago after
admitting to the statutory r@pe of another 13-year-old.
The latest case was 'settled in the summer to the
parties' mutual satisfaction and has now been formally dismissed,' Polanski's
attorney Alexander Rufus-Isaacs said.
The suit, filed last year, claimed Polanski took a
then-teenager to dinner at a restaurant in Los Angeles in 1973.
He allegedly gave her tequila, and when she began to feel
dizzy, drove her to his home, where he forced himself on her.
'She told him: "Please don't do this",' the
plaintiff's lawyer, Gloria Allred, told reporters in March.
'She alleges that he ignored her pleas. She also alleges that
defendant Polanski removed plaintiff's clothes and he proceeded to s@xually
assault her, causing her tremendous physical, emotional pain and
suffering.'
The plaintiff, known as Jane Doe, appeared with Allred at a news conference in
2017 in which she said she had been 16 at the time of the alleged assault.
She said she had spoken about what happened to one friend the
day after but had not told anyone about it ever since.
The civil suit, which sought unspecified damages, was filed
in June 2023, just before the expiration of a California law that allowed for
an extended window for claims against the alleged perpetrators of s@xual
crimes.
Court papers filed in California in July said a 'conditional' accord had been
reached.
Allred said in an email late Tuesday that 'a settlement of claims was agreed to
by the parties to their mutual satisfaction.'
Polanski admitted to the statutory rape of 13-year-old
Samantha Geimer in a plea bargain in 1977 to avoid a trial on more serious
charges.
But he fled to France the following year, after serving 42 days in jail, when it appeared a judge was reconsidering his release. France does not extradite its citizens.
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