Polanski sued over new allegations of sex assault

LOS ANGELES — A woman has sued movie director Roman Polanski, alleging he raped her in his home when she was a minor in 1973.

The woman aired the allegations, which the 90-year-old Polanski has denied, in a news conference with her attorney, Gloria Allred, on Tuesday.

The account is similar to the still-unresolved Los Angeles criminal sexual assault case that prompted Polanski in 1978 to flee to Europe, where he has remained since. In that 1977 case, he was charged with drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl.

The woman who filed the civil lawsuit said she went to dinner with Polanski, who knew she was under 18, in 1973, months after she had met him at a party. She said Polanski gave her tequila shots at his home beforehand and at the restaurant.

She said she became groggy, and Polanski drove her home. She next remembers lying next to him in his bed.

“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 removed Plaintiff ’s clothes and he proceeded to rape her causing her tremendous physical and emotional pain and suffering.”

Defense attorney Alexander Rufus-isaacs said in an email Tuesday that Polanski “strenuously denies the allegations made against him in the lawsuit and believes that the proper place to try this case is in the courts.”

The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in June under a California law that temporarily allowed people to file claims of childhood sexual abuse after the statute of limitations had expired. The judge set a 2025 trial date.

In his legal response to the lawsuit, Polanski’s attorney denies all of its allegations and asserts that the lawsuit is unconstitutional because it relies on a law not passed until 1990.