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The sexual assault case against director Roman Polanski will continue with an upcoming trial.
Attorney Gloria Allred, who represents the woman who accuses Polanski of raping her when she was a minor in 1973, issued a statement Tuesday confirming that the 10-day trial will begin Aug. 4, 2025. The woman, whose name has been withheld anonymously, is suing. Polanski charged with rape/sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The civil suit was originally filed in June 2023 in Los Angeles County Superior Court under a California law that temporarily allowed people to file claims of child sexual abuse after the statute of limitations had expired. The case was then handed over to Polanski at his home in Paris, France, in September of that year, according to Allred.
The woman first came forward with her story in 2017, after another Polanski accuser asked a judge to dismiss her charges, which he refused. At that time, the woman gave her first name and middle initial and said she was 16 years old at the time of the assault.
“It took me a long time to decide to file this lawsuit against Mr. Polanski, but I finally made that decision,” the woman said during a press conference Tuesday. “I want to come forward to get justice and accountability.”
Defense attorney Alexander Rufus-Isaacs said in an email to The Associated Press on Tuesday that Polanski “strongly denies the allegations made against him in the lawsuit and believes that the proper place to try this case is in court.” The lawyer also claimed that the lawsuit is unconstitutional because it is based on a law that was not passed until 1990.
USA TODAY has contacted Polanski’s representatives for comment.
The trial will center on a 1973 incident in which the woman went out to dinner with Polanski after previously meeting the director at a party, according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by USA TODAY. The woman’s age at the time of her interactions with Polanski is not revealed in the complaint, although it is stated that she was a “minor.”
The woman claims she first met Polanski at his home in the Benedict Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles. Polanski then allegedly gave the young woman two shots of tequila to drink, according to her lawsuit.
When Polanski and the woman arrived at the restaurant for their date, the couple’s table was not ready for them, according to the filing. Polanski and the woman proceeded to sit at the bar, where Polanski allegedly asked the woman for more tequila.
Polanski reportedly took the woman back to his house after she began to feel sick from the tequila she had drunk, according to the lawsuit. The woman alleges that she remembers Polanski taking her to her room and passing out on her bed.
The woman also claims in the complaint that she woke up in Polanski’s bed with the director lying next to her. The director allegedly told the woman that he “wanted to have sex with her,” a request she denied. Polanski then stripped the woman of her clothes and raped her, causing her “tremendous physical and emotional pain and suffering.”
In addition to the lawsuit, the woman is seeking a combination of “non-economic” and “special” damages as compensation, with the latter covering “past, present and future loss of income, economic and other damages,” according to the complaint.
Roman Polanski was previously accused of raping a teenage girl in the ’70s
Polanski was the subject of a criminal sexual assault case in 1977 after the director had sexual relations with a 13-year-old girl. Polanski’s victim testified before a grand jury that during a photo session at Jack Nicholson’s home in March 1977, when the actor was not home, Polanski gave her champagne and part of a sedative, and then forced her to have sexual relations. The girl said she didn’t fight him because she was afraid of him, but her mother later called the police.
When the girl refused to testify in court, Polanski pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual relations with a minor in exchange for prosecutors dropping drug, rape and sodomy charges. Polanski was arrested and spent time in prison before fleeing the United States in 1978 after becoming convinced that the judge in the case, now deceased, planned to sentence him to a long prison term.
According to transcripts revealed in 2022, a prosecutor testified that the judge had in fact planned to reject the plea deal.
In his statement Tuesday, Allred said that “the criminal justice system has not provided a fair result for the people of California who had a right to see Mr. Polanski sentenced for his sexual offense against a child.”
“Our client Jane Doe has shown tremendous courage in bringing her lawsuit against a famous director who previously pleaded guilty to a sex crime against a child and then fled to Europe to escape sentencing,” Allred said. “Although (Polanski) appears to have returned to normal in his life, our client has not been able to return to normal since his victimization.”
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Contributing: María Puente, USA TODAY; Andrew Dalton and Brian Melley, Associated Press
