Lawyer: US civil trial against Polanski canceled after settlement
Published: Wednesday, Oct 23rd 2024, 09:10
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A civil trial against the French-Polish director Roman Polanski was scheduled for next year for the alleged rape of a minor in 1973. According to lawyers, this has been dropped.
As the Oscar-winning actor's lawyer, Alexander Rufus-Isaacs, told AFP news agency in an email on Tuesday, the case was "settled to the mutual satisfaction of the parties in the summer and has now been formally" dismissed.
According to court documents filed in the US state of California in July, a settlement was reached "with reservations". The alleged victim's lawyer, Gloria Allred, stated in an email late on Tuesday evening that "the parties have reached an agreement to their mutual satisfaction".
The alleged victim sued Polanski last year. The woman accuses the filmmaker of taking her to dinner at a restaurant in Los Angeles in 1973 when she was a minor. He allegedly gave her tequila there and, when she became dizzy, drove her home and raped her there.
Guilty in another case
Polanski had pleaded guilty to the abuse of a minor in another case in the USA in 1977. The following year, he fled the USA because he feared a new trial and a higher sentence.
Since then, he has lived mainly in France and avoids visiting countries that have an extradition treaty with the USA. He then had some dramatic experiences in Switzerland. In the fall of 2009, he was arrested at Zurich airport when he entered the country. At the time, Polanski was on his way to the Zurich Film Festival. He was detained for two months until July 2010 and was then placed under house arrest in his chalet in Gstaad. The Swiss authorities then decided not to extradite the star director to the USA, but to release him instead. Polanski has not returned to the USA since the end of the 1970s.
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