Roman Polanski will be tried in a civil trial in 2025 in California on charges of rape of a minor. The complainant accuses him of having abused her in 1973, before he fled the United States.
Roman Polansky will be tried in civil court in August 2025, in Los Angeles. The 90-year-old filmmaker is accused of rape of a minor, the complainant asserting that he would have abused her in 1973. The latter, who remained anonymous and presented under the pseudonym “Jane Doe”, assures that the director would have taken to dinner as a teenager at a restaurant in Los Angeles. She says he made her drink tequila before taking her home and attacking her.
To the press, his lawyer, Gloria Allred, assures that “she told him ‘please don’t do this’. She maintains that he refused her requests. She also maintains that the accused Polanski removed the complainant’s clothes and then sexually assaulted her, causing her immense physical and emotional pain and suffering.”
The plaintiff made her accusations public in 2017, during a press conference, and is now seeking damages without further details, after filing a complaint in June 2023. At that date, Californian law still allowed complaint for sexual violence which dated back several years previously. At a press conference on March 12, the plaintiff confirmed that it “took a long time to resolve this lawsuit against Mr. Polanski”, but that she ended up filing a complaint to “obtain justice and accountability” . For his part, Roman Polanski confirmed through his lawyer that he “firmly contested any accusation of rape”.
In 1977, the Franco-Polish director fled American justice, prosecuted for rape of a minor in another case, that of Samantha Gailey (now Geimer). Accused of having drugged and raped her, he will serve 42 days in prison after pleading guilty to illegal sexual intercourse with a minor while requesting that other charges be dropped. When the judge finally decides to prosecute him once again for rape of a minor, the filmmaker flees to Paris.
He is still the subject of an international arrest warrant from the American justice system. It therefore seems unlikely that Roman Polanski will be present at the 2025 hearing, having evaded several extradition requests since the late 1970s. In the context of a civil trial, “he is not obliged to appear “, assures Gloria Allred. Furthermore, he is accused by several other women of acts of sexual violence, notably by the British actress Charlotte Lewis, by the German actress Renate Langer or by the American artist Marianne Barnard and the photographer Valentine Monnier. Roman Polanski has always denied these accusations.