French-Polish director Roman Polanski will no longer face trial over the alleged assault of a 16-year-old in 1973 after reaching a settlement to the "mutual satisfaction" of both parties, his lawyer has said.
The Oscar-winning director was due in civil court in Los Angeles next August for allegedly raping a 16-year-old girl in 1973.
The suit, filed last year, claimed Polanski took a then-teenager – named anonymously in filings as Jane Doe – to dinner at a restaurant in Los Angeles.
He allegedly gave her alcohol, 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, saying the alleged assault had caused her client "tremendous physical, emotional pain and suffering".
The lawsuit, 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 sexual crimes.
Court papers filed in California in July said a "conditional" accord had been reached.
The case was "settled in the summer to the parties' mutual satisfaction and has now been formally dismissed," Polanski's lawyer Alexander Rufus-Isaacs told France's AFP news agency on Tuesday.
Allred confirmed this in an email, saying "a settlement of claims was agreed to by the parties to their mutual satisfaction".
Divisive figure
Polanski, now 91, is a controversial figure. Some in the movie world hail his creative genius, while others maintain he was always a sexual predator.
He 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. He has never returned to the US and France has always refused to extradite him.
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Geimer has subsequently defended Polanski, and was photographed with him last year.
Between 2017 and 2019 four women accused Polanski of abusing them in the 1970s.
In May, a French court acquitted Polanski of defaming British actor Charlotte Lewis after she accused him of raping her when she was a teenager.
The director has always denied wrongdoing.
(with AFP)
