Roman Polanski’s L.A. Trial Over Alleged Rape Canceled; Case Settled

Roman Polanski will no longer go on trial in Los Angeles next year over the alleged rape of a minor in 1973, French news agency AFP reports.

The director’s lawyer, Alexander Rufus-Isaacs, told the AFP on Tuesday that the case was “settled in the summer to the parties’ mutual satisfaction and has now been formally dismissed.” Polanski was set to face trial in August 2025.

Gloria Allred, the lawyer of the anonymous plaintiff, also confirmed to the AFP that “a settlement of claims was agreed to by the parties to their mutual satisfaction.”

The lawsuit, filed in June 2023, alleged that Polanski raped the Jane Doe in 1973 when she was underage at his Benedict Canyon home. According to the suit, the plaintiff met Polanski at a party months earlier and he had invited her to dinner, gave her shots of tequila and drove her to his house, where she passed out on his bed.

“Plaintiff remembers waking up in Defendant’s bed with him lying in the bed next to her,” the lawsuit stated. “He told her that he wanted to have sex with her. Plaintiff, though groggy, told Defendant ‘No.’ She told him, ‘Please don’t do this.’”

The woman came forward at a 2017 press conference with Allred, where she was identified as Robin M., and said she was 16 when the alleged incident occurred. Polanski denied the claim through his attorney, saying in a statement at the time: “Mr. Polanski strenuously denies the allegations in the lawsuit and believes that the proper place to try this case is in the courts.”

Polanski has been a fugitive from the U.S. since 1978, so would not have been able to attend the trial in person and would have needed to appear via live video feed. Polanski fled the country on the eve of sentencing for the rape of a 13-year-old girl, and has been unable to return to the country since then without fear of arrest. Over the following decades, efforts to resolve the criminal case and extradite him have been unsuccessful.

Polanski had also recently faced a defamation trial in Paris from actor Charlotte Lewis, who alleged that he had sexually assaulted her when she was 16. In a 2019 interview with French magazine Paris Match, Polanski called Lewis’ claim a “heinous lie,” causing Lewis to sue him for defamation. In May, Polanski was acquitted of the charges.