Polish-French filmmaker Polanski faces new accusation of sex assault on minor

This is after a woman identified as Robin M. has claimed she was sexually molested by the award-winning filmmaker in the 1970s.

The woman told a news conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday that the assault allegedly took place in 1973 when she was 16.

She is the third woman to have accused Polanski, now 83, of sexual assault.

Her lawyer, Gloria Allred, said the woman had no plans to seek legal action against Polanski because of a statute of limitations, but was ready to testify against the filmmaker in another case involving a minor.

In early April, a Californian court rejected Polanski’s request to close a 40-year-old statutory rape case and allow him to travel to the United States without fear of arrest.

In June, Polanski’s victim, Samantha Geimer, asked the court to end the case against him.

Polanski fled the US in February 1978, shortly before being sentenced for unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl. He settled in Paris, where he has been chiefly based ever since.

He was arrested in 2009 while entering Switzerland to receive a prize at the Zurich Film Festival, as a US request for his extradition had been freshly submitted. However, the Swiss authorities ultimately backed down after keeping Polanski under house arrest for several months.

The director returned to France but he has frequently visited Poland, where he grew up in a secular Jewish family in the city of Kraków.

In 2010, British actress Charlotte Lewis accused Polanski of sexually abusing her in 1983 when she was 16.

Lewis was also represented by Allred, a lawyer specialising in cases involving sexual abuse. (str/pk)

Source: PAP, USA Today