The Franco-Polish director Roman Polanski, who fled the United States decades ago after admitting to raping a 13-year-old girl, will no longer face trial for an alleged assault on another teenager in the 1970s after reaching an agreement, his lawyer reported on Tuesday.
The latest accusation against the director of The Pianist, which referred to an alleged rape in 1973, was supposed to be presented in a civil court in Los Angeles next August, but has been withdrawn, Polanski's lawyer in the United States told Afp.
The case was "resolved in the summer to the mutual satisfaction of the parties and has now been formally dismissed," Alexander Rufus-Isaacs specified in an email.
In the lawsuit filed last year, it was claimed that Polanski had taken a teenager, confidentially named as Jane Doe, to dinner at a Los Angeles restaurant in 1973.
Supposedly, he gave her tequila and when the girl started feeling dizzy, he took her to his house, where he forced her.
"She told him, 'Please, don't do this,'" the plaintiff's lawyer, Gloria Allred, told the press in March.
"She alleges that he ignored her pleas. She also alleges that the accused Polanski removed the plaintiff's clothes and proceeded to sexually assault her, causing her tremendous physical and emotional pain and suffering," she added.
The civil lawsuit, seeking unspecified damages, was filed in June 2023, just before a California law allowing the extension of the deadline to file legal actions against alleged perpetrators of sexual crimes expired.
Court documents filed in California in July stated that a "conditional" agreement had been reached.
The plaintiff's lawyer did not respond to a request for comments from Afp.
The Oscar-winning Polanski, 91, is a controversial figure: some in the film industry praise his creative genius, while others insist he has always been a sexual predator.
Polanski admitted in 1977 to raping Samantha Geimer, 13, in an agreement with the prosecution to avoid a trial on more serious charges.
But he fled to France the following year after spending 42 days in jail when it seemed a judge would reconsider his release.
Geimer has subsequently defended Polanski, and last year she was photographed with him.
In May, a French court acquitted Polanski of defaming British actress Charlotte Lewis, after she accused him of raping her when she was a teenager.
The director has always denied committing any crime.