A French appeals court Wednesday confirmed the acquittal of French-Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski in a defamation case in which British actor Charlotte Lewis accused him of libel after she claimed he had raped her.
It is the latest in a series of legal battles for the Oscar-winning director, who has faced multiple accusations of sexual assault but denies any wrongdoing.
The Paris appeals court “confirmed the ruling” of a lower court in May that found Polanski, 91, not guilty of defaming Lewis, 57, who alleges he raped her in Paris as a 16-year-old in the 1980s.
The May verdict related strictly to the charge of defamation and not the actor’s rape accusation against Polanski.
Lewis appealed the decision over him calling her allegation of sexual abuse a “heinous lie”, but the prosecution did not follow suit and challenge his acquittal.
The appeals court also decided that Polanski did not commit a breach of civil duty and therefore did not owe Lewis any damages.
Lawyer Benjamin Chouai, who has been representing Lewis, described the ruling as “very questionable”.
“It gives Roman Polanski a sort of license to kill via the media,” he said.
“He is being allowed to defame, discredit, tarnish. He will likely continue to do this against Charlotte Lewis but also the other women,” Chouai said.
– ‘Freedom of expression’ –
Polanski’s lawyer, Delphine Meillet, said the final acquittal was “very satisfying”.
“It’s a great day for freedom of expression as it has again been confirmed that that when you are accused in the press you can defend yourself in the press,” she said.
Lewis in March said she became the victim of a “smear campaign” that “nearly destroyed” her life after she spoke up about the alleged assault from 1983.
“He raped me,” she told the court, explaining that it had taken her time to put a name on the incident.
The filmmaker, whose titles include the Academy Award-winning “Rosemary’s Baby”, “Chinatown” and “The Pianist”, did not attend any hearings.
Polanski is wanted in the United States over the rape of a 13-year-old in 1977. The case went to trial but he fled to Europe in 1978 before a verdict was pronounced.
He also faces several other accusations of sexual assault dating back decades and past the statute of limitations — all claims he has rejected.
Lewis in 2010 accused Polanski of abusing her “in the worst possible way” as a 16-year-old in 1983 in Paris after she travelled there for a casting session. She appeared in his 1986 film “Pirates”.
– US legal case –
The France-born filmmaker retorted that it was a “heinous lie” in a 2019 conversation with Paris Match magazine.
According to Paris Match, he pulled out a copy of a 1999 article in now-defunct British tabloid newspaper News of the World, and quoted Lewis as saying in it: “I wanted to be his lover.”
Lewis has said the quotes attributed to her in that interview were not accurate.
She filed a complaint for defamation, and the film director was automatically charged under French law.
In 2010, Lewis said she decided to speak out to counter suggestions from Polanski’s legal team that the 1977 rape case was an isolated incident.
Switzerland, France and Poland have refused to extradite Polanski to the United States.
Between 2017 and 2019, four other women came forward with claims that Polanski also abused them in the 1970s, three of them as minors. He has denied all the allegations.
He will face a civil trial over the alleged 1973 rape of a minor in Los Angeles in August next year, according to Gloria Allred, a Hollywood lawyer.
The civil suit 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.
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