A French lady in her early 60s has claimed she became once violently raped at age 18 by Oscar-winning filmmaker Roman Polanski. In a Friday fable printed in the French newspaper Le Parisien, the lady claimed that Polanski raped her in 1975 at his snowboarding chalet in Gstaad, Switzerland.
Polanski’s authorized first fee, Hervé Temime, told Le Parisien the 86-yr-aged Polanski “firmly contests” the allegation. Temime might possibly most seemingly well no longer be straight reached by The Associated Press. Polanski’s accuser, Valentine Monnier, told the French newspaper that the approaching unencumber of Polanski’s most modern film “J’accuse” (“An Officer and a Witness”) triggered her to be in contact out.
AP would no longer most ceaselessly expose the identities of alleged rape victims, however Monnier gave her consent to be known by Le Parisien after she contacted the paper in mid-September. The paper mentioned she had beforehand written letters to the Los Angeles police, French first lady Brigitte Macron, and others. Thought to be one of quite lots of who answered became once Marlène Schiappa, France’s junior minister for gender equality, who worthy the case became once too aged for judicial action.
Polanski has been living in France ever since he fled the usa in 1978, to abet away from sentencing after pleading guilty to the statutory rape of a 13-yr-aged lady. The statute of barriers in France for rape is 20 years.
“Rape is a time bomb,” Monnier, an actress and pale model, told Le Parisien. “The reminiscence would no longer recede. It becomes a ghost and it follows you, and it adjustments you insidiously.”
“I denounce this crime radiant that there can’t be any punishment, in an attempt and complete exceptions, impunity. Public figures are being opinion to be as objects. By idolizing the guilty ones, we prevent folk from realizing the well-known penalties of their acts,” she endured, in maintaining with a translation from Diversity.
Monnier, now 62, told the newspaper that the alleged episode happened when a friend invited her to walk snowboarding and discontinuance in Polanski’s chalet.
“I had no links with him,” Monnier mentioned, in maintaining with The Guardian. “Neither personal nor first fee, and never ceaselessly knew him.”
In accordance with Monnier, after a evening bustle down the slopes, she and Polanski returned to the chalet. She mentioned that he called her up to his room after dinner, and that after she arrived, he became once nude. She mentioned he struck her, disrobed her, tried to waste her swallow a pill and raped her.
Monnier mentioned she feared for her life because “he can not hang the wretchedness that this becomes known.” However he additionally apologized straight afterwards and cried, Le Parisien quoted her as announcing.
Monnier mentioned she “took refuge” with an acquaintance of Polanski — and contacted him for the principle time a month ago, Le Parisien reported. The newspaper met with the person, who asked to remain nameless, in his authorized first fee’s place of enterprise.
“I asked Valentine if she well-known to walk to the police … In shock, she did no longer know what to construct,” the paper quoted the person as announcing. He mentioned he believed her fable.
But one more man contacted by Monnier and by Le Parisien, pale movie producer John Bentley, mentioned he remembered her effectively, in maintaining with the paper. However he additionally mentioned he no longer procure her announcing that she had been raped, “or I’d fill done something.”
Monnier mentioned publicity surrounding the film revived the “anxious reminiscence” of her hit upon with Polanski. In particular, she took anguish with Polanski evaluating himself in an interview to Alfred Dreyfus — the historical discipline of “An Officer and a Witness,” who became once falsely accused of spying — to what he has been subjected to over the American case.
“Is that this tenable, under the pretext of a film, the conceal of historical past to hear ‘I accuse’ from the person who marked you admire with iron when it is forbidden for you, the victim, to accuse him?” the paper quoted Monnier as announcing.
“An Officer and a Witness” premiered on the Venice Film Competition in August, and is scheduled to be launched in France subsequent week.
Monnier is the fourth lady to accuse Polanski of sexual assault since the initial statutory rape bellow. In 2017, Polanski became once accused of raping pale German actress Renate Langer in Gstaad in 1972, when she became once 15.
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