Roman Polanski accused of sexual assaulting a 15-year-old in 1972

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Just yesterday, we discussed Roman Polanski’s comments at the Zurich Film Festival. Polanski was/is in Zurich to promote his new film, Based on a True Story, and during the media availability at the festival, he talked about how his case should be over by now because he “went to jail” (for about a month) and then spent the next four decades swinging around Europe, a fugitive from justice. Polanski’s fugitive status is based on a crime he committed in 1977, where he drugged and raped a 13-year-old named Samantha Geimer. Well, on the heels on Polanski’s appearance in Zurich, another woman has come forward with a claim that Polanski sexually assaulted her.

Just a day after making a rare public comment about his 1970s rape case, Roman Polanski has been accused of sexual misconduct by another woman. Renate Langer, a 61-year-old former actress from Germany, has filed a report with the Swiss police accusing Polanski of raping her at a house in Gstaad when she was 15 in Feb. 1972, according to The New York Times.

Langer is now the fourth woman to publicly accuse the Rosemary’s Baby director of sexual assault. According to the outlet, the public prosecutor’s office is still deciding if she can pursue a criminal complaint. Switzerland has reportedly eliminated its statute of limitations on child sex cases, but the law still limits prosecution in older cases.

Langer told The New York Times that she came forward in hopes that the law would allow her claim to be investigated. She also explained that she kept quiet about the incident at the time, mostly in fear of her parents’ reaction.

“My mother would have had a heart attack,” she told the outlet. “I felt ashamed and embarrassed and lost and solo.” A lawyer for Polanski reportedly declined to comment.

[From People]

I didn’t realize that Renate Langer was the fourth woman overall to accuse Polanski of rape or assault. Yikes. And Langer’s situation happened years before Samantha Geimer. Ugh. It’s interesting to me that Switzerland has a different set of laws in which there’s no statute of limitations for sex crimes. That’s good – that’s how it should be in America too, especially with the advances in DNA testing and the backlog for testing rape kits. There should be no statute of limitations on prosecuting rape and sexual assault, in my opinion. As for Langer’s claim… I believe her. And I’m very concerned that Polanski has been assaulting and raping teenage girls in Europe for decades now.

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