Roman Polanski has not finished with the courts. The filmmaker could be tried in Paris after his indictment, we learned from his lawyers on Friday, confirming information from BFMTV. This “automatic” measure comes after the libel complaint of actress Charlotte Lewis who accuses her of having questioned the veracity of her accusation of rape against her.
“The process and the hearing will allow us to rectify a large number of lies and false accusations. What is not audible in front of the media could appear in court and be debated contradictorily “, indicated Me Hervé Temime, lawyer of Roman Polanski, saying” perfectly calm about the fate of these lawsuits “.
” A liar “
Charlotte Lewis, born in 1967, had appeared in the film Pirates directed by Roman Polanski in 1986. In 2010, she claimed in Los Angeles to have been “sexually abused” by the filmmaker, in his Paris apartment in the early 1980s, when she was 16 years old.
In a long interview published by Paris Match in december 2019, Roman Polanski “considers that (Charlotte Lewis) is a liar, assimilates her to a storyteller,” lamented the lawyer for the British actress, Me Benjamin Chouai, who filed a complaint with a civil party in March 2020. In her interview with Paris Match, Polanski, targeted by other rape accusations, refers to an interview she gave in 1999 to a British tabloid, News of the World, to raise “contradictions” and a “heinous lie” on the part of Charlotte Lewis.
Fake quotes?
He underlined the following sentence attributed to Miss Lewis: “I knew that Roman had done something wrong in the United States, but I wanted to be his mistress (…). I probably wanted him more than he wanted ”. However, the actress challenged in 2010 the veracity of the words. “Many of the quotes attributed to me in the News of the World article are not accurate,” she said.
In February 2020, Roman Polanski received the César for best director for “J’accuse”. The image of the shattering departure of actress Adèle Haenel, leaving the room by launching “Bravo pedophilia!” », Had marked the award ceremony. A possible trial before the 17th chamber of the Paris Criminal Court could have to wait several months or even years, because the hearing times of this chamber are long.