Roman Polanski accused of raping a German actress when she was a teen
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.
The new report comes after the director spoke out about his 1970s rape accusation in a rare interview, saying that he feels he’s completed his sentence.
“As far as what I did: It’s over. I pleaded guilty,” Polanski told The Hollywood Reporter. “I went to jail. I came back to the United States to do it, people forget about that, or don’t even know. I then was locked up here [in Zurich] after this festival. So in the sum, I did about four or five times than what was promised to me.”
Polanski is in Zurich to promote his newest film, Based on a True Story, which will make its premiere at the Zurich Film Festival. In 2009, Polanski was detained by Zurich police after the United States attempted to have him extradited to face charges relating to a decades-old rape case.
Polanski fled the United States in 1978 after he pleaded guilty to statutory rape against Samantha Geimer, who was 13 at the time. After being detained in Switzerland, he was jailed and placed on house arrest for several months, until the Swiss government officially declined to deport him.
Since then, Polanski has remained a fugitive. The case is still ongoing, despite Geimer’s requests to have it dismissed.
This article originally appeared on PEOPLE
