Roman Polanski will not face an investigation for the alleged rape of a teenager after Swiss prosecutors backed down from the case.
Former German actress Renate Langer said she was 15 when the director, a fugitive from justice in a U.S. rape case for nearly 40 years, raped her in his chalet outside of Bern in 1972.
The Daily News does not normally identify victims of alleged sex crimes, but has done so because she has chosen to come forward.
Langer told the New York Times last month that Polanski had indicated he could cast her in a movie before taking her to his house in Gstaad and raping her.
She said she received a small part in the movie “Che?” after Polanski apologized, and that he raped her again at a house in Rome.
Polanski, now 84, has said that the charges were unfounded.
The alleged victim’s hope for a day in court was dashed on Wednesday, when prosecutors in Bern said that too much time had elapsed since the incident.
In 1972 the local statute of limitations for sexual actions with children was 15 years, though Langer, who said she did not want to file the police report while her parents were alive, had said she believed the case could be prosecuted.
Polanski pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with Samantha Geimer, then 13, in Los Angeles in 1977, but fled the country before the possibility of receiving a lengthy sentence.
He told the Hollywood Reporter last month that the case was “over” and that he had already spent time in a U.S. jail and in Switzerland before an American extradition request was rejected.
Langer told the Times that she came forward after hearing about the account of a woman identified as Robin, who said in August that she was 16 in 1973 when Polanski molested her.
Accusations against Polanski, who denies wrongdoing outside the Geimer case, have resurfaced in the attention surrounding sexual assault after allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein.
Polanski has now been publicly accused of sexually abusing five teenagers, with San Francisco artist Marianne Barnard coming forward last month with claims that he molested her in 1975, when she was 10.
