Edith Vogelhut, a former model, said that she went to Jack Nicholson’s house with Polanski after a dinner party in 1974. They had a drink before Polanski gave her an ecstasy pill, handcuffed her and anally raped her repeatedly, she claimed.
She has filed a report with the Los Angeles District Attorney, prompted by allegations from the British actress Charlotte Lewis, who claimed in May that Polanski assaulted her when she was 16.
US authorities recently failed to extradite Polanski from Switzerland over the rape of an under-age girl in 1977. The Swiss Justice Ministry ordered the director’s release from house arrest at his chalet in Gstaad after ruling that the extradition request failed to disclose all of the necessary details of the case.
Polanski pleaded guilty in 1978 to unlawful sexual intercourse with the 13-year-old girl, Samantha Geimer, but fled the country before sentencing.
Swiss authorities said that the US had failed to disprove Polanski’s argument that he fled because he believed that the judge would renege on a plea agreement.
Ms Vogelhut, a magazine editor, was 21 at the time of the alleged crime. She is writing a book about her life as a model, with a chapter devoted to the alleged rape. She told the celebrity website RadarOnline: “I kept quiet for many reasons. I was humiliated, I had absolutely no one to tell and with this group … at this dinner party that ran Hollywood, they weren’t going to believe me.”
Polanski, the director of Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby and winner of a best director Oscar in 2003 for The Pianist, has lived as a fugitive in Europe since leaving the US and faces the prospect of arrest the moment he sets foot on US soil.
An Interpol warrant for his arrest remains in effect for 188 countries but there appears to be little prospect of the US authorities bringing Polanski to California for sentencing. He is thought to be back at his Paris home – and France does not extradite its citizens.
Charlotte Lewis, 42, who appeared in Polanski’s 1986 film Pirates, claimed that she was abused by Polanski “in the worst possible way” at his home in Paris in 1982.
Ms Lewis, who went on to appear in The Golden Child with Eddie Murphy in 1986, claimed that the director “forced himself upon me”.
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