New Polanski Victim Says She Was Handcuffed, Drugged, Raped

By Anna North | July 27, 2010 | 1:30pm

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A third woman has come forward to accuse Roman Polanski of rape — she says he handcuffed and assaulted her when she was 21, three years before his infamous rape of Samantha Geimer.

Edith Vogelhut tells RadarOnline she left a dinner party with Polanski in 1974 and went with him to Jack Nicholson’s house (also the site of Geimer’s rape), where the director gave her brandy and ecstasy. She says she expected to have sex with him — but didn’t expect him to order her onto her stomach, handcuff her, and repeatedly penetrate her anally. Nor did she consent to this, and she now says she was anally raped. She reported the crime to the Los Angeles District Attorney for the first time this year, explaining, “I kept quiet for many reasons. I was humiliated, I had absolutely no one to tell and with this group that I told you about at this dinner party that ran Hollywood, they weren’t going to believe me.”

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Vogelhut is the second alleged victim to come forward in the wake of Polanski’s house arrest in Switzerland (actress Charlotte Lewis, who says the director abused her at age 16, was the first), and at this point, neither charge seems likely to affect Polanski much. If the Los Angeles DA couldn’t extradite Polanski over his flight from justice, he’s unlikely to be able to get him over a thirty-six-year-old rape case that’s just come to light now, especially since the statute of limitations for sexual assault in California is six years. And questions about Vogelhut’s motives are sure to swirl, especially among Polanski’s supporters — and especially since she plans to release a tell-all book about the incident.

What’s clear from Vogelhut’s story is that Polanski’s power and popularity have long given him a different relationship to the law than any normal person. On the one hand, his status as a household name makes any alleged crime on his part into international news. On the other, he’s consistently been able to avoid punishment, whether because he had the means to flee the country or because his alleged victims were simply too cowed by his status to come forward. Polanski has said that he used sex to cope with the 1969 death of his wife Sharon Tate. At least in Geimer’s case, he also committed rape. Whether he did so with other girls and women we may never know, since his fame has essentially insulated him from the truth.

Image via RadarOnline.

Exclusive Video Interview: ‘Roman Polanski Handcuffed, Drugged, & Raped Me,’ Charges New Victim [RadarOnline]

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