FORMER German actress Renate Langer has issued an official statement accusing Roman Polanski of raping her when she was only 15 years old. The report was filed to the Swiss police and says the encounter took place at the director’s home in Gstaad, Switzerland in February 1972, The New York Times reported last week.

According to the newspaper, Langer said she never reported the 1972 rape to the police or brought up the encounter with friends and family because she did not want to upset her parents. The 61-year-old actress later confided in her boyfriend years later.

“My mother would have had a heart attack,” she told The Times. “I felt ashamed and embarrassed and lost and solo.”

Langer says Polanski raped her in a bedroom of his Swiss home. The director called her a month later to apologize and offered her a role in his film “What?,” which she accepted based on the belief she would be treated professionally. The actress says Polasnki raped her a second time after her work on the film was completed. The two were in Rome and Langer tried to defend herself by throwing a perfume bottle and a wine bottle at him.

Langer is the fourth woman to accuse Polanski of abuse after Samantha Geimer, Charlotte Lewis, and a woman identified only as Robin M. The latter made her statements in August of this year. Polanski pleaded guilty in 1977 to unlawful sex with Geimer when she was 13 and served 42 days in jail. He fled the country after he was released because the judge wanted to disregard the plea bargain and give him up to 50 years in prison. Geimer has asked for the charges to be dropped, but her request was denied by California judge Scott Gordon last month.

Polanski was at the Zurich Film Festival with his new film “Based on a True Story” when the incident came up. The drama debuted as a work in progress at Cannes in May.

(SD-Agencies)