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1 year ago
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New York filmmaker A.M Lukas has accused Nuno Lopes, the Portuguese star of Netflix's drama series White Lines, of drugging and raping her after an event at the city's Tribeca Film Festival in 2006.
Lukas, real name Anna Martemucci, was fresh out of film college and attending a friend's premier party when she claims the acclaimed actor and DJ spiked her drink and took her back to his apartment.
Her lawsuit suit was filed in New York on Monday, just three days before the deadline for claims under the state's Adult Survivors Act which temporarily waives the statute of limitations for action against historic sexual offenses.
The filmmaker, whose 2018 short film One Cambodian Family Please for My Pleasure featured at the Sundance Festival, says she needed to take anti-HIV medication after the attack which left her with PTSD as her memories of it began to return.
Lukas says she was forced to take anti-HIV medication and suffered PTSD after the attack
Nuno Lopes as Duarte 'Boxer' Silva, pictured beside Spanish actress Marta Milans, who plays Kika in White Lines
Lopes has a string of theatre and TV credits to his name, having worked in Portugal and Brazil. Pictured left with the Orizzonti Award for Best Actor for 'Saint George' during the closing ceremony of the 73rd Venice Film Festival at Sala Grande in September 2016 and right beard-free during the 65th Annual Cannes Film Festival in May 2012
'We cannot accept a world in which perpetrators of heinous, inhumane behavior are able to live their lives out in the open, with impunity and no social consequences, while their victims suffer in silence,' she said as she lodged her case with the Eastern District of New York.
'Mr Lopes was given the opportunity to take responsibility for his actions: to acknowledge what he did; to account for it, and to apologize.
'He immediately declined to do so and communicated in no uncertain terms that he would never acknowledge any wrongdoing whatsoever.'
In her lawsuit she recalls that moments after being introduced to Lopes her body began to feel 'unusually heavy'.
She had little immediate memory of the night other than Lopes holding up her limp legs, 'raping her from the front as she drifted in and out of consciousness', it claims.
Her other memories included 'Mr Lopes raping Lukas from behind as Lukas wondered where she was and who she was with, and Mr Lopes masturbating over Lukas's naked, motionless body'.
It claims Lopes called her a cab around 7.30am the following morning, and gave her $30 to pay for it, along with his phone number.
Soon afterwards she received message from an unknown number that sounded as though a man was masturbating and moaning while calling Lukas's name into the phone.
Lukas's attorney Michael Willemin said he was 'inspired by our client's bravery in coming forward'.
Lukas she 'cannot accept a world in which perpetrators of heinous, inhumane behavior are able to live their lives out in the open , with impunity and no social consequences, while their victims suffer in silence'
Lukas boasts 430,000 followers on Instagram, has branched out as a DJ and is one of the biggest stars of the Portuguese-speaking world
'As we have seen time and time again, the film industry has repeatedly given license to men like Mr. Lopes to engage in sexual assault without consequence.'
Lopes who has 430,000 followers on Instagram has received acting credits in 52 productions and won five Golden Globes in his native Portugal.
'I am not looking forward to the ways in which I am certain that Mr Lopes's lawyers will attempt to humiliate and invalidate me,' Lukas said.
'But I won't be deterred from securing justice.' DailyMail.com has reached out to Lopes for comment.
English (US)