In news reports today, actor Michael Douglas says he will not sign a petition in support of director Roman Polanski, who is under house arrest in Switzerland in connection with a 33-year-old sex scandal.

In Cannes to promote his new movie, "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps," Douglas said it would be unfair for him to sign a petition for 'somebody who did break the law."

The interview aired hours before British actress Charlotte Lewis claimed at a news conference in Los Angeles that she was sexually abused by Polanski in 1982 when she was 16.

Lewis, 42, said Friday that the filmmaker abused her "in the worst possible way" in the 1980s.

The alleged assault took place four years after Polanski had unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in the U.S., Lewis said, which would put the alleged assault date at 1982. Lewis later had a role in Polanski's movie, "Pirates."

Polanski was accused of drugging a 13-year-old girl with champagne and drugs and raping her at Jack Nicholson's house in Los Angeles in 1977. He pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse but fled to France before sentencing and remained a fugitive until Swiss authorities arrested him on Sept. 26 on a U.S. warrant as he arrived in Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award from a film festival.