ATHENS – Popular TV actor and director Petros Filippidis has been given additional time to ready his defense against claims of rape and attempted rape by female colleagues who weren’t named, and which he has denied.

The extension, to April 24, came at the request of his lawyer, said Kathimerini, the TV series star accused of two attempted rapes and one rape, which can be prosecuted because a statute of limitations hasn’t run out as in other cases involving Greek athletes and in other sectors with a growing sexual scandal.

Not detained so far on the charges, Filippidis is expected to submit a written statement to the Athens prosecutor, and may possibly appear before him and it will then be determined if he will be prosecuted or taken into custody.

Earlier, he was dropped from the TV series Greet The Plane Tree for Me that appears on the state-run ERT station despite his vehement denials of any wrongdoing that he lashed out against.

“I am noticing with regret that ad-hoc TV courts have been set up… I refuse to be ‘butchered’ on TV ‘windows’, where each speaker will express an opinion without being able to corroborate any evidence to a competent authority, resulting in the tarnishing of my name and my personality,” he said then in a statement.

He added that there was “a modus operandi of grouping cases with different subject-matters, time, and persons is being employed, with a common point of reference a coordinated accusation against a specific target.

“I respect anyone who wants to report a behavior, but the State has established a specific procedure for each complaint, and it certainly is not through TV shows, social media sites,” he added, through his attorneys as well.

He had then accused a lawyer of slander for mentioning the actor’s name in a harassment complaint made by one of his clients to the Association of Greek Actors, a number of whom said they had faced regular harassment.

“It seems that you do not understand the basics, that these allegations are not mine, but those of my client, as I made absolutely clear from the beginning during my public statement,” the lawyer responded, said Kathimerini.