As is often the case in the Southland, celebrities' misadventures make headline news. It happened again this weekend when Roman Polanski was arrested in Zurich on a warrant that dated back to a crime he committed in 1977. Briefly, here are the details, which can be found on wikipedia or any other number of websites.
Polanski, who has French citizenship, was doing a photo shoot at with a 13 year old girl. She was told to change... in front of him, which she did. The second photo shoot was done at Jack Nicholson's house and she was given champagne and a sedative. After she was drunk and drugged up, she was raped. The initial charges were rape by use of drugs, sodomy, perversion, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor. He agreed to a plea bargain and pled guilty to a lesser crime -- engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. He fled to France before his sentencing and France is not required to extradite their citizens back to the U.S. An international warrant was issued for him in 2005. The French authorities were asked to prosecute Polanski based on California law, which they denied.
This past weekend, he was traveling to Zurich for a film festival where he would accept a lifetime achievement award. The U.S. authorities coordinated with the Swiss police several days before he arrived. Polanski and his lawyers will fight the extradition and he is currently being held in custody.
The discussions around town mainly involve the length of time that has elapsed since the crime was committed. Yeah, it happened over 30 years ago, but this guy not only got a plea deal, but he has lived freely for the last 30 of those years. He never even got a sentence, let alone served time for what he did.
The victim in this case filed with the DA's office to have the charges dropped. But you know what? It's not about the fact that she's forgiven him. He did something wrong and was found guilty in a court of law. People, celebrities included, are not above the law, regardless of whether or not the victim forgives them. She's probably just tired of him surfacing every couple of years, which makes her phone ring off the hook and brings back horrible memories.
To throw yet another wrench into the works, California is in the midst of an unprecedented fiscal emergency. Part of the potential "solution" involved releasing hundreds of low-level offenders, which include sexual offenders and first-time offenders. Polanski is both. So even if we did get him back to California, get him sentenced, and in some low-security prison, he'd likely get released. But even if he doesn't serve his whole sentence, it would be a lot of hassle for him at the very least. And he would have gone through the system, just like every other normal person.
Both the French and Polish (he was born in Poland) governments have come out to criticize his arrest and declare the U.S. as evil. I'd like to know what they said if we refused to extradite someone who committed a crime on their soil.
We don't really know why all of the sudden the LA DA's office got interested in pursuing Polanski again. But I heard on the radio today that Polanski's lawyers said that the DA's office haven't caught him yet... If they hadn't stirred the pot, who knows? He might have gotten away with it and died in France. I hope he gets hauled back here and spends time in the general population.
