Schwarzenegger: Roman Polanski talented but should get no special treatment

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said director Roman Polanski should be "treated like everyone else" and is not due any special status.

The governor said he respects Polanski's work, but it should not be a factor in the case of his sexual assault on a 13-year-old girl 30 years ago.

"It doesn't matter if you are a big-time movie actor or a big-time movie director or producer. I think that he is a very respected person, and I am a big admirer of his work," he told CNN. "But nevertheless, I think he should be treated like everyone else. And one should look into all of the allegations, not only his allegations but the allegations about his case. Was there something done wrong? You know, was injustice done in the case?"

Polanski, now 76, fled Los Angeles on the eve of his 1978 sentencing after he admitted to having sex with the girl. As part of a 1977 plea deal, the director pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor while prosecutors promised to drop rape, sodomy and other charges after sentencing. A judge was to determine Polanski's sentence.

Los Angeles County's top prosecutor responded to criticism from Polanski's supporters over his office's pursuit of the case, saying fugitives must be brought to justice and that the famed director committed a crime.

"It's about completing justice," Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said. "Justice is not complete when someone leaves the jurisdiction of the court."

Cooley took issue with attempts to minimize Polanski's admission that he had sex with a 13-year-old girl, particularly movie mogul Harvey Weinstein's recent description of the offense as a "so-called crime."

"Mr. Polanski pled guilty to a crime, so apparently Mr. Polanski believes there's a crime," Cooley said. "There are still five or six other much more serious charges pending that have yet to be resolved."

Cooley declined to talk about how his office intends to handle the 30-year-old case should Polanski be extradited to the United States from Switzerland, where he was arrested over the weekend. Under California law, the state will pick up the county's costs associated with extradition.

-- Shelby Grad and Jack Leonard

Comments

[Rob]

Priest accused of being sex offenders should not get special treatment. Yet they seem to serve less jail time than anyone else credibly accused.

[Bob in Santa Monica]

Was there something done wrong? You know, was injustice done in the case?

What are you NUTS? Yes, Governor, something was done wrong. A 13 year-old citizen of our state was drugged, raped and sodomized against her will by a 44 year old man, who pled guilty and then fled the country to avoid sentencing! Polanski has had 32 years to settle his case in the courts of the state whose laws you're sworn to uphold. As Governor you should be standing up for the people and the laws of California, and demanding this criminal be brought to justice in a California court.

Interesting to know you think Polanski as "a respected person." Shows how laughably out of touch you are with the views of your constituents.

[mary]

I've got a good question for our governor, tell me if at any time in the service of your sworn duty as an elected official, have you ever had the opportunity to meet or speak with Roman Polanski and if so, did you take it upon yourself to either make a citizen's arrest (or have one of your staff arrange for law enforcement to be present) or to even challenge Polanski's fugitive status with him and open any dialogue to resolve this matter?
Considering that our governor is a huge name in the entertainment industry, it is easy to assume that he may have had personal contact with Polanski or any of the so-called supporters who obviously can smooze with this smug child-rapist with ease simply forgetting about the horrid crimes he admitted masterminding and carrying out.
So who are you Arnold? The 'artiste' protecting his own or the man who swore an oath to the people of California? Go Terminate Polanski like your future depends on it....because it pretty much does at this point. We're all fed up with the Limo Liberals.

[Bonnie]

To Bob: If you read the article carefully I believe you will see that his comment about injustice was regarding the allegations that there may have been some errors made in the actual trial. He fully agrees that Polanski should receive no special treatment.

[solomoon136]

Once I thought Polanski was a great artist. Now, I just think he is a creep. I really don't care if he spends the rest of his life in jail. There is no way of getting around what he did.

I saw the film "Wanted and Desired". I have always felt a bit sad for all that he went through, but you would hope all those experiences would make him more compassionate to the victim. Apparently Not.

Hollywood is also a great disappointment in this case. There is no way of getting around the facts which speak of forcible (she said NO & he gave her drugs to get away with it) rape on a minor. Personally, I wish she would have hit him over the head with one of Nicholson's favorite antiques before he got away with it.
Young ladies, unfortunately society is abound with unscrupulous men when it come to sex. If they do not listen to NO, just smack them really hard. If that doesn't work, hit them over the head with one of Nicholson's favorite antiques. Don't be coerced into doing something you don't want to do, EVER.

[January J]

The only people who do think that Polanski should get special treatment are the Hollywood-ites who are so far removed from reality that they are living in a parallel universe. And the fact that they don't know it is even worse (read scary). Come to my small town and stay with us, Governor. Bring the wife and kids. You could learn a lot. Once when I lived in Germany we made a quickie trip to another small-ish town. When I described our spur-of-the-minute decision of a tacky hotel to my friend Harry Belafonte, he smiled, nodded, and said, "the Jamaica City Inn!" That told me that he wasn't so far removed from his past that he couldn't remember what life was like before he became rich and famous. Governor, your constituents need to know that you still remember "the Jamaica City Inn."

[Frank Stein]

Polanski is toast. If he had made a run at taking his due way back when, he might, maybe, possibly have slid by. But today? Forget about it. And why should he? Just read the girl's Grand Jury testimony, then imagine someone going to your local middle school, pulling out a 6th or 7th grader, feeding her a bull story about her modeling for French Vogue before taking topless photos and later giving her drugs and alcohol to make her cooperate when he raped her. Have you even spoken to a 13yo? These are children. I suspect the boys in cell block C are just waiting for him to show up.

[NYJ]

Bravo, Mr. Schwarzenegger!

[Keith Richard Radford Jr]

Sex laws have been built on misconceptions and myth.
The Supreme Court just ruled on sex offender laws where some factions of our government think by some inert reasoning that sex offender should be quarantined like some virus steaming from draconian/Islamic radical view that sex offenders should be executed. I have seen for myself, video taken in another country where a sex offender is placed on a pole much like the Catholics use to use a pyramid shaped object and have them sit on it and spin, the pole travels through the body looking for the throat but if not found its ok cause the sharpened end of the pole will come out somewhere to the delight of these very strange people. The heritage of the act is in its self a throwback to troglodyte’s who are so obsessed with any sex they can find & the only way to deal with this kind of "hierarchy" of historic hysteria. A word taken from hysterectomy, hysteria is tied to castration used to make animals less threatening which clearly explains the atmosphere we have made for our selves.
Anyway we are supposed to be the most advanced nation and we still have a death penalty when the rest of the world except for nations we are still warring with, {think!} While other nations went home our weapons dealers and torture lovers delighting in support for the death of people they don’t know or want to simply because they don’t know how to get money with out taking it from someone by force. Is that supposed to includes mutilations? In my humble opinion that alone are terrorist activities as much as severed hands, ears, heads, or making a case with nothing more than an obsession justified by lies.
The truth about the sex offender registry will come out soon enough. When it does, People will see how the use of the registry was created, and by exactly who and why and the devastation it has created and the worthlessness of the use of it. It’s origin in the Jim Crow hangum laws that brought disgrace to our nation allowing thieves and murderous societal bigots who have trashed any shot at making good of a program in its design to make money destroying our nation and its people. We can not play god and we can not survive using this behavior model because we are compounding the problem since the numbers increasing to include the children they report to protect.
It's a ruse designed by people who are getting rich off the castration/hysterectomy/health care/physic care of people through sex laws that have gone wild. What about the people who are being used by the Medicare programs that requires these mutilations for both men and woman after they take their means of support? Can't you see? You have created the model and it is worthless! [Why don't we just indiscriminately kill people we don't know? That’s statically the next sex offender] because over 90% of all new offences are people not on the sex offender registry and the numbers are increasing not decreasing so as a behavior model is really worthless
So what is the use of such laws as the sex offender registry other than to terrorize people? With the murder of so many sex offenders and the continued disregard for life by the use of the registry it’s just a mater of time before the federal government will be held liable for the deaths through federal court.
In a nation where a statement may have a double or triple meaning and our entire linage can be traced through mud, guts, and beer it’s nice once in a while to get the picture of what is meant instead of what some thinks someone may have implied. So it is from the trenches to the hill. Remember the game where someone says something in someone’s ear then passes it the same way to the next; the person advocating such destructive laws are the ones who need to be section 8 by simple brake down of the issue not sex offenders. Best regards

[neoconned]

Yes, no special treatment for celebs. A couple years back a weight-lifting documentary showed our governor smoking a spliff and extolling the virtues of recreational drug use. Given that this is still apparently (if stupidly) against the law, would he please turn himself in at the nearest police station so he can be prosecuted?

[Greg]

The Governor is not the criminal here, Roman Polanski is the criminal. I think everyone should boycott the movies of ALL his supporters. To sit by and say he's been punished is ridiculous.

It doesn't matter if the crime was 30 years ago or 30 days ago. He RAPED a CHILD!!! That is unfathomable to me. If he were to even touch my daughter he would have larger problems that running from the State of California; he'd have to run for his life!

[CJ]

Has Whoopie apologized yet? Harvey? These people should not be around children if they think it's ever acceptable for a man in his forties to arrange to be alone with a child, ply her with drinks and drugs and then have relations with her. (Not sure if the other word will get published.) Whoopie knows better. Now let's see if she is woman enough to man up and apologize.

BTW, what is the difference between just plain rape and rape-rape and acceptable rate? Has Whoopie explained that?

[Page]

Has anyone considered that because Polanski fled the U.S., this case keeps being resurrected over and over again like Dracula to the horror and agony of the victim? That the victim continues to relive the rape over and over again each time the media puts a spotlight on it? Her life and the pain she went through is opened up again and again... all because Polanski refused to be a man 30 years ago (well, what "man" would drug and rape a child?) and fled the U.S. Does Polanski, or his supporters, ever think about the fact that because he refused to pay the price for his sub-human behavior towards a child, he has condemned his victim to relive it over and over for the rest of her life? Because of his cowardness to face a "modicum of justice" (in proportion to his crime), his victim continues to be and will continue to be victimized. Does Weinstein or any other Polanski supporter THINK about that? No, they don't think about the child this woman once was; they don't think about a 13 year old, impressionable girl being drugged, raped and then sodomized while she repeated said "No, please don't." They don't think about it because, hey, these people have so much money, so much "power", and so many sycophants saying how great they are, how can they possible relate to the rape of a child? It's just so unbelievable what scum these people are.... Polanski, Weinstein (super-idiot), Scorsese (idiot), Allen (Paaleeze! don't get me started on this creep-pedophile!), Cruz (shud-up!), Goldberg (major-moron), Winger (stupid), all of them. Disgusting sub-humans. Maybe we should find their children and drug them, rape them, sodomize them, and then say, "Gee, just a little mistake, no biggy, it's really not rape-rape anyway." Afterall, the child probably wanted it, right?

[Garbanzo Bean]

Has anyone ever heard of rhetorical questions? Hello? The governor was asking a rhetorical question, he wasn't defending the criminal! :D

[Ramon]

Mr. Roman, The guys over at "1750" are going to give you a welcome deserving of such a Pedophile. I hope that your stay at the Twin Tower facility will be a warm and fuzzy one. LMAO.

[Carole]

Thank God there is some sense in Hollywood. I live in Atlanta and I am in utter shock (and have been since Harrison Ford accepted Polanksi's Oscar) at the stance these people are taking. I used to feel bad for Harvey Weinstein and his company woes because I thought he put out good films. But no more! His comments about the "so-called crime" is grotesque. How does this qualify as "so-called" when Polanski admitted on tape that the sex was "consensual"?
Hello... she was 13, that means it's still a crime. Further, just how consensual can sex be when you ply a 13 year old with Quaaludes and alcohol? And as a women, I'm pretty clear on what I mean when I say "No".
I'm so done with paying money to see films that are produced, directed starring any "talent?!" that signs Weinstein's petition and I hope other's follow suit.

[Bob]

"It doesn't matter if you are a big-time movie actor...." unless we are talking sexual battery and wild times on the set.

[J]

Any adult who would give drugs and alcohol to a 13-year-old girl in order to anally rape her ought to be burned at the stake. This miserable wretch has been living the high life in Europe for years after skipping bond, and the people who say we should forgive him now that he is caught don't possess the moral compass of an eel.
Polanski must have been the sort of person Oscar Levant had in mind when he said, "A lot of talented people are contemptible." I'd add to that list Polanski's apologists.

[I. M. in Michigan]

Roman Polanski committed serious crimes in California for which he pleaded guilty to "reduced" charges. I am sure California prisons are full of "little people" that have raped children and are doing serious time for their crimes. Roman fled California because he did not want to go to prison (as he should) like all the other "little people" guilty of these types of crimes. Roman is a common criminal and a felon. Apply normal sentencing guidelines to Roman and put him in prison where he belongs. No special treatment for celebrities. Remember Gov. Schwerzenegger, justice is blind.

[deedub]

Last night I was at a screening of "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired". The screening took place at a local university film school, which shall remain unnamed. The screening had been scheduled long before Polanski was recently arrested in Europe. Director Marina Zenovich had been scheduled to appear for Q&A after the film was shown. Instead 2 of her close colleagues who'd worked on the film appeared in her stead.

Where was the very talented, but questionably objective documentarian? Where was Ms. Zenovich. In Switzerland supporting Mr. Polanski in his hour of need.

Some of the people at the screening were not students, but all of the audience is composed of film buffs, a few industry people, and people with a great knowledge of film history.

All they cared about was Mr. Polanski's stature as an innovative director, which granted he is, and who the f. cares.

Some people are so smart they're practically stupid. One guy said something like (not a direct quote, but close enough) Doesn't the United States realize we'll look like fools in the eyes of the world, that our stature with other nations will be damaged with this arrest of Roman Polanski.

I respect the fact that the Samantha 'victim', does not wish to be thought of as a victim. She is fortunate enough to have the emotional resiliance that this early episode in her life has not prevented her from having a very fulfilling subsequent life, and wants this all to go away, as she has said in the documentary, and again this week.

Samantha, not that this will influence the outcome of any trial, or whether this will indeed even go to trial, have you ever stopped to think that in his long career Roman Polanski may have 'photographed' other little girls. Other girls who have not come forward because they saw the debacle and the humilition of coming forward to complain without results. I'm not saying there were other girls. I have not spent my life following Polanski around with a camera; but police, judges, mental health workers will all tell you the ugly stats. It's not rare for adults to be attracted to kids, but once they act on it, it's awfully rare for them to act only once.

[Miss Griddlecakes]

It is very important for people to stand up against these people who support this sick man. These directors, producers, actors, writers do not deserve our financial support for their work because they do not support assault victims. That is why I created Boycott Polanski Supporters on Facebook.com . It is important to let people know that crimes do not have expiration dates and you cannot ride from your crime like a coward.

[PP Island]

Polanski has already been punished. He was locked away for 42 days of Frances Farmer styled psychiatric care!!! You can see how much it did for him, because after that he needed to run.

Also I am wondering if there is a link since the Actress Francis Farmer said God was dead, and Rosemary's baby is about the devil. Both were in County of Los Angeles Santa Monica Courthouse and after leaving both were subjected to psychiatric "care"

You would need to lock up most of Europe for the type of crime Polanski committed as it happens all the time in France and elsewhere.

Of course that many males rape young girls or women does not make it right, but it does makes Roman Polanski being singled out 30 years later by a different culture and stoned with all this verbal abuse as though he is the only male on the planet that does this a bit disgusting and very frightening - and it is not as though Roman Polanski murdered anyone

This country forgives certain people like Ted Kennedy for a far worse problem of killing a girl while he was driving, why won't this county forgive Roman Polanski, whose wife and child were murdered here, and when the Judge played around with the plea bargain and frightened the man who was predisposed to run because of his childhood running from the Nazis.

Why does California want to put the artists out of business with these horrendous Media lawsuits, and California has already driven film production away. And look at what Michael Jackson had to go through with these public legal circuses. And look where he is now.

Have some compassion California - His victim has compassion, and if it wasn't for the victim's mother - none of this would have happened!!!!!!!!!!!!