Polanski asks to be sentenced in absentia in 1970s sex case

Roman Polanski has asked a Los Angeles judge to sentence him in absentia for having sex with a 13-year-old in 1977.

In a notarized letter submitted to a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge at a hearing Wednesday afternoon, the filmmaker wrote, "I request the judgment be pronounced against me in my absence."

The letter was dated Dec. 29 and signed in Gstaad, the Swiss resort town where the director is under house arrest pending a decision by a Swiss judge on whether to extradite him to the United States. Judge Peter Espinoza accepted the letter but said he would not decide whether such a proceeding was appropriate until a Jan 22 hearing.

An appellate court proposed sentencing in absentia as a way to resolve the three-decade-old case in a decision last month in which the justices denied Polanski's request for a complete dismissal of charges.

Espinoza, the presiding judge of the Superior Court's criminal division, told defense lawyers that the justices' proposal was "a suggestion" and "certainly wasn't a directive."

-- Harriet Ryan

Comments

[BCMC]

As long as he is sentenced to a term in prison and is willing to return to the US to serve his sentence, sure, why not? No court delays, no defense shenanigans, no crying defendant. Just a bang of the gavel and viola! Roman Polanski is in the bucket.

Oh, wait - we need permission from the Swiss to get him back here, don't we?? Gee - do you think they'll agree on a harsh sentence? Likely not.

We should do like we did with Noriega - send some LAPD SWAT guys over there, snatch him, fly him back under cover of darkness and jail the bastard. Case over.

[ccibif]

This creep should be in jail...drugged the girl and sodomized her....a creep by all counts.

[voz]

if you drug, and then anally rape a 13 year old as she says NO over and over, that is not "having sex."

Shame on the Times for not telling the truth: the girl was RAPED and DRUGGED.

[richard]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
A crime is a crime he must pay his crime he has done. They keep looking for any clues for a murder case no mater how long it takes right? So don't let this case go down in flames for the all kids stake. She was raped and no one is above the law. If any one thinks this ok to forget this cases then, don't complian/shout and sream justice for the victim/ Rape is Rape No matter what.

[Joseph]

COMMENT INSTRUCTIONS: "If you are under 13 years of age you may read this message board, but you may not participate. Here are the full legal terms you agree to by using this comment form."

How ironic an instruction to have for an article about a guy who, because he directed a few decent films, got off for giving drugs to and raping a 13 year old. They should demand he's shipped back to finally face some justice.

[Graham Freeman]

A 44-year-old cannot "have sex with" a 13-year-old. It's "rape", not "sex". This is true today, and it was true in 1977. Please stop sugarcoating it. By using the word "sex" to describe what is in fact unambiguously "rape", you are further damaging the reputation of the LA Times, news media in general, and the American culture at large.

[2cents]

oh dandy - that'll be helpful in his decision-making process for staying on the lamb or not - that way if it's not "time served" he can argue about the slings and arrows he's suffered to a receptive European audience rather than a backward and unsophisticated one in the US

[Jerry Vandesic]

So, the rapist wants to know what awaits him before he makes his next move. Very slimy. Come on Polanski, be a man and accept responsibility for your actions.

[Joe]

So all Roman's bravado was just a smoke screen, in the end he admitted guilt and accepts the sentence. Guess he felt like dragging the victim through a 30 year legal odyssey because he had a lot of money. It's a rich man's world.

[Bob Winning]

Mr. Polanski: Stand up like a man and accept your fate. If you'd done so thirty-some years ago you'd have put this behind you long ago. Why drag this case and your reputation through the legal mud any longer?

[RD]

This is ridiculous. Polanski is now telling the U.S. justice system what he will do. Get him back here, sentence him and then throw away the key. This guy is a deadbeat pedaphile. Actions have consequences for EVERYONE.

[Puleeeze]

OK, life in prison. Otherwise he has to come back to be prosecuted for flight, and for tampering with the main witness against him by paying her hundreds of thousands of dollars before his criminal case was completed.

[TheAtian]

Will he serve is time in absentia too?

[Corporate media is diseased.]

What a ridiculous waste of time and tax dollars. The global economy is going to crumble and trivial and trite filth like this will no longer have any importance. I can't wait to see all you worthless people running around DIEING. It will be a glorious day for the human race when all this waste is erased from the face of "our" planet.

Good riddance.

[Keith Richard Radford Jr]

Laws about sex needs to washed from the books. People who use laws about sex usually are as dirty as the one who wants to make the other suffer for having sex with them. Get caught and call a cop? Get in bed with someone you want to case pain is the montage used and both are dirty if that is all they want to use sex for. Some say sex is only for procreation and they are dead wrong. The law is dead and wrong too. Look if you make a law it is for one thing and one thing only like a law against homosexuality in Africa to kill homosexuals. Sex is not nor has ever been something laws should be enacted for and the ones who do never in vision equality of sexes, the law is to curb any chance of equality between sexes. If the laws were abolished then sexes would have a chance to be equal in nature. If women really wanted equality they would can and trash the law too.

[Matt Wilkins]

Given the circumstances of the Roman Polanski case,

and the very likely possibility that Samantha Geimer's mother was using her daughter as fodder in a entrapment/blackmail scheme against Roman Polanski

Polanski's predilections and peccadilloes were well known in the movie industry as well as elsewhere,

this unhappy matter should have been laid to rest - years ago.

[Bill]

If the D.A is going to prosecute Michael Jackson’s doctor, Conrad Murray for furnishing Propofol to Michael Jackson, then the D.A should also investigate Samantha Geimer's mother Susan Galley, who furnished her underage daughter twice to Roman Polanski in 1977, without any adult supervision.

Los Angeles would be better served to dismiss the Polanski case, and not use Polanski to promote their own political agenda and lust for fame like a bunch of blood sucking locusts, as this is only promoting the agony of the victim, who was pawned off by her mother, taken advantage of by Polanski, and now being re-victimized again by Los Angeles.

When is this going to end?

[Brian May]

If Los Angeles is going to prosecute Conrad Murray for furnishing Propofol to Michael Jackson, then Los Angeles should prosecute a young girl's mother for furnishing her underage daughter to Roman Polanski unsupervised, on two separate occasions in 1977.

What Samantha's mother did is indistinguishable from furnishing a controlled substance to a person who is unable to resist its charms, and so she set Polanski up, and then called the police once Polanski succumbed to the temptation of her young daughter.

Then to make matters worse Samantha Galley's mother did not call the police on a different male who was 17 years old, who was also having sex with her 13 year old daughter at the same time, and so

it seems that there was discrimination against Roman Polanski which started with the young girl’s mother

This discrimination was transferred to the police and County Prosecutors and Santa Monica Judge who only were interested in prosecuting the Frenchman Roman Polanski, but for some reason they were not interested in prosecuting the American 17 year old male for having sex with the same Samantha Galley, a minor.

The crime of sex with a minor in California is forbidden to all men no matter what their age or what their ethnicity. California Justice should either have prosecuted both males, or not prosecuted any of them.

How it stands now is that California is discriminating against Roman Polanski for not being a 17 year old American boy because as if he had been, he would have been given a free pass for consensual sex with the minor like the other 17 year old American boy.

The presiding Judge did mention prosecuting the 17 year old boy at the well known staged hearing at the Santa Monica Courthouse on Sept 20th 1977, but nothing was done.

Don't you think this case reeks of discrimination against Roman Polanski.

He has had generations of his closest and dearest family wiped out by Nazis on both sides of the Atlantic, and then when he finds some happiness which is also a mistake, California Justice only discriminates and segregates him again and through its action says its ok for a 17 year American to have consensual sex with the minor Samantha Galley, but not so for Frenchman Roman Polanski.

No wonder Roman Polanski wants to be sentenced in absentia! Who can blame him?