Academy Award winning Polish-French director and filmmaker Roman Polanski has been living in self-imposed exile in France since fleeing the U.S. in 1978 after pleading guilty to having sex with a 13 year old girl in Los Angeles. His legal team is in the process of filing a new brief asking that the case be dismissed.
The filmmaker is the widower of actress Sharon Tate, who was murdered in 1968 by Charles Manson in Los Angeles. She was eight months pregnant with their first child, a son.
His legal trouble started in 1977 when he hired a young female model to do a photo shoot. He gave her Quaaludes and champagne and had sex with her in a hot tub. Polanski, 75, was indicted on 6 felony counts and pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. He was locked up for a 42 day psychological evaluation and fled the country prior to sentencing. It is likely his sentence would have been for 16 months to three years in prison.
Polanski has continued to direct, including the 2002 Holocaust film The Pianist, which won him the Best Director Academy Award. Other major successes include Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown.
New efforts to wipe out the charges against him come after an HBO documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired premiered in June 2008. The show featured several of the principals in the case, including retired Deputy District Attorney Roger Gunson, Polanski’s original prosecutor, who said that if he had been in Polanski’s shoes he also would have fled the country.
The documentary portrayed the late Superior Court Judge Laurence J. Rittenband as a publicity hound who held news conferences and extrajudicial meetings about the case. He was advised by former Deputy District Attorney David Wells, who recommended that Polanski be sent away for diagnostic study, which was illegal.
Wells also reportedly schemed to inflame the judge by showing him photos of Polanski in Germany with girls at an Oktoberfest party, in an apparent misrepresentation. The kicker is that Wells wasn’t even assigned to the case.
Sandi Gibbons, a spokesperson for Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley, indicates that they have not yet been served with the new motion and have only heard about it through the media.
The female victim in the case is now 43 years old and remains steadfast in her desire that the charges be dropped.
Photo gallery below.