On the eve of his 1978 sentencing for having sex with a 13-year-old girl during a photo shoot at the home of Jack Nicholson, Oscar-winning filmmaker Roman Polanski fled the United States. Polanski, a Holocaust survivor, admitted to giving the teenager a Quaalude and champagne before sodomizing her. Although the girl’s mother reported the crime to the police, the girl never testified in court, and Polanski agreed to plead guilty to having sex with a minor in exchange for drug, rape and sodomy charges being dropped.
Last week, a California appeals court ordered the case transcript unsealed after Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon finally dropped objections. According to the unsealed transcripts of testimony by retired Deputy District Attorney Roger Gunson, it became clear that a judge was prepared to renege on the plea bargain, after informing Polanski’s lawyers that he changed his mind and telling prosecutors that Roman Polanski should spend as much as 50 years in prison. The pending change of events prompted Polanski to become a fugitive because he thought he would not be getting a fair deal. Gunson said in the transcript:
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The 88-year-old, whose wife actress Sharon Tate was murdered by Charles Manson followers in 1969, fled to Europe and won legal battles in France, Switzerland, and Poland, which all refused to extradite him to the U.S. Polanski’s defense team, led by Harland Braun, are working to have their client sentenced in absentia to end the decades-long extradition fight. The victim, Samantha Geimer, has even publicly called for the case to be dropped and supports Polanski’s desire to be sentenced in absentia. In 2017, Geimer asked the court to lift the “40-year sentence which has been imposed on the victim of a crime as well as the perpetrator.”
“The judge had promised him on two occasions…something that he reneged on. So, it wasn’t surprising to me that, when he was told he [Polanski] was going to be sent off to state prison…that he could not or would not trust the judge.”
Besides spending a year under house arrest at a chalet in Gstaad, Switzerland, while U.S. authorities sought his extradition, Polanski continues to live as a free man with a successful career in the film industry. He has worked with everyone from Sigourney Weaver (Death and the Maiden) to Ewan McGregor (The Ghostwriter) and won a Best Director Oscar for The Pianist in 2002, where Harrison Ford collected the award on his behalf. Roman Polanski is also expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
