Standing Watch

Roman Polanski, courtesy of VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images

In 1977, Roman Polanski, then age 44, drugged, raped, and sodomized a 13 year old girl he had lured to the home of Jack Nicholson under the pretense of a photography session for Vogue Magazine. According to a 2003 interview with the victim, “Everything was going fine; then he asked me to change, well, in front of him.” She added, “It didn’t feel right, and I didn’t want to go back to the second shoot.”

The victim later agreed to a second session, which took place on March 10, 1977 at the home of actor Jack Nicholson in the Mulholland area of Los Angeles. “We did photos with me drinking champagne,” the victim said. “Toward the end it got a little scary, and I realized he had other intentions and I knew I was not where I should be. I just didn’t quite know how to get myself out of there.” She recalled in a 2003 interview that she began to feel uncomfortable after he asked her to lie down on a bed, and how she attempted to resist. “I said, ‘No, no. I don’t want to go in there. No, I don’t want to do this. No!’, and then I didn’t know what else to do,” she stated, adding: “We were alone and I didn’t know what else would happen if I made a scene. So I was just scared, and after giving some resistance, I figured well, I guess I’ll get to come home after this”.

The victim testified that Polanski gave her a combination of champagne and quaaludes, a now banned sedative drug, and “despite her protests, he performed oral sex, intercourse and sodomy on her”, each time after being told ‘no’ and being asked to stop.

Polanski was initially charged with rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance (methaqualone) to a minor. These charges were dismissed under the terms of his plea bargain, and he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. The plea agreement was reached in order to prevent the victim from having to testify against her attacker in open court.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, the court ordered Polanski to report to a state prison for a 90-day psychiatric evaluation, but granted a stay of ninety days to allow him to complete his current project. Under the terms set by the court, he was permitted to travel abroad. Polanski returned to California and reported to Chino State Prison for the evaluation period, and was released after 42 days. All parties expected Polanski to get only probation at the subsequent sentencing hearing, but after an alleged conversation with LA Deputy District Attorney David Wells, the judge “suggested to Polanski’s attorneys that he would send the director to prison and order him deported”. In response to the threat of imprisonment, Polanski fled the United States.

Polanski fled initially to London on February 1, 1978, where he maintained residency. A day later he traveled on to France, where he held citizenship, avoiding the risk of extradition to the U.S. by Britain. Consistent with its extradition treaty with the United States, France can refuse to extradite its own citizens, and an extradition request later filed by U.S. officials was denied. The United States government could have requested that Polanski be prosecuted on the California charges by the French authorities. Polanski has never returned to England, and later sold his home there. The United States could still request the arrest and extradition of Polanski from other countries should he visit them, and Polanski avoided visits to countries (such as the UK) that were likely to extradite him and mostly traveled and works in France, Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland.

In December 2008, Polanski’s lawyer in the United States filed a request to Judge David S. Wesley to have the case dismissed on the grounds of judicial and prosecutorial misconduct. The filing says that Judge Rittenband (now deceased) violated the plea bargain by keeping in communication about the case with a deputy district attorney who was not involved. In January 2009, Polanski’s lawyer filed a further request to have the case dismissed, and to have the case moved out of Los Angeles, as the Los Angeles courts require him to appear before the court for any sentencing or dismissal, and Polanski did not intend to appear. In February 2009, Polanski’s request was tentatively denied by Judge Peter Espinoza, who said that he would make a ruling if Polanski appeared in court. The same month, the victim filed to have the charges against Polanski dismissed from court, saying that decades of publicity as well as the prosecutor’s focus on lurid details continues to traumatize her and her family.

There is no statute of limitations governing the case because Polanski had already been charged and pleaded guilty in 1978 to having had unlawful sex with a minor.

These are the facts of the case, and they are undisputed. Polanski intentionally entrapped, drugged, raped, and sodomized a 13 year old girl who was frightened of him and who repeatedly told him no. Polanski agreed to a guilty plea on a lesser charge as part of a plea bargain, to avoid traumatizing his victim further by forcing her to testify against him in open court.

That the victim has been repeatedly victimized since, by Polanski and by the failed legal system, is also not contested. Polanski, an admitted self-confessed child rapist, has used his wealth and fame to buy himself the best publicity and legal team available, smearing the victim and portraying himself as the only victim in the process. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, after failing the victim and allowing Polanski to escape justice for over 30 years, is once again focusing mainly on the salacious and lurid details, further traumatizing the victim, and once again on the international stage.

But what is truly reprehensible are the actions and statements of Polanski’s fans in the entertainment industry, and indeed in the news media itself. Liberal media, such as the Huffington Post, claim that “in a motion filed Jan. 6, Deputy District Attorney David Walgren provided sexually explicit descriptions of the 1977 assault of [the victim] during a photo shoot by Polanski. It included extensive testimony from grand jury transcripts at the time which included graphic details of the incident. The details of Polanski’s sexual activity with the girl had never before been described in legal documents.” Perhaps I missed something here, but what part of the Grand Jury transcript is not a legal document? (the victim’s identity has been edited out by myself, Huffington Post apparently has no issue with identifying her repeatedly).

More conservative media has been even less kind to the victim, alleging she “asked for it,” “wanted it,” or that sex between the 44 year old rapist and his 13 year old victim he drugged was somehow consensual and therefor okay.

That the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office is and was grandstanding and using the media in an inappropriate way is of little doubt as well. Their repeated insistence of using the media spotlight to bring attention to the case, and publicity to their office, is equally reprehensible, and likely the main reason it has taken over three decades to finally capture Polanski. There is little doubt Polanski has repeatedly exploited the publicity seeking tendencies of the overly political ambitions of the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, in order to repeatedly victimize his victim. This has led ultimately to the successful coercion of the victim into asking that charges be dropped, in order to stop the repeated victimization, which now includes her own family as victims.

But, once again, this would not be possible without the willing facilitation by the media itself. For the first year after she was assaulted, the victim was repeatedly hounded by the news media, who had obtained her identity from an unknown source. The harassment only ceased after Polanski escaped to France, and was safe from having to spend a single day in prison. Each time Polanski risked extradition, however, the harassment would begin anew, tipping off Polanski and ripping apart his victim.

But the facts still remain. Polanski is a convicted child rapist who is also an escaped fugitive from justice. Polanski has successfully manipulated the legal system and the media through a well funded publicity and legal process for over 30 years. During that time, he has built a highly lucrative and successful career. He has also lived in the lap of luxury, enjoying praise and support from his fans and peers.

Meanwhile, his victim has been so repeatedly traumatized she just wants the whole matter to go away. One can hardly blame her. But, with Polanski’s conviction and subsequent fugitive status, the People of the State of California are now also victims of Polanski’s manipulation of the legal system and the media. He has yet to pay for his crimes, both against a 13 year old girl and the People of California. Who knows how many more young girls this predator has harmed since his escape into wealth and luxury over 30 years ago. For certain, if there are any other victims of this pedophile, they are unwilling to come forward and expose themselves to what this one victim has been through. After all, the media has done a great job portraying Polanski, a self-confessed and convicted pedophile and child rapist, as the victim, while portraying his victim as a wanton drunken drug addicted whore.

You can bet that if Polanski not been quite so famous, not quite so wealthy, and not quite so European, he would be celebrating his 30^th wedding anniversary to the biggest, meanest, sweatiest man he could find in prison and make his husband. He sure as hell wouldn’t have Hollywood big shots and media talking heads coming to his defense.

It is my policy to not identify victims of sexual assault unless they themselves personally tell me it is okay, regardless of whether or not they have been voluntarily or otherwise identified elsewhere. If nothing else, the way this case has been mishandled should explain why.