Roman Polanski

Since I have the great fortune of an off day combined with relatively few pressing tasks this morning, I can afford to waste a few minutes on this.

Please note the following:
1. This is being posted in the Anything Goes section
2. You are under no obligation whatsoever to respond if the subject offends you greatly.

So here are the facts as I know them from our relentless 24hr news cycle.

This dude drugged and screwed an underage female about 30 yrs or so ago. Since he was a celebrity, when law enforcement got ahold of him and he went through the system, he was able to cut a deal with some judge. Apparently Polanski became convinced that the judge was going to renege on the whole deal and that meant Polanski may have to do more than time served, so Polanski bailed and left the country. Since that time he's been doing whatever he wants pretty much but staying away from the US. Now that he has reached an age where he's probably irrelevant some cops have decided to go after him..and he has not been arrested for screwing underage girls since the incident, but is currently being held in Swiss jail for the past incident awaiting extradition.

Gentlemen, start your engines.

 

I think we should listen to the victim who has tried and pleaded with authorities to quit re-opening and re-hashing an old wound on an incident which happened decades ago. If he comes to the US arrest him, otherwise, it is a waste of money...mostly though, this just reopens all of the old wounds of the victim who has long tried to put this behind her. Arresting this old man and re-living all of this incident will not do this victim any good based on her wishes.

Next please...

 

VFOURBEAR - You've got all the facts down exactly right. He plied the 13 year old with alcohol and Quaaludes, then violated at least two of her three orifices.

And, vfrlover4life, last I heard the victim does want him prosecuted.

If we don't prosecute a 46 year old man for screwing a 13 year old child, just what laws should be enforced?

Now some conjecture. I believe had his wife Sharon Tate lived, Polanski would have dumped her as soon as she no longer looked like a teenie bopper.

op2:

 

I'll jump in...

Polanski did a terrible thing and should have been punished for it. He had a deal in place with the prosecutor but the judge allegedly said he'd void the deal and sentence Polanski to a prison term. Judges don't have to go with those plea bargain deals, but it's pretty rare for them to disregard them.

I think Polanski should have faced the music 30 years ago, but I also think it's time to let this go, esp. considering some of the alleged prosecutorial/bench conduct at the time of conviction. When even the victim says that, perhaps it's true. Maybe if he's finally extradited back to the US, he'll serve some time (as he deserves to IMO), but I can't imagine it will be more than a token gesture for raping a minor.

 

Looks like you need to read a newspaper in the last 10 years...

Story from New York Daily news...

Roman Polanski's most compelling defender is the woman he raped at Jack Nicholson's house when she was just 13.

Now 45, Samantha Geimer is a mother of three who lives quietly in Hawaii and works as a bookkeeper.

In January, Geimer, who publicly forgave Polanski in 1997, filed a formal request that Los Angeles prosecutors drop the charges against him.

"I have survived, indeed prevailed, against whatever harm Mr. Polanski may have caused me as a child," she said at the time. "I got over it a long time ago."

Geimer said Polanski had paid, and she wanted to move on and stop reliving the details of the assault every time he made headlines.

"True as they may be, the continued publication of those details causes harm to me, my beloved husband, my three children and my mother," she said.

In 2003, she wrote a generous Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times, saying Polanski should not be barred from receiving a Best Director Oscar for "The Pianist."

"I don't really have any hard feelings toward him, or any sympathy, either. He is a stranger to me," she wrote.

The last time Geimer saw Polanski she was a 13-year-old aspiring model lured to a house in the Hollywood Hills for a photo shoot. Polanski plied her with champagne and a Quaalude and took nude pictures of her in a hot tub, despite her requests to go home.

She told the grand jury Polanski then had sex with her and that she was afraid to resist "much."

The director later pleaded guilty to having sex with a minor.

"What happened that night, it's hard to believe, but it paled in comparison to what happened to me in the next year of my life," she said last year, when she appeared in a documentary about problems with the case.

In the end, she was relieved when Polanski fled because reporters stopped calling.

"He did something really gross to me, but it was the media that ruined my life," she told People in 1997.

Geimer did not comment Sunday, when the events of 31 years ago resurfaced once more and reporters started knocking on her door again.

 

Hang the guy, Don't waist tax money and time.............
Peoples who mess around with children no need to live..........

 

Polanski

I'm not defending him but if you can believe anything of what you read and hear, he more or less did what the judge was going to do to him anyway.He was sentenced to 90 days psych evaluation and was going to get credit for time served and then was to serve a very short time( a couple months) in jail.The judge was then going to have him deported so he halled ass.

 

I don’t have the time to dedicate what I really want to to this thread, but Bubba Z is a bit irritated some of you are completely missing the point of ‘rule of law’, which by the way is the one of the most important principles our Country was founded on.

The definition of Rule of Law is: the law is above everyone and it applies to everyone. Whether governor or governed, rulers or ruled, no one is above the law, no one is exempted from the law, and no one can grant exemption to the application of the law.

As Thomas Paine stated in “Common Sence” "in America, the law is King. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other."

Our second President, John Adams, embraced this principle when he wrote: “a government of laws and not of men."

So as much as we all have opinions on what should or should not happen, they are irrelevant. Polanski is guilty and the rule of law is clear.

BZ

 

Well, then, I stand corrected! I must have gleaned my info from the main stream media. My bad!

 

Well I guess beyond the obvious fact that if you are considered a creative genius you can get away with much more shit than the everyday schmoe, I was wondering where all the outrage has been for the last 30 yrs while actors had no problem working with the guy. I suppose when your meal ticket has a sketchy past its ok to look past that. The other side of the coin is as far as we know anyway, the guy has been able to keep from molesting children to the degree that it would make law enforcement aware. I also cant help but wonder what would be putting the bee in the bonnet of law enforcement to go after the guy after all this time, maybe its possible that someone actually is following their own version of the "rule of law", but being the cynic I am I cant help but think its just grandstanding by some lawyer mascarading as a DA.

More humourous is watching all the Hollywood types scramble to put themselves on one side or the other for their own personal reasons.

 

HOW many child-molesting Catholic priests were locked up?? Basically , few to nun.

 

Nun? Good pun (I think).

I think the church bought their way out of it. That's the least Polanski could do. I'm going to send him a bill for the time he... Well, that's a story for another time.

 

The guy is a HUGE piece of POO!
Because he avoided capture for 30 years it should be let go? WTF

I understand the victim wants to case closed but that is because it is painful to have it reopened and she has moved on with her life. This Pain is exactly why this dirtbag needs to be taken care of.

If this guy was a truck driver everyone would have a different opinion. People say he is a great director and a wonderful artist. Lets turn that .. SO this truck driver that raped a 13 year old 30 years ago... is really great at his job.. the best truck driver the world has ever known.... Now what?

F'n celebs get away with murder <cough> OJ <cough>..... This is shit and I say complete the sentencing he ran from 30 years ago.

 

That's the part that gets me.......he "avoided" capture by living his life normally ( well normally if youre him anyway) with the exception of getting on a plane and showing up in the US.

 

France has harbored many criminals.... There was a guy that killed a girl and placed her in a chest and left her in his closet. HE ran to France and lived a normal life out in the open. Remarried kids etc.

But here is the rub.... HE KILLED SOMEONE.


Polanski didn't run to Canada or England. He ran to a country that always opposes extradition BTW Switzerland is also full of shitheads. Neutral my ass...

 

Do the crime, do the time. I do not care who you are.

 

If Polanski had manned up 31 years ago, he'd been out long before now. The Hollywood attitude for decades has been if you're a celeb the rules do not apply, a real good example of this being Woopie Goldberg's "I know it wasn't a rape rape". Fuck that. Polanski drugged and raped a 13 yr old girl, actively dodged punishment and should be made to pay the price, no matter how damned long he causes it to take.

PS: Fuck France too.

 

Justice needs serving. No issue with the vic forgiving the perp. Thats the way it should be. But he hasn't paid his debt. Hollywood wants for him to be released so his art can be propogated... If it were my 13 year old... hmmmm...

 

I'll keep my thoughts simple... there is and should never be any forgiveness for a 44 year old man or woman to drug and rape a 13 year old. If it was my daughter, France or anywhere else in the world would not be far enough for them to run....

 

If it'd been one of my kids, Hell itself would pale compared to what I'd do...