Roman Polanski Arrested For Unlawful Sexual Acts With A Minor
The famous film director of the 1960s and 70s…
Roman Polanski has lived quite a miserable life after being such a successful film director of Hollywood. You may have heard his name connected with the Charles Manson murders. Polanski was married to Sharon Tate at the time she was murdered. In March 1977, Polanski was arrested and brought up on charges in Los Angeles, California on five offenses against Samantha Geimer.
Polanski Pleads Not Guilty
Polanski was accused of rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious acts upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor. Geimer was only 13 years old. At his arraignment, Polanski pleaded not guilty to all charges, but later accepted a plea bargain that dismissed all of the five initial charges. The plea bargain did convict him guilty of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse, which was a much lesser charge.
Furthermore, the court ordered Polanski to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. There was also a report submitted recommending probation. Since Polanski was a foreigner, when he learned he was likely to face prison time and deportation, he decided to escape to France in February of 1978, just hours before the formal sentencing. Since fleeing the United States, Polanski has lived mostly in France and has avoided countries that would likely extradite him to the United States.
Fast forward to September 2009, and Polanski was detained by Swiss police while trying to enter Switzerland at the Zurich Airport. This all ties back to his outstanding U.S. warrant from the Geimer case. He had plans to receive his Lifetime Achievement Award at a film festival in Zurich, but this all changed suddenly. Upon request of the United States, Polanski had been a subject of an Interpol red notice since 2005.
40 Years Later…
A few years later, on July 12, 2010, the Swiss court released Polanski from custody. And just two years ago in August of 2017, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon rejected a request from Samantha Geimer herself to dismiss the case against Roman Polanski.
Lastly, in the timeline of Polanski’s slow and miserable events that panned out through the course of his life, an Israeli journalist by the name of Matan Uziel had created a website that falsely reported of Polanski raping 5 women. Polanski saw the website and sued Uziel for 1.5 million dollars for libel and defamation of character. The Court rejected Polanski’s request to be exempt from appearing in court after filing the lawsuit and eventually ordered Polanski to pay Uziel $2,750 in costs. About a year had passed, then a publication revealed that Polanski decided to drop the lawsuit against Uziel and was required to pay Uziel another $8,000 for court costs. In the end, the court accepted a request from Uziel that the lawsuit be rejected rather than dropped, making Polanski unable to sue Uziel again over the same issue in the future.
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