First some more information about the Samantha Geimer case...
In his autobiography, Roman, Polanski speaks openly about having sex with 15-year-old girls as a grown man. In 1979, Polanski said:
In 1979, Polanski pleaded guilty to statutorily raping then-13-year-old Samantha Geimer (née Samantha Gailey).Judges want to fuck young girls. Juries want to fuck young girls — everyone wants to fuck young girls!
Polanski first gave her Champaign and then part of a Quaalude and urged her to go into the Jacuzzi and take off her underwear. He took a few pictures, before taking off his clothes and joining her.
According to Polanski:
During the trial, Judge Laurence J. Rittenband played a dubious role...We weren’t saying much now, and I could sense a certain erotic tension between us. (...)
We dried ourselves and each other. She said she was feeling better. Then, very gently, I began to kiss and caress her. After this had gone on for some time, I led her over to the couch. There was no doubt about her experience and lack of inhibition. She spread herself and I entered her. She wasn’t unresponsive.
Three days before Polanski would be sentenced, Rittenband invited Polanksi’s attorney Douglas Dalton and district attorney Robert Gunson to an off-the-record meeting in his chambers. Rittenband told the lawyers that he wanted to send Polanski to state prison on probation for a mental evaluation for a maximum of 90 days, and then would be released on time served. He asked Gunson and Dalton to present this plan to him as their own idea, which he would approve.
Polanski went to state prison for his mental evaluation, and left after 42 days.
Two days before Polanski’s official sentencing hearing, Rittenband called another private meeting with the lawyers. He said he would sentence Polanski a minimum of 48 days additionally, and then Polanski had to leave the country permanently (Polanski was born in Paris and didn’t have a US green card). He added the warning that he might sentence Polanski to 50 years in prison. Dalton reported this to Roman Polanski, who immediately took the plane to London, and then flew to Paris.
Polanski has never returned to the USA, still lives in France, and has continued to make successful movies.
In September of 2009, Polanski travelled to Switzerland to accept a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich film festival. He was detained at immigration, and placed into custody to await possible extradition to the US. After spending a little more than 2 months in Swiss jail, he made a $4.5 million bail and was placed under house arrest in his Swiss chalet. 138 prominent celebrities, including Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and Harrison Ford, signed a petition against his arrest. Whoopi Goldberg explained that Polanski had only pleaded guilty to “statutory rape”, not “rape-rape”.
Switzerland ruled against extradition after and Polanski remained free.
As an adult, Samantha Geimer wrote that she “personally” wanted that Polanski be allowed to come back to the USA without fear of being locked up for what he did to her, because:
In June 2017, Geimer requested that the state drop the charges against Polanski and the case resolved in his absence, which the Los Angeles judge denied: https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/8/17/1 ... er-robin-mthe publicity surrounding [the trial] was so traumatic that what he did to me seemed to pale in comparison. (...)
If he could resolve his problems, I'd be happy. I hope that would mean I'd never have to talk about this again. Sometimes I feel like we both got a life sentence.
I don’t understand why Polanski can’t be tried in absentia, or how sentencing him could benefit him, but I’m no lawyer...
In August of this year, because being outraged over the request by Geimer, Robin M. decided to speak out publicly about being sexually abused herself by Roman Polanski in 1973, when she was only 16. Robin explained that she only told one friend, and had not reported it to the authorities out of fear over the reaction of her father:
Strangely, Robin claimed that she stepped forward with her story to support Samantha Geimer, while this is certainly not supporting Geimer’s request to drop the charges. Robin said:The reason that I kept it to myself is because I didn’t want my father to do something that might cause him to go to prison for the rest of his life.
Robin declared that she’s willing to testify in court against Polanski in the Geimer case, but she can’t press charges herself, because of the statue of limitations in the USA: http://deadline.com/2017/08/roman-polan ... 202149499/This infuriated me. I am speaking out now so that Samantha and the world will know that she is not the only minor Roman Polanski victimized.
The former German model and actress Renate Langer has issued an official statement accusing Roman Polanski of raping her twice when she was only 15 years old in 1972. The report was filed to the Swiss police. Langer said that she had approached the Swiss police because she believed the statute of limitations would allow her complaint to be investigated. Switzerland has no statue of limitations on child sex-abuse cases, but the law limits prosecution in cases that happened many years ago. The police are determining whether she can pursue a criminal complaint.
Langer claims that she was first abused by Polanski in February 1972 in a bedroom of his home in Gstaad, Switzerland, despite her protests.
The director called her about a month later to apologise and offer her a role in his film “Che?”, which she accepted because he promised to treat her “professionally. Polanski raped her the second time in Rome after her work on the film was finished. Langer tried to defend herself by throwing a perfume bottle and a bottle of wine at him.
Langer said she never reported the rapes to the police or told her friends or family because she didn’t want to upset her parents. Only years later, she told her boyfriend about it.
She decided to take action now because she had read about how Robin M. came forward in August and because her parents are no longer alive, as her father died past summer and her mother 2 years ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/movi ... ation.html