On Feb. 1, 1978, mere hours before he was to be sentenced for drugging and sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl, Roman Polanski jumped on a European-bound flight out of LAX and beyond the grasp of American justice.
On Sept. 26, 2009, America said it wanted him back -- and the Oscar-winning director, who three decades before felt he was about to receive some very rough justice, was taken into custody by Swiss officials in Zurich on an extradition request.
Since posting a bail of almost $5 million in early December, the 76-year-old Polanski has been under house arrest in his Gstaad chalet as his Los Angeles defense lawyers, the L.A. district attorney and the courts have fought it out in court.
Far more tragedy than farce or even drama, TheWrap lays out what is going on in the case of Roman Polanski -- the process, the players and where it could go next.
1. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Having gone almost as far as the case can in the American courts right now, everyone, from the L.A. district attorney to the departments of Justice and State to the defense and Polanski himself, is waiting to see what the Swiss will do.
On the surface, the case is pretty cut-and-dried.“If and when we have decided that all conditions for an extradition are fulfilled, we will order the extradition,” Swiss Justice Ministry spokesman Folco Galli told TheWrap. “If we decided that the conditions have not been met, we will not order Mr. Polanski's extradition.”
Beyond that, the realities of the case before the Northern European nation are far from simple.
For one thing, it has become a political hand grenade in Switzerland. Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlump has said she will take total responsibility for the outcome, but no one can ignore that polls find a deep split among the public about whether the government should even consider handing Polanski over to America under a treaty the two countries have.
Secondly, it turns out that the Swiss want more information and more documents from the U.S. before they are willing to even start to make a decision. What further info they could supply is unknown.
What is clear is that the Swiss are going to move this along according to their own system of due process. Which means that even if the decision to extradite is handed down soon, Polanski still has 30 days to appeal.
That process alone could take several months and then Polanski could, if the decision was to extradite him, go all the way up to the Swiss Supreme Court.
One thing is clear: Swiss justice, once finally exhausted, will be precise. “Once there is a final decision,” Swiss Justice Ministry’s Galli informed TheWrap, “based on the treaty, Mr. Polanski has about one week to 10 days to be escorted out of the country.”
2. WHAT ROLE COULD CHARLOTTE LEWIS PLAY?
The announcement on May 14 by British actress Charlotte Lewis that Polanski assaulted her in his Paris apartment in 1982 when she was 16 is -- while shocking -- a bit more smoke than fire right now.
