Reality star is cut out of billionaire husband's will
Will Polanski Walk? Do the Math
The latest wrinkle in film director Roman Polanski’s legal problems is a hint from one of his French lawyers (since denied by another Polanski attorney) that the auteur is considering throwing in the towel and will stop fighting extradition to the U.S.
Polanski is being portrayed as a man who, rather than potentially spend years behind bars fighting transfer to Los Angeles, will choose to face the music now for his 1977 arrest for sexual assault on a minor.
There may be another reason, however, behind Polanski’s apparent change in attitude, one that would make his voluntary return to Los Angeles a shrewd legal calculation.
In 1978 Polanski surrendered to authorities and was taken to Chino State Prison, where he was to be psychiatrically evaluated. He could have remained there 90 days – the term Superior Court Judge Laurence Rittenband originally had in mind as punishment for Polanski’s confessed crime.
The good Chino shrinks, however, released Polanski after only 42 days of confinement. Rittenband soon let it be known he was going to have Polanski serve the remaining 48 days in jail – which is when the director of "Rosemary’s Baby" and "Chinatown" bolted the States for a 30-year French exile.
That exile ended Sept. 26, when Polanski was detained by the Swiss on an L.A. District Attorney’s arrest warrant. Given Polanski’s age, his international renown, the 32 years that have elapsed since his crime and the fact that his accuser has called for Polanski’s freedom, it isn’t far-fetched to imagine that the time Polanski serves in his Swiss jail cell will be added to his long-ago Chino term.
It’s a matter of doing the math: As of today he has been in Swiss confinement 26 days – on Nov. 13 Polanski will have spent 48 days there, resulting in a total of 90 days in confinement. It will be interesting to see what happens around that date if he is still in Switzerland.
Another curious coincidence is that although the D.A.’s office knew four days in advance that its warrant was about to cause Polanski’s arrest, the office did not have an extradition request prepared until last week. A spokeswoman for the D.A.’s office says that is standard procedure, and that the office has 40 days to submit an international extradition request, via the U.S. Department of Justice. (The Swiss allow 60 days.)
Still, this lack of urgency has allowed Polanski to build up weeks of potential jail-time credit in Switzerland.
When asked about the D.A.’s seeming unhurried approach to filing for extradition, a source who speaks to Polanski on a regular basis, but who wishes to remain unidentified, says simply, “Read between the lines.” This same source also says that Polanski’s medical condition in prison, which caused him to be briefly transferred to a hospital, “Is not good” and, in another possibly telling sign, the source tells TheWrap that the D.A.’s office has not indicated a desire to press charges against Polanski for skipping the country.
To many, those words may sound like clues from Polanski’s noir thriller "Chinatown." The next 22 days may reveal their exact meaning.
Comments
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B Islands Says
I liked what Michael had to say. There is folly in the LA Prosecutor's self aggrandizing purposes because by pressing the extradition button the Prosecutor is opening up a can of worms as to why Roman Polanski fled California Justice in the first place 32 years ago.
The People of California and the World should be extremely grateful to Roman Polanski for holding out against Injustice he was facing at County of Los Angeles Santa Monica Courthouse.
If Roman Polanski hadn't held out against injustice we would be in the dark about Injustice occurring at Santa Monica Courthouse.
BUT FOR POLANSKI'S ACTION IN FLIGHT - THE INJUSTICE AT COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES SANTA MONICA COURTHOUSE - WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN MADE VISIBLE AND WOULD HAVE REMAINED INVISIBLE AND COVERED UP.
If the Injustice remained UNDER WRAPS and invisible - then no steps would ever be taken to rectify INJUSTICE that is occurring against the World's people in the County of Los Angeles Santa Monica Courthouse.
If Polanski had let himself be compromised by the Santa Monica Judge's Injustice, and had given in to Injustice - then Injustice will continue to flourish in Santa Monica County of Los Angeles Courthouse with a Justice that is a bully and a Justice that is not blind.
So bottom line INJUSTICE
Brian R. Says
He was not yet sentenced. The Chino time was for evaluation and the Judge was under no obligation to accept the plea deal. Since the pervert fled that is concince of guilt and can be used in any new trial. If the witness is unavailable then they can read from her Grand Jury Testimony, hopefully done by a 13 year old actress on the stand to put the point forward as to what he did. There is no ambiguity from that testimony. Only Hollywood pervs would suggest that there is abiguity. This perv not only fled the country but then did the same thing to a 15 year old Nastasia Kinski in France where I guess all our pedophlies should go on vacation. I hope he gets the max 5 years if he comes back and is sentenced to his plea but if he chooses to go to trial I say reinstate all the charges and go for 25 to life.
skotts Says
If anyone, the average citizen or convicted felon, would have ran they would be facing additional charges for the escape (5 years), which is what this is. I think it's sick and a disgrace the way the legal system works in this country. It makes me sick to be an American sometimes with the 2 sets of laws in this white washed for sale country. This guy raped and drugged a child and we just brush it off. I don't wish anythig on anyone but how would you feel if this was your daughter, sister, niece, grandchild or friend. You would want justice and this scumbag deserves to rot and get screwed up his ass without the dope he gave a child. We lock people up for years for selling drugs a 1000 feet from a school. We dimiss his rape charges because he's a director. If it was me, I'd want him dead and stinking.
Michael Says
More troubling is the fact that the U.S. and Swiss authorities seem to be playing fast and loose with the law that governs the extradition of Mr. Polanski. The extradition treaty only provides for extradition for offenses where the potential time to be served is at least six months. Mr. Polanski owes the California authorities a mere 48 days of jail time on this charge.
It smells bad when persons charged with upholding the law set aside parts of the law that they don't like in order to serve their own, self-aggrandizing purposes.
The extradition treaty states, “When the request for extradition relates to a person who has been convicted, extradition shall be granted only if the duration of the penalty . . . amounts to at least six months.”
Mr. Polanski skipped out of the States 32 years ago on a remaining sentence of less than two months, under circumstances that strongly suggested serious misconduct on the part of the judge and prosecutor in the case (including multiple, ethically-barred ex-parte communications that the prosecutor has himself admitted to on tape).
Under such circumstances, if Mr. Polanski feared that he faced an indeterminate period of unlawful incarceration at the hands of dishonest law officials, the fugitive's conduct could be construed as a mitigating, if not wholly legitimate, effort at judicial self-help.
It is deeply troubling that all these belated gyrations on the LA Prosecutor's part in pursuing this rancid, dead dog of a case came when Mr. Polanski's efforts to have his original conviction set aside in the appellate courts on judicial misconduct grounds began to receive favorable traction.
A highly-public revisiting of past acts of prosecutorial misconduct will do nothing to elevate the Prosecutor's Office in the public's eyes. For these reasons and more, the Prosecutor would be wise to let bygones be bygones and allow this 76 year old man to rest in peace.
Michael Says
True, the original plea agreement is potentially void because he flew the jurisdictional coop, so to speak. But the sword cuts both ways. If the LA prosecutor wants to void the agreement, that means Polanski can withdraw his guilty plea and insist on a trial on the charge. With a witness who no longer wants to cooperate, ambiguous facts, plus evidence that is over 30 years old, a conviction will be difficult, if not unlikely. The smart play on the prosecutor's part would be to allow the original plea deal to stand, and let Polanski walk with time served. Win-Win for both sides.
bobby Says
Correction: That was the deal under his plea agreement, however when he ran away his plea deal was vacated and is not likely to be offered again. If/When he returns he will face 1 count of sex with a 13 year old, as well as some counts of failure to appear. The catch is, he can only face penalties as they were back in 1977 MINUS the 42 days he served back in 1977. It will then be up to the DA on *IF* he chooses to count Polansky's time in swiss jail towards his sentence. Trust me when I tell you that he won't, he's up for re-election and Polanski is not well liked amongst the common folk.