[Wino]

Bob, on 13 February 2010 - 01:26 AM, said:

I made some comment that there was no possible way that the judge could accept the guilty plea without Polanski admitting in court that he knew the girl was a minor at the time.

You are right. The judge or prosecutor probably required the defendant to allocute as part of the plea bargain. I guess the defendant would never lie under oath in order to receive the deal promised? That only happens on Law and Order.

Bob, on 13 February 2010 - 01:26 AM, said:

go right ahead but expect somebody else to call you a pinhead for doing so.

First you sound like General Than Shwe and now like something off the Bill O'Reilley show. The pinhead and patriots? 55555555.

[rucus7]

Sorry for being obtuse Wino, but what are you suggesting Polanski was lying about? His guilt? He plead guilty to a lesser charge only to expedite the process? He then settled a civil suite out of court out of the goodness of his heart? To protect the 13 year old from media scrutiny? Do you think Polanski was/is the victim because of his celebrity?
What was the promised deal?
What color is the sky in your world?

[Bob]

Wino, on 15 February 2010 - 06:44 AM, said:

You are right. The judge or prosecutor probably required the defendant to allocute as part of the plea bargain. I guess the defendant would never lie under oath in order to receive the deal promised?

No, the law requires the on-record allocution. It's the Judge's job to not accept any plea unless it's clear on the record (so an appellate court can read what happened, if need be) that the defendant has clearly admitted to all elements of the crime.

You know, one time you're defending Polanski and then another time you say you don't care what happens. Doesn't quite sound like you're in the "don't care" camp very often.

I also don't understand your glib comment about defendants would never lie under oath. Now you're suggesting that Polanski lied under oath but was being truthful later when he wasn't under oath? And you're relying on what he said later which directly contradicted what he said under oath in Court? Strange, dude, very strange.

[Wino]

Bob, on 15 February 2010 - 11:27 AM, said:

You know, one time you're defending Polanski and then another time you say you don't care what happens. Doesn't quite sound like you're in the "don't care" camp very often.

I am really in the "don't care" camp. Strange but interesting to look at the case from different aspects.

[lvdkeyes]

Post anything to get more posts.

[Wino]

lvdkeyes, on 16 February 2010 - 01:34 AM, said:

Post anything to get more posts.

Look who is calling the kettle black?

[Wino]

Here is the latest in the Roman Polanski case.

By Kim Willsher in Paris guardian.co.uk, Monday 3 May 2010
Roman Polanski has broken his silence to decry the US for seeking his extradition from Switzerland on a 33-year-old child sex case.

Oscar-winning film-maker Roman Polanski has broken his silence to criticise America for seeking his extradition on an under-age sex case that dates back 33 years.

In an emotive open letter, published in France and entitled, I Can Remain Silent No Longer, the director, who is under house arrest in Switzerland, says he is only seeking to be "treated fairly".

He accuses the US of wanting to serve him "on a platter" to the media. "I have had my share of dramas and joys, as we all have, and I am not going to try to ask you to pity my lot in life. I ask only to be treated fairly like anyone else," he writes.

The case against Polanski, 76, whose films include The Pianist, Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown, dates back to 1977 when he was arrested in the US and pleaded guilty to having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl. He spent 42 days in a Californian prison but fled before a final court appearance for sentencing.

He was arrested in September last year at Zurich airport after travelling from his home in Paris to collect a lifetime award for his work. After two months in prison he was put under house arrest on bail of €3m (£2.5m) at his chalet in Gstaad.

In the 900-word statement circulated by his friend, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, Polanski argues why he should be set free. "It is true: 33 years ago I pleaded guilty, and I served time at the prison for common law crimes at Chino, not in a VIP prison.

"That period was to have covered the totality of my sentence. By the time I left prison, the judge had changed his mind and claimed that the time served at Chino did not fulfil [sic] the entire sentence, and it is this reversal that justified my leaving the United States," he writes.

He lays out eight points in support of his case, each headed with the title phrase: "I can remain silent no longer because the American authorities have just decided, in defiance of all the arguments and depositions submitted by third parties, not to agree to sentence me in absentia even though the same court of appeal recommended the contrary.

"I can remain silent no longer because the California court has dismissed the victim's numerous requests that proceedings against me be dropped, once and for all, to spare her from further harassment every time this affair is raised once more."

Polanski says the extradition request to Switzerland is based on a lie, in that it suggests the time he spent in prison was for the purposes of "diagnostic study".

"The said request asserts that I fled in order to escape sentencing by the US judicial authorities, but under the plea-bargaining process I had acknowledged the facts and returned to the United States in order to serve my sentence. All that remained was for the court to confirm this agreement, but the judge decided to repudiate it in order to gain himself some publicity at my expense," he writes.

He says prosecutors from the original case have testified under oath that he has already served whatever jail term he would have been given.

"I can no longer remain silent because the United States continues to demand my extradition more to serve me on a platter to the media of the world than to pronounce a judgment concerning which an agreement was reached 33 years ago.

"I can remain silent no longer because I have been placed under house arrest in Gstaad and bailed a very large sum of money which I have managed to raise only by mortgaging the apartment that has been my home for over 30 years, and because I am far from my family and unable to work."

Addressing the Swiss authorities, he concludes: "Such are the facts I wished to put before you in the hope that Switzerland will recognise that there are no grounds for extradition, and that I shall be able to find peace, be reunited with my family, and live in freedom in my native land."

[rucus7]

Roman Polanski has a very selective memory. Memory that is not based on historical fact.

[Bob]

rucus7, on 07 June 2010 - 11:18 AM, said:

Roman Polanski has a very selective memory. Memory that is not based on historical fact.

A very nice way to acknowledge that ol' Roman has lied through his teeth (either in public or in the court under oath.....or both).

[Wino]

rucus7, on 07 June 2010 - 11:18 AM, said:

Roman Polanski has a very selective memory. Memory that is not based on historical fact.

Roman Polanski is not the only one with a very selective memory. Was Bill Clinton's grand jury testimony based on historical fact?

[rucus7]

And The beat goes on . . . . . .

rucus7, on 07 June 2010 - 11:18 AM, said:

Roman Polanski has a very selective memory. Memory that is not based on historical fact.

Roman Polanski expresses 'regret' over sex case

Polanski collected a lifetime achievement award from the Zurich Film Festival last month
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Roman Polanski has said he "regrets" having unlawful sex with an under-age girl in his first TV interview since his time in a Swiss prison.

"I have regretted it for 33 years, of course I regret it," said the Oscar-winning film director, in an interview aired on Swiss TV on Sunday.

Polanski pleaded guilty to having unlawful intercourse with 13-year-old Samantha Geimer in the US in 1977.

He fled the US on the eve of sentencing and was re-arrested in Zurich in 2009.

He then spent months in prison and under house arrest but avoided extradition.

'Double victim'
Polanski has since apologised to his victim and settled a civil case with her in the 90s.

"She is a double victim - my victim and a victim of the press," the director said in Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir, shot while he was under house arrest.

Polanski was originally charged with six offences including rape and sodomy but in 1978, he pleaded guilty to unlawful sex following a plea bargain and served 42 days in a US prison.

The film-maker, whose work includes Rosemary's Baby and Tess, fled the US after hearing rumours that the judge was about to re-sentence him for a much longer term.

He has never returned to the US and did not collect his best director Oscar for The Pianist at the 2003 Academy Awards.

In the interview with Swiss channel TSR, Polanski also spoke of his traumatic past, including his time spent as a Jewish child in a Polish ghetto during World War II and the murder of his wife, Sharon Tate, in 1969.

He said he was "made of stronger stuff".

"I am used to death a little bit like surgeons are used to seeing a stomach cut open," he said.

Polanski thanked Switzerland, whose courts rejected the US request for his extradition, saying: "Your nation possess values that are disappearing in the rest of the world.

"I cannot abide political correctness, which only hides the ugliness in all of us under a veneer," he added.

"We're all a bit like that, though with a few exceptions like me where the veneer is a bit thinner."

Last week, Polanski received a standing ovation as he accepted a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich Film Festival.