After 32 years on the run from the American government, Academy Award-winning film director Roman Polanski, 76, could finally see a resolution to his outstanding charges. He was finally detained in Switzerland where border officials acted on an American arrest warrant from 1977, but that move could lead to Polanski’s release.
In the seventies, Polanski pleaded guilty to charges for having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor (Samantha Geimer, 13.) After he fled the country, American investigators have been passively keeping tabs on him, waiting for their chance to pounce.
Polanski fled to France before he was formally sentenced and has been on the lam ever since. His capture now could lead to extradition to the U.S. but now that the American, French and Swiss governments involved, the whole process could be fuddled. Polanski could be released entirely, or his time served prior to the initial court case will translate to his sentence.
READ MORE »
Film director Roman Polanski, 71, won his case yesterday against Conde Nast, the media group that owns Vanity Fair.
The case was over an article which stated that Polanski made sexual advances to a woman in New York just after the 1969 murder of his wife, Sharon Tate.
Though many different stories had been published about the event of Polanski?s wife?s death, none hurt him more that the July 2002 Vanity Fair allegations.
The article even had quotes from a so-called ?on-looker?- Harper’s magazine editor Lewis Lapham, as saying: “Fascinated by his performance, I watched as he slid his hand inside her thigh and began a long honeyed spiel which ended with the promise ‘And I will make another Sharon Tate out of you’.”
Vanity Fair claimed that though the incident did not occur when Polanski was on the way back from his wife?s funeral, it did happen two weeks later. The magazine also argued that Polanski?s reputation had been ruined before the story had been even published, when, in 1977, he pleaded guilty to having sex with a minor and fled the United States.
Polanski brought in celebrities such as actress Mia Farrow, who was also at the dinner, to help him testify that the allegations which occurred in the Manhattan restaurant were all together untrue.
The case adjourned with Polanski winning compensation worth $115,000 U.S. (?50, 000) in libel damages.
