Statutory Rapist/Director Roman Polanski Returning to US (Deal w/L.A. D.A., no jail time)

This is london.com ^ | April 18, 2002 | "Standard reporter"

[L.N. Smithee]

Polanski 'will face sex charge'

by Standard Reporter

Roman Polanski appears set to return to America to stand trial on charges of having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

		Facing a rape charge: Roman Polanski

The Oscar-nominated film director, now 68, was arrested in 1977 for allegedly having sex with the girl at Jack Nicholson's home. He was charged with six offences, including rape.

Polanski, whose films include Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown, pleaded guilty to sex with a minor, but fled to France before his sentencing.

According to a Los Angeles TV station today, he is planning to return after agreeing a deal with the LA district attorney's office that he will avoid a prison sentence for the sex charges.

The district attorney refused to comment, but court records show Polanski's lawyer has met the DA and a judge twice in the last year in an attempt to find a way for his client to return to America.

Polanski, whose pregnant wife Sharon Tate was murdered by members of the Manson family in 1969, even has support from the girl he had sex with. Now 38, she says: "I have no objections to his return to the US."

[L.N. Smithee]

Woody Allen at the Oscars to a standing ovation, and now Polanski is coming back. Heeeere we go, folks.

[billorites]

Roman Polanski appears set to return to America...

Yes, his girlfriend is graduating from Kindergarten.

[Hodar]

He was charged with six offences, including rape.

Why do we even bother having a criminal prosecution department? If someone needs to be incarcerated, it's not the criminals so much as the adminstrators who selectively apply the law. Whatever happened to that old tradition of "And Justice for All"?

[dennisw]

Robert Altman in reverse.

[Puppage]

In a related story...Polanski joins Catholic Church.

[ex-Texan]

'Nothing to see here. Old news. It wasn't really sex just oral sex ....Time to move on.'

Polanski and Clinton were cut from the same piece of cloth .... uh, er, toilet paper.

[dead]

agreeing a deal with the LA district attorney's office that he will avoid a prison sentence for the sex charges.

I can see why the DA would go for that, considering the overwhelming shortage of child rapists we have in this country.

Plus Woody was running up huge long distance charges, during their mutual kiddie-conquest bragging sessions.

[Numbers Guy]

Polanski and Clinton were cut from the same piece of cloth .... uh, er, toilet paper.

Except Polanski had better taste in adult women, particular the wives.

[vikingchick]

Why is he coming back? I thought living in France was supposed to be the end-all, be-all.

[Grampa Dave]

Maybe Polanski and Woody Allen will be the Rats dream team for President and Veep in 2004!

They have the qualifications to get the Rat vote!

POLANSKI/ALLEN RAT CHILD RAPISTS 2004!

[LenS]

He's coming back because it's much easier to do films if you can visit Hollywood. Currently, he has to set up his movies via phones and getting potential actors, staff and backers to come visit him in France.

[L.N. Smithee]

Polanski and Clinton were cut from the same piece of cloth .... uh, er, toilet paper.

Polanski even defended Clinton by saying that he was worse than Clinton was.

---

Twenty years later, Roman Polanski admits he did it.

Back in 1978, the acclaimed director of Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby fled the country amid allegations he raped a 13-year-old girl. He hasn't stepped foot in America since. Now, the French-born director, who once said, "When you are 12, you no longer need the parents," is finally accepting blame for the crime.

"There was no plot against me. There was no setup. It was all my fault. I think my wrongdoing was much greater than Bill Clinton's," the 66-year-old says in the December issue of Esquire magazine.

"There's a different justice for people who are public figures and those who are not," he adds.

Indeed.

Polanski, then 42, took 13-year-old Samantha Geimer to Jack Nicholson's house (he was out of town), loaded her up with Quaaludes and champagne and then had sex with her. He pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, but fled to Europe to avoid a prison sentence of up to 50 years.

In his autobiography, the filmmaker said the judge who heard the case reneged on a deal that would have had Polanski behind bars for just 90 days, and, faced with the prospect of years in the slammer, he decided to take off.

As recently as two years ago, lawyers represented Polanksi were negotiating for the director's return to the States--with him serving no jail time--but nothing came of those talks.

About the same time, Geimer came forward to say she wouldn't mind if Polanski came back to the U.S.

"I really wish this would be over, that he would reach agreement with courts, no longer be a fugitive," she said.

---

[Clemenza]

From what I recall, the girl and her family actually forgived him. I also believe that she was dolled up to look considerably older than her age, which she never told to Roman.

Nevertheless, Roman used poor judgement and rightly was served with a statuatory charge.

[summer]

I was surprised too. I think he wants to leave France because of terrorism abroad. He has figured out it is actually safer to be in the USA.

[Registered]

This probably has nothing to do with the recent Supreme Court ruling pertaining to virtual child porn...

[TopQuark]

Woody Allen at the Oscars to a standing ovation, and now Polanski is coming back. Heeeere we go, folks. Why are you surprised? If Clinton's affair was just about sex, then why would these people care. Don't you know that there are no more socially acceptable behavior: everyone has his own morality. It's a small desert we are wondering through, and everyone is his own Moses.

[Registered]

Celebrities Accused/Convicted of Statutory Rape
From (http://www.spiritone.com/~law/celeb_statutory.html)

Woody Allen - In the book, "What Falls Away," Mia Farrow described her shock at first discovering
Allen had taken pornographic photos of her adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn and then that he was
having an affair with the 17-year-old. (Allen and Soon-Yi were married in late 1997.)

Sonny Bono - Singer-politician. In 1963, 28-year-old Bono met, and married, 16-year-old Cherilyn La
Pierre, better known as Cher.

Chuck Berry - In 1961, the great songwriter was convicted in St. Louis of transporting a 14-year-old
girl across a state line. He ended up in jail for a year-and-a-half.

Joey Buttafuoco - 1993 Nov 15, A judge in Mineola, N.Y., sentenced Joey Buttafuoco to six months in
jail for the statutory rape of 16-year-old Amy Fisher, who shot and wounded Buttafuoco's wife, Mary
Jo.

Sergei Federov - Red Wings star with 16-year-old sweetheart, tennis player Anna Kournikova.

Errol Flynn - Film star in of the 30's, 40's and 50's. Was acquitted for statutory rape charges involving
two teenage girls in 1942, but the scandal only increased his popularity. "In like Flynn" became the
phrase young men used when their chances of scoring a babe (and getting away with it) were high.

Kelsey Grammer - star of the Emmy-winning comedy "Frasier." In 1995, authorities in Arizona decided
not to prosecute Grammer for statutory rape, and a New Jersey grand jury declined to indict him on the
same charge. Both accusations were made by the same 17-year-old girl.

Don Johnson - At fourteen, Melanie Griffith left home to move in with the actor who was then
twenty-two. Johnson has never voiced any concern about the wisdom of having an affair with such a
young girl. In fact, Johnson claims that Melanie was the aggressor in the relationship. " She pursued
me", he told Entertainment Weekly.

Michael Kennedy - Bobby Kennedy's son, recently exposed for statutorily raping his children's
underage baby-sitter, and then attempting to destroy her when word got out.

Jerry Lee Lewis - In 1958, it came out that piano madman Jerry Lee Lewis had married his 14-year-old
cousin, Myra Brown. Even though there were wedding bands involved, the revelation virtually
destroyed Lewis' young career.

Rob Lowe - TV and film star. Former brat packer. Back in 1988, during the Democratic National
Convention in Atlanta, Lowe taped himself in compromising positions with a 16-year-old girl and a
young woman. Lowe agreed to perform 20 hours of community service to avoid criminal charges.

[Registered]

From E! online: Samantha Geimer, now 34 and a mother of three who lives in Kauai, Hawaii, says she has long felt he should be able to come back: "It has always been O.K. with me."


BTW, here's a few more I forgot to add!

Elvis Presley - Priscilla was only a 14-year-old ninth grader when Elvis began dating her in 1959 during his army tour in Germany. At the time he met Priscilla, he had an even younger girl living in his house (Moore, That’s Alright, Elvis, p. 162). In 1962, the 15-year-old Priscilla moved in with Elvis at his Graceland mansion in Memphis and they lived together for five years before they married in May 1967.

Jerry Seinfeld - His four-year relationship with Shoshanna Longstein began when she was still in high school. At the on-set of the affair, Jerry was 38 and she was 17. Jerry made no secret of the relationship and publicly paraded his jail bait on his arm.

[L.N. Smithee]

Don Johnson - At fourteen, Melanie Griffith left home to move in with the actor who was then twenty-two. Johnson has never voiced any concern about the wisdom of having an affair with such a young girl. In fact, Johnson claims that Melanie was the aggressor in the relationship. " She pursued me", he told Entertainment Weekly.

Culled from Oprah's Oxygen cablenet site:

---

After meeting Mr. Johnson when she was just 14 and he was 22 on the set of the 1973 film “The Harrad Experiment” where he was co-starring with her mother Tippi Hedren, Ms. Griffith soon moved in with the actor. Since becoming a mother herself, the independent-minded Ms. Griffith has a different philosophy than her mother, who accepted the relationship with Mr. Johnson, who became her son-in-law for the first time in 1975 and again later in 1989. “If my daughter did this, I would put her in a convent over in France or in Switzerland way up high in the mountains where no man could get to her,” says Ms. Griffith about Stella, her daughter with Mr. Banderas.

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At least someone has learned something.

[Registered]

Wow, that's great!