Oh Jesus Christ. Are you kidding? Here’s a wrench in everything and a pretty self-serving and convenient one at that.
OK, David Wells is a former L.A. Prosecutor who admitted to Marina Zenovich on camera in her documentary, “Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired,” that he inappropriately advised the ruling judge Laurence J. Rittenband, to send Polanski back to prison.
When Polanski and his attorneys saw the doc last summer, they basically saw this former deputy district attorney (Wells) claim to have coached the judge in the case, essentially showing how to renege on his plea bargain— a clear ethical violation — and they pounced on it, immediately asking the Los Angeles district attorney’s office to review the film. It’s essentially Wells statements in the doc that opened this can of worms.
On top of Ritteband’s already sketchy behavior — he had long been labeled a publicity hound in this case and was accused of always seeking celebrity cases back in his day — Polanski and attorneys believed this key admission could lead to the case being dismissed or at least re-opened.
But NOW, Wells is claiming to the Daily Beast that he lied to Zenovich on camera in the film. “The director of the documentary told me it would never air in the States. I thought it made a better story if I said I’d told the judge what to do,” he is quoted as saying. Uhhh…would a prosecutor formerly involved in such a case really think a documentary like this would never be shown in the U.S.? It’s really hard to swallow and if Polanksi is brought back to the U.S., Wells will surely have to testify. How is that going to sound in court?
What most tourists and moralists of this story don’t realize is that Rittenband was originally lenient enough at the time to let Polanski leave the country to shoot a film during his trial and Wells admits to showing the judge photos of Polanski “reveling at Oktoberfest,” and it’s evidently these photos that prompted the judge in 1977 to reconsider the plea bargain deal.
If memory serves correct in the doc Wells says he told Rittenband, “See, he’s laughing at you.” So now he’s admitting he showed the judge the photos but is claiming he didn’t editorialize his thoughts on the matter? (Like it really would matter).
But Wells says he just handed off the paper to a bailiff to pass onto the judge.
“Did I know it would tick him off? Yeah. It ticked me off. Polanski was thumbing his nose at everyone. When [Judge] Rittenband saw the photograph of Polanski out on the town…he blew up. Said, ‘Screw the deal, he’s going to state prison.’ And he said it straight to a reporter from The Outlook. Polanski’s lawyer found out about it, of course. And that was that. He never showed up for sentencing.”
Either way, this is a huge blow to the Polanski case and kind of changes everything. As the Daily Beast says, “Recanting these statements is a bombshell.” But there is a long history here of wrongdoings and ethically questionable choices on the L.A. court’s part.
Going back through our archives we found this, which we totally forgot about and which doesn’t help the L.A. office’s reputation as being shady in this case, but then again, it was denied vehemently and all instances were then removed from the documentary. This took place in 1997 with Polanski’s longtime lawyer Douglas Dalton and a new judge in the case, Judge Larry Paul Fidler:
When the documentary originally aired at Sundance and Cannes in early ’08 (and on HBO), the film concluded with a statement that said an agreement had been reached that would have disposed of the case without with no further jail time, but here’s the rub — only if the filmmaker agreed to allow his unlawful intercourse with a minor hearing to be televised.
However, L.A. court officials called this claim, “a complete fabrication,” and called upon HBO, insisting the wording be changed to, “the court insisted only that the hearing be held in open court.” Again, this seems a little suspect.
