Roman Polanski’s bid to be released from Swiss prison was denied today reports the AP. The Swiss Justice Ministry rejected the 76-year-old filmmaker’s appeal because, “We continue to be of the opinion that there is a high risk of flight,”a ministry spokesman said.
Having fled once in 1978 from his unlawful sex crime case, Polanski has apparently been deemed too great a security risk to be granted bail or any other types of measured freedom.
The filmmaker has been in the clink since September 26. Meanwhile, Polanski’s attorney are appealing to the highest Swiss criminal courts, but two former Zurich prosecutors are said to be doubtful he will receive any immediate release and also added that extradition will be difficult to fight.
This is a big blow to the Polanski case and expatriation doesn’t look out of the question at this point.
Over the weekend, more bad news hit for the director when the L.A. Times got hold of court documents that said the filmmaker had agreed to pay the victim in his child-sex case, Samantha Geimer, at least $500,000 as part of a 1993 civil settlement suit, but then failed to live up to the terms of the agreement.
The deadline for payment came and went and, with interest, he owed $604,416 by 1996. Evidently the court documents hints that the matter has been settled, but it is unknown what, if any, terms they came up with.
To cap off all this ugliness in terrible timing of course, Polanski has been given a Walk of Fame Star in Warsaw.
Want to understand the context of how sex crimes were viewed in the ’70s, another era? The New York Times has a “a less widely noted probation officer’s report prepared in September of 1977 [that] gives a jarring reminder that Mr. Polanski’s behavior at the time was being treated by key officials more as an exercise of bad judgment than as a vicious assault.”
One psychiatrist who examined Mr. Polanski, Alvin E. Davis, found he was not mentally ill or disordered, and not “a sexual deviate.” “He is of superior intelligence, has good judgement and strong moral and ethical values,” the report said of Dr. Davis’s conclusions.
“He is not a pedophile,” Dr. Davis is quoted as saying. “The offense occurred as an isolated instance of transient poor judgement and loss of normal inhibitions in circumstances of intimacy and collaboration in creative work, and with some coincidental alcohol and drug intoxication.”
Throughout this report he is viewed in a very sympathetic light.
The New York Times also talked to David Wells the former prosecutor who lied to documentary filmmaker Marina Zenovich, in the key piece of evidence evinced in the film, “Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired.” Wells doesn’t say much, but adds, “I had to own up.”
They also spoke to Zenovich who added to her previous statement suggesting that Polanski’s attorneys still have a case even if Wells was lying. “Even if Dave Wells were to be lying, we still have a judge who was instructing the prosecutor and defense lawyer on how to behave, and doing it based on how he would look in the media.”
Plus the Times also has an interesting piece on the lenient reaction of the French because of cultural differences and laissez-faire attitude.
