Actually, you can remain silent longer, child raper. And when you do decide to finally open your mouth again? Maybe you can come up with a little better excuse on why you’re such a spoiled, entitled child raper, child raper.
Read Polanski’s super long and whiny press release after the jump.
Throughout my seven months since September 26, 2009, the date of my arrest at Zurich Airport, where I had landed with a view to receiving a lifetime award for my work from the representative of the Swiss Minister of Culture*, I have refrained from making any public statements and have requested my lawyers to confine their comments to a bare minimum.
I wanted the legal authorities of Switzerland and the United States, as well as my lawyers, to do their work without any polemics on my part. I have decided to break my silence in order to address myself directly to you without any intermediaries and in my own words.
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**.
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 the entire sentence, and it is this reversal that justified my leaving the United States.
This affair was roused from its slumbers of over three decades by a documentary film-maker who gathered evidence from persons involved at the time. I took no part in that project, either directly or indirectly.
The resulting documentary not only highlighted the fact that I left the United States because I had been treated unjustly; it also drew the ire of the Los Angeles authorities, who felt that they had been attacked and decided to request my extradition from Switzerland, a country I have been visiting regularly for over 30 years without let or hindrance.
I can now remain silent no longer!
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.
I can remain silent no longer because there has just been a new development of immense significance.
On February 26 last, Roger Gunson, the deputy district attorney in charge of the case in 1977, now retired, testified under oath before Judge Mary Lou Villar in the presence of David Walgren, the present deputy district attorney in charge of the case, who was at liberty to contradict and question him, that on September 16, 1977, Judge Rittenband stated to all the parties concerned that my term of imprisonment in Chino constituted the totality of the sentence I would have to serve.
I can remain silent no longer because the request for my extradition addressed to the Swiss authorities is founded on a lie. In the same statement, retired deputy district attorney Roger Gunson added that it was false to claim, as the present district attorney’s office does in their request for my extradition, that the time I spent in Chino was for the purpose of a diagnostic study.
The said request asserts that I fled in order to escape sentencing by the U.S. 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.
I can remain silent no longer because for over 30 years my lawyers have never ceased to insist that I was betrayed by the judge, that the judge perjured himself, and that I served my sentence.
Today it is the deputy district attorney who handled the case in the 1970s, a man of irreproachable reputation, who has confirmed all my statements under oath, and this has shed a whole new light on the matter.
I can remain silent no longer because the same causes are now producing the same effects. The new District Attorney, who is handling this case and has requested my extradition, is himself campaigning for election and needs media publicity!
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 in 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.
Such are the facts I wished to put before you in the hope that Switzerland will recognize 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.
Forget it, Steve. It’s Chinatown.
“Read Polanski’s super long and whiny press release after the jump” just wasn’t a very tempting offer.
Where do the asterisks in his press release point? Anywhere important?
Hope he finally gets locked up.
I agree, all child rappers should be sent to prison.
Sounds like LA screwed the original pooch. I’ve heard that before. Oh well. Moral of the story: don’t rape kids.
Getting screwed and he doesn’t want to be. Huh.
But he’s partly right.
I’m not going to deny I’m a fan of his work. At the same time, something certainly did happen, and he should have answered for it. It would have been nice had justice been served, and he served his time. By now, he would have long made penance for his crime, and he could have gone back to making movies here in America.
However, as mentioned above, L.A. screwed the pooch. They know they screwed the pooch. Everything points to this case needing a retrial, but LA knows that because of everything that has happened in the past 30 years, a retrial doesn’t stand much chance of convicting him. So there trying to cling to the past guilty plea and to sentence him on that. But the only reason he pleaded guilty was because of the plea bargain.
It be nice if justice was served, but as of right now, the case being thrown out is the better of two bad options. It at least preserves some integrity of the court by admitting where mistakes were made. And yes, at this point, this case is largely about publicity, not about justice.
Or lets forget rationality, stick to mob hysteria, and string up the lecherous Jew. That’ll be easier. And then we can forget about it by reading the latest news about Justin Beiber, or going to the movies and fawning over Hit-Girl.
Don’t you DARE bring Justin Bieber into this!
I didn’t think I could think much worse of the guy, but there ya go.
Maybe should have remained silent.
I’d like to see what most of Polanski’s detractors would do if their wives were killed by Charles Manson cultists while 8 months pregnant.
Not defending the man by any stretch. I just hope that everyone out to hang the guy has taken that into account. That’s some pretty heinous shit to have gone through and dude obviously went quite a bit bat-shit.
He was borderline bat-shit even before his wife was murdered, but he made some awesome movies back in the day. Being a wee bit bat-shit most likely contributed to him being a brilliant director.
@ Jackattack – I am positive it wouldn’t be to rape a 13 girl, but yes, he clearly went batshit crazy (and then got over it?).
I don’t know that he’ll ever “get over it”, C. I know I wouldn’t.
And I hope like hell if something like that ever happened to me, I wouldn’t rape a teenager.
Hmm. Well, there’s 10,000+ homicides a year in America, so times that by an average of 4 loved ones (spouses, children, parents) per murdered person, and the “Polanski had a hard life” argument awards One Free Rape of Child Argument to 40,000 Americans.
Also: Chinatown kinda sucked. There. I said it.
Let’s lock Woody (Allen) up first. But nobody seems to hate him.
Hell, I don’t believe that the Manson murders excuse this in any way. The whole point of the “Save Polanski” position has nothing to do with excusing him of his crime. It’s recognizing that any chance of handing out justice, or even figuring what the hell really happened that night, is long gone, and its gone BECAUSE of the L.A. District Attorney and the LAPD.
And even if Chinatown sucked, he still has about half a dozen other truly great films.
If you would have read the court transcript papers, there wouldn’t be a single doubt in your mind that Polanski should “do time” … and lots of it. Check out the http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/polan…
Now, regarding Charles Manson and his followers: there are too many coincidences in Sharon Tate’s murder. There are also indications that she was 8-month pregnant with her former lover’s (Jay Sebring’s) child. Do the rest of digging yourselves. Oh and Larry King may be of the same opinion.