<p>Anyone else outraged by the support Roman Polanski is getting from some of the glitterati in the media? I think he should spend the rest of his life in the general population of a maximum security prison. Now THAT would be justice.</p>
<p>What’s up with Roman Polanski? All I remember him for is his direction of Rosemary’s Baby…and the sad murder of his wife Sharon Tate.</p>
<p>Thumper, he raped a 13-year-old girl back in 1977, and then fled the country to avoid prosecution or sentencing, I’m not sure which. The “girl” (who is now in her early 40s) thinks it should be dropped at this point.</p>
<p>He pled guilty, and left the country before going to jail.</p>
<p>Since I live here, where the rape occured I can offer my two cents: I am outraged that morons who say, “He is a great artist and you are persecuting him for a trivial matter that happened years ago.” Scum is scum. Artists can be great people or not. Imagine a failed producer/director who did the same thing…Oh wait, we heard that defense fairly recently, “Oh, he didn’t do it…but if he did…it was a misunderstanding.” </p>
<p>And yes, the late singer paid plenty of hush money.</p>
<p>The woman who was raped as a girl has every right to try to put this behind her. I wish her the best. Her opinion does make Polanski any less deserving of his punishment.</p>
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<p>[Polanski</a> an odd priority for DA – latimes.com](<a href=“http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-big-picture28-2009sep28,0,2170887.story]Polanski”>Polanski an odd priority for DA)</p>
<p>There is only once place for people who do what Polanski did. It’s called prison.</p>
<p>Whoopi Goldberg on the view made me furious this morning when she claimed it wasn’t “rape”. She kept claiming that we should be careful what we accuse him of. Sex with a 13 year old, whether consensual or not, is rape. </p>
<p>I, too, am furious that so many people are defending him and saying the matter should be dropped. I have to wonder how many of those people have daughters. And no, I don’t. But I have explained the concept of “statutory rape” to my sons repeatedly.</p>
<p>Ah…well…that is awful.</p>
<p>The DA and Polanski had worked out a deal where Polanski would plead guilty to having sex with a minor and be sentenced to time served (less than 2 months). But he got wind that the judge was going to nix the deal (for political reasons) and he was worried that he’d get serious jail time–so he fled.</p>
<p>Why would the DA’s office back in 1977 have made a deal like that? Sympathy for his loss in the Tate-LaBianca murders?</p>
<p>I do have DD’s and have lived here in SoCal all of my life so I am well aquainted with the case against Polanski. I agree with all of those that said he should be in prison. And for the record I have not seen any of the films he has directed since leaving skipping the country and personally do not think very highly of the actors that work with him. Scum is scum.</p>
<p>The prosecution and the judge made mistakes – I watched the film documentary on this a few months ago and it was fascinating. When he realized that there was no way he was going to get fair treatment, and when the media-enamored judge was going to put him in prison for a second time, he fled the country. People get off all the time when prosecutors and judges make mistakes; usually we don’t hear about it. In his case, he was fortunate to have been born in a country that would not let him be extradited. People who live in countries where there they cannot be extradited often get away with crimes. Was it ever proved that he knew the girl was 13? Angelica Huston testified that she was one of those girls who looked like she could be a lot older than she was. I can’t remember if he said he knew or not. I am by no means excusing his behavior, but I do feel some compassion for the guy because he had such tragedy in his life before this. His mother was murdered in a gas chamber, he had to flee Poland and his wife and child were brutally murdered in one of the most infamous crimes of modern times. I have to think that those events do something to a person and I think that if Sharon Tate had lived, this might never have happened. He should have been punished. The legal system should have done their job correctly.</p>
<p>Wow the press coverage on this makes me so angry. I have been watching the news off and on today and all the news is reporting “he had sex with a 13-year-old”. Really? HE RAPED A 13-YEAR-OLD. When he was in his 40’s. I am astounded that the news is calling this sex and not RAPE.</p>
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<p>He didn’t have to know the girl was 13. That’s why it is called statutory rape. Even if she had actively pursued Polanski and demanded sex from him, it still would have been rape because she lacked the capacity to give consent. Of course the drugs and alcohol certainly made it easier for him to rape her.</p>
<p>Totally agree with the majority here. Rape is rape. Other awful things in your life do not make an awful act of your own excusable. No sympathy for him at all.</p>
<p>I think we’re missing the bigger picture. The US DoJ has been trying to get their hands on UBS exec Raoul Weil for months. Weil, uber-rich and well connected, is a Swiss national who is comfortably holed up in Zurich. He spent years helping businesses and business people avoid paying US taxes. </p>
<p>The DoJ has been pressing Zurich to hand over Weil. The Swiss probably decided to offer Polanski as a consolation prize. Now, publicly at least, it’ll be difficult for the US to call Swizterland uncooperative.</p>
<p>Lastly, Polanski’s victim has for years been pleading with government officials to drop the charges against Polanski.</p>
<p>Legally, that has no bearing. And ethically, I think, actually, it doesn’t either. For the state to act differently over what it has proclaimed a crime, sends a message that it is not *really *a crime. We can’t know what kind of pressure may or may not have been exerted on her. And even if there were none, we can’t know if other criminals might decide to exert pressure on a victim to plead for the convicted crime to be overlooked. That’s a bad precedent.</p>
<p>Just so that I understand, all you legal eagles, statutory rape is kind of like serving alcohol to minors, the minor misrepresenting their age that is not a defense for the adult, s/he is still considered responsible, correct?</p>
<p>Mimk6- the media is quite capable of lying and manipulating us to feel as they think we should. As we all know, there are those who claim that the Holocaust never took place, so if you saw that on a TV screen, would you believe that? I don’t care if the girl looked like she was 25 and walked into Polanski’s party stark naked, the man had NO RIGHT TO TOUCH HER. And don’t tell me that an adult doesn’t know that having sexual relations with a minor isn’t against the law. As for finding excuses for that disgusting man simply because of what had occured earlier in his life is sick reasoning. I’m was a young girl who had to deal with something like this, so because of that, would you excuse me if I became a serial killer? Polanski deserves to spend the rest of his life in jail, first for the rape and then for running out on his punishment; he sure wanted to be a “man” when it came to having sex, how come that didn’t carry over into doing the time for the crime? Justice for this low-life will be that he never again walks free outside of that prison and that he lives in fear of being “used” in there in the same fashion he used that 13 year old girl.
Cangel- the answer to your question is “yes”.</p>
<p>I can’t understand how anybody can believe that it matters whether he knew how old she was or not. SHE WAS 13 YEARS OLD!!! It also doesn’t matter whether she consented. And it does matter that he fled the country.</p>