Roman Polanski Finally Arrested for 1977 Rape of Minor

[Viking_UK]

If justice isn't serving the victim or the people, then isn't it we who are serving justice as if she were Kali out of Indiana Jones?

I don't see how his arrest, trial, and possible incarceration would serve anyone any good and justice must serve the good. Maybe at the time it would have, but not now.

Yes, it's going to be traumatic for his victim to have to go through it all again if there's a retrial, but part of the function of the legal system is to act as a deterrent. If you let him off the hook, what happens the next time a man drugs and rapes a child and then flees the country? You've set a precedent.

He was tried, admitted his guilt and was sentenced, but then he fled the country rather than go through an appeal and risk a tougher sentence. How can you justify thinking that's OK? He's a fugitive from justice and has been caught. OK, they took their own sweet time about catching him. It's not as if he's been out of the public eye for the last 30 years, and if they'd wanted to they could have done this years ago, but that's not the point.

 

[B_Stronzo]

So, what you are saying is that great directors should not have to follow the same law as the people who truly make the world operate?

No. Polanski's job description is incidental. The problem was that the judge was about to turn the tables on Polanski and give him a much stiffer sentence than he'd handed down. This is the premise on which the new trial will pivot. As Jason Els said "the court was about to renege". Polanski got wind of it and jumped ship. I would have too. Ineed it may well be that Polanski's celebrity may well have put him in a position to receive a more severe sentence since the vast hew and cry of the American public (typically) is a Lynch mob mentality and many want to see those they perceive as more priviledged than they brought down to what they consider the "common man" status.

What, now you want to use the 'dead murdered wife' defense?

No. I'm saying I'm willing to cut the guy some slack given that the abomination of the Manson killings (incidentally Susan Atkins - Tate's murderer - has only recently died of brain cancer in prison being the woman to serve the longest time in California prison on record) could be the undoing of many. Polanski had much to deal with in the subsequent years and it is easy for me to imagine he succumbed to the excesses many of us did in the 1970s. Recall.. just like you he's human.

That was a few years prior to what he did with his victim.

Immaterial. That trauma lives with Polanski to this very day I can assure you. And trauma of that nature when visited on a loved one can make those left behind act out in very odd ways.

Or are you suggesting that anyone who endures the murderous death of their loved one be allowed to dash off into the world doing whatever they please; since, after all, they've suffered so immeasurably already? Or is it, once again, merely because he's a big mucky-muck?

Don't be absurd.

'dash off'? 'mucky-muck'? Your terminology reveals much.

You come off sounding like you're green with envy that the man has accomplished much in his life. I'm ever-amazed by the willingness of the American public to canonize its icons and then kick that pedestal out from under them just as readily. We're an odd country in that regard.

Who cares?

Quite obviously those continuing to post at this thread...

and once again stronzo, you never fail to miss the facts.

it does not matter what the victim wants:

it does not matter that Sharon Tate being murdered was a tragedy

and 'once again' Flashy you only see things from a black and white perspective ...

I'm beginning to think within you resides no real sense of proportion.

congrats Stronzo...you are LPSG's first astronaut...because you are truly in outer space.

Let's remain civil shall we Flashy? You cannot begin to imagine the regard in which I do not hold you. But our personal dislike of one another has no place in conscientious debate. Kindly stay topical.

I can be scathingly vicious when unduly provoked.

 

[Northland]

No. Polanski's job description is incidental...

Your original comment made clear that you were using his body of work as a reference point for why he should not be brought back to address his flight.

No. I'm saying I'm willing to cut the guy some slack given that the abomination of the Manson killings (incidentally Susan Atkins - Tate's murderer - has only recently died of brain cancer in prison being the woman to serve the longest time in California prison on record) could be the undoing of many. Polanski had much to deal with in the subsequent years and it is easy for me to imagine he succumbed to the excesses many of us did in the 1970s. Recall.. just like you he's human.

Cut him some slack? Why? He ran off as soon as he was convicted. Had he stayed, perhaps the young lady he raped, would not still be having to relive this nightmare again and again, in large part due to the media. If he had stayed put, it would all be in the past. His conviction most likely would have been overturned on some sliver of reasoning and his sentence then ended. If the conviction was not overturned, his sentence most probably would have been reduced or he'd have been given probation. Remember, 30 years ago, the justice system didn't afix the same consequences to the more famous people. (even now, the standard of justice tends to be different, offering the wealthy and the noted lesser amounts of jail time or merely community service. Additionally, many of the famous, get the treat of only weekend jail and plod or prance around the remainder of the week, doing as they please).


Polanski had much to deal with? What about his victim? Oh, it was the 70s so excess would be allowed. Does that mean that if the same set of circumstances came about today, he would not be allowed this level of leniency you're bestowing upon him?

Stop making excuses for what he did. He took advantage of a person-let's momentarily forget her age and focus on WHAT he did. The actions are the initial crime. He compounded his error by exiting the country (which many of us might do under similar circumstances, given the chance).

Immaterial. That trauma lives with Polanski to this very day I can assure you. And trauma of that nature when visited on a loved one can make those left behind act out in very odd ways.

I've dealt with trauma. Many people have dealt with far worse than what he did. There are those who have actually watched their loved ones being slaughtered and they did not go out and rape or commit any other crimes. Your crap nonsense of 'immaterial' speaks volumes about you.

Don't be absurd.

You've sewn up that category quite well all for yourself.

'dash off'? 'mucky-muck'? Your terminology reveals much.

Really? Oh do tell us all what this reveals.

You come off sounding like you're green with envy that the man has accomplished much in his life. I'm ever-amazed by the willingness of the American public to canonize its icons and then kick that pedestal out from under them just as readily. We're an odd country in that regard.

Green with envy? Not at all. I am not particularly now, nor have I ever been, that impressed by the so-called rich and famous. They are human beings just like the rest of us and have illness and pains and ups and downs just like the rest of the world. The fact that they ended up on the front cover of magazines, does not cause me to envy them. Why would I envy a person being subjected to such continual scrutiny?

 

[Flashy]

and 'once again' Flashy you only see things from a black and white perspective ...

I'm beginning to think within you resides no real sense of proportion.

and once again you are still a fool...just because your wife was murdered, does not give you any possible excuse for raping a 13 year old.

go ahead and indulge in those excesses you mentioned...go ahead and go to Studio 54...screw everyone in Hollywood...

that does not give you the right to rape a 13 year old girl...

maybe *YOU* are the one who has no real sense of proportion.

I know plenty of people who have dealt with the same tragedies suffered by Polanski, people who lost their entire families in the holocaust...people who then lost children or wives...*NONE* of them went off and decided to rape a 13 year old.

Let's remain civil shall we Flashy? You cannot begin to imagine the regard in which I do not hold you. But our personal dislike of one another has no place in conscientious debate. Kindly stay topical.

i was staying topical...you are in outer space, as usual, as exemplified by your absurd excuse-making in this thread for the rape of a 13 year old girl. that has nothing to do with personal dislike...it has to do with the fact that you in are attempting to excuse the behavior of oral, vaginal and anal rape, via force, and plying a 13 year old with alcohol and quaaludes, as merely an unfortunate offshoot of the murder of Sharon Tate 10 years before that.

i wonder if your traumatic incident with your attackers that you have mentioned on here should be simply swept under the rug if those people who perpetrated it had traumas in their past.

i am crushed about your lack of regard for me, truly...

I can be scathingly vicious when unduly provoked.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo....

i am truly shaking....just so long as you do not try to tell me that people of that time period that you approached "you'd automatically assume had decency and fairplay as their primary directives. "

i would think that the young girl who encountered Roman Polanski would probably not agree that he had decency and fairplay as his primary directives that day.

 

[B_Stronzo]

Really? Oh do tell us all what this reveals.

Green with envy? Not at all. I am not particularly now, nor have I ever been, that impressed by the so-called rich and famous. They are human beings just like the rest of us and have illness and pains and ups and downs just like the rest of the world. The fact that they ended up on the front cover of magazines, does not cause me to envy them. Why would I envy a person being subjected to such continual scrutiny?

Since you're simply arguing for argument's sake I'll respond only to this portion of your hissy-fit response to my last.

Yes. "green with envy". There's an odd (I've previously stated this on this thread) phenomenon where your average American Joe appears to want nothing but categoricalisms never willing to weigh each situation and circumstance for its individual circumstance.

You ask "why would I envy a person being subjected to such continual scrutiny"? Answer?

Because the American public has been brainwashed into thinking that this is any of your bloody business by television shows like Extra and those other gossip-hungry television magazines which feed into the Kardashians and the Octomoms of this world. Get on with your life and leave Polanski to his own life. The outcome of his travails has no impact on your life.

I suspect you'd resent it were he to be sitting in judgment of what you do behind closed doors.

Beyond that;

90 percent of the responses in this thread are rife with "an eye for an eye" sort of mentality. It's mostly the males but that comes as no big surprise.

I would think that the young girl who encountered Roman Polanski would probably not agree that he had decency and fairplay as his primary directives that day.

As I've already told you she does not want this business resurrected. If you TRULY had regard for the victim you'd respect that rather than landing on all fours on Roman Polanski.

wonder if your traumatic incident with your attackers that you have mentioned on here should be simply swept under the rug if those people who perpetrated it had traumas in their past.

You are not to mention that incident again. I hope that's clear enough.

It has no bearing on my opinion. My reference was to traumatic events which occurred long before those amateurs tried to silence this homosexual.


And that, Dynamic Duo, is my last word on the topic.

Now gather your angry mob.

 

[Flashy]

As I've already told you she does not want this business resurrected. If you TRULY had regard for the victim you'd respect that rather than landing on all fours on Roman Polanski.

doesn't matter...the obligation is to the justice system, not her.

You are not to mention that incident again. I hope that's clear enough.

i absolutely will mention it again. right now. I hope *THAT* is clear enough

you brought it into the open and used it to your hearts content when you felt it had some reference to police behavior in regards to the Gates incident...

It has no bearing on my opinion. My reference was to traumatic events which occurred long before those amateurs tried to silence this homosexual.

tough shit...you have stated that Polanski's trauma somehow excuses his behavior 10 years later.

presumably, then, you would grant your tormenter's the same clemency and leniency in lieu of punishment, if they skipped the country to avoid prosecution for what they did to you.

if they arrived back 30 years later and were apprehended, and you found out one of them was molested as a child, and one of their parents died when they werre young, would that excuse their injuring you? would it cease to make them accountable to the law? of course not.

and considering the venom you obviously have towards them, as you have unleashed it in the past, your whining about people claiming an "eye for an eye" in this thread rings hollow.

nobody is demanding an "eye for an eye" with regards to Polanski. an eye for an eye would mean we wanted to see him raped against his will.

nobody here wants that.

he should serve a brief stint in a white collar prison, and then he should be required to do some very menial community service for a couple of months, such as picking up trash along the highway.

and you are still off in outer space.

 

[D_Percival Puddleford Pukehorn]

being a puritan has nothing to do with it.

condemning a 40 something guy plying a 13 year old girl with booze and drugs then knowingly having sex with her, is hardly being puritanical...

we are not talking about him having an affair here. or just having some deviant sex.

at what point does being "sooooooooo" puritanical change in to actually enforcing laws against having sex with people age 13 and under?

if you would like to tell me tomorrow, that some 40 something year old guy, was in a hot tub with your 13 year old daughter, and he gave her champagne and powerful narcotic pills, together, then had oral, vaginal and anal sex with her, would you taking issue with that be "puritanical" or a legitimate concern?

there is a difference between being puritanical, and having laws to protect very *CLEARLY* underage children...and yes, you are a child, when you are 13.

If i had a 14 year old daughter and some filmmaker wants to audition her and take pics BELIEVE ME i'll be there as the legal protector of the child. Am I blaming the parent? Yes. Just like the Michael Jackson case and even Gloria Trevi.....where were the parents?!!?

 

[thirteenbyseven]

In the mean time the people of Orange County will be paying for his jail stay and show trial and, most horribly, a woman's life may be rendered all over.

Oh no Jason, my OC tax dollars fortunately won't be paying for his incarceration. He'll be over in the Los Angeles County lock-up where all the V.I.P. prisoners from O.J. to Phil Spector are housed.

What possible defense can he put on for skipping town after pleading guilty? My theory boils to Roman Polanski pleading "cut me some slack because my wife Sharon Tate was murdered and this all happened a really-really long time ago when disco was in and guys wore bad polyester." His attorney will bring in a statement from a chunky 46 year-old pre-menopausal woman living in Hawaii saying in effect "aw forget it." She has reportedly been paid under the table as a civil settlement decades ago.

The Los Angeles DA, looking for blood and publicity will of course counter with those haunting photos of her as a 13 year-old (looking oddly seductive in the teenage Brooke Shields Pretty Baby sense.) The public will rightly say that Joe Blow the child molesting teacher is given decades long sentences so why not a rich movie director?

 

[Northland]

Since you're simply arguing for argument's sake I'll respond only to this portion of your hissy-fit response to my last.

Yes, heaven forbid you respond to any of the valid points which I or anybody else has made. I was not arguing for the sake of arguing, I was explaining my views and asking you to back up what you were saying. You failed to do so.

Further, I was not having a 'hissy fit' although you seem to be doing so.

You are not to mention that incident again. I hope that's clear enough.

People can mention just about anything, especially things which you have brought up and which in this case, was placed in the context of you possibly thinking that different scales of justice should be used, either due to a persons status or due to your warped thinking.

And, since we're on it, what was your purpose a while back-in the Gates thread-of veering off on a diatribe against George Bush and then making references to Iraq? At least Flashy was staying on topic.

'It has no bearing on my opinion. My reference was to traumatic events which occurred long before those amateurs tried to silence this homosexual.

In other words, things which happened prior to your incident, or perhaps merely happened to others than you, should not have to follow the letter of the law?

And that, Dynamic Duo, is my last word on the topic.

Now gather your angry mob.

Once more, I remind you that I am not connected to or acting in concert with Flashy. Flashy speaks for Flashy, and I speak for myself. Since your paranoid thinkings began to tell you that Flashy and I are in cahoots against you, I have tried not to even enter a thread where both you and Flashy have already posted, for concern that you'll see it as something it is not. It is not two persons teaming up on you, it is two persons stating their views, which happen to be different from yours. You want to have the freedom to express all of your views, then we are to be given the same from you. Not once have I denied you your choice of how to express yourself, do not deny me the same rights.

 

[D_Jared Padalicki]

So what say you?

the Pianist was such a good movie

but what he did was wrong I guess

 

[Incocknito]

The American public (typically) is a Lynch mob mentality and many want to see those they perceive as more priviledged than they brought down to what they consider the "common man" status.

This isn't just about the American public. I think you'll find that the British, French, German and just about every other public - internationally - are deeply distrubed and sickened by this sexual predator who preyed on at least one vulnerable 13 year old girl.

And it's not about wanting "priveleged" people to be "brought down" in status. You are disregarding the heinous crime which he committed. I think you'll find that most people want paedophiles, rapists and murderers to serve commensurate prison terms.

The fact is that most celebrities are above the law and get let off on lenient sentences. Unless you know of a celebrity who served a full prison term; the same as any other person would?

It is easy for me to imagine he succumbed to the excesses many of us did in the 1970s.

I see. So there was a subculture of you going around drugging and sodomising thirteen year old girls...or was it boys in your case?

And somehow that's excusable because in the 70's you were high on illegal drugs? A crime is a crime whether you are high or stone cold sober.

I can be scathingly vicious when unduly provoked.

You can also be creepily cavalier in your defense of the indefensible.

 

[Flashy]

You can also be creepily cavalier in your defense of the indefensible.

LOL...very well played, sir

 

[Drifterwood]

So in summary.

Polanski admits to statutory rape against a minor.

The Judge fudges the case.

Polanski runs.

30 years later he is arrested in Switzerland.

Why should Switzerland, or anywhere else for that matter, give a rats arse about a thirty year old judicial fuck up in another country?

I always think of him as a paedophile.

 

[HazelGod]

Why should Switzerland, or anywhere else for that matter, give a rats arse about a thirty year old judicial fuck up in another country?

My suspicion has always been that it's another thread in this new fabric of judicial cooperation between the Swiss and the US government...the same one that has their famously close-mouthed banking behemoths naming the assets of American account holders to our IRS.

 

[JamieBoy]

Spot on Hazel....

Drifter: "Why should Switzerland, or anywhere else for that matter, give a rats arse about a thirty year old judicial fuck up in another country?"...

A little matter called UBS!!!

 

[Drifterwood]

My suspicion has always been that it's another thread in this new fabric of judicial cooperation between the Swiss and the US government...the same one that has their famously close-mouthed banking behemoths naming the assets of American account holders to our IRS.

You mean that it is a quid pro quo so that they don't have to be too open about all those accounts?

 

[Drifterwood]

Spot on Hazel....

Drifter: "Why should Switzerland, or anywhere else for that matter, give a rats arse about a thirty year old judicial fuck up in another country?"...

A little matter called UBS!!!

So that makes Polanski a Pawn Star.

 

[JamieBoy]

"So that makes Polanski a Pawn Star"

FAR too sharp for this place....

 

[HazelGod]

You mean that it is a quid pro quo so that they don't have to be too open about all those accounts?

I'm actually not sure what the quid would be...I presume that these actions by the Swiss are all part of the same recent arrangement.

 

[Drifterwood]

I'm actually not sure what the quid would be...I presume that these actions by the Swiss are all part of the same recent arrangement.

I am not so sure. Swiss Bankers would sell their mothers, so Polanski is a cheap price to pay for a few "exceptions" to the new spirit of openness.

I'd say that they would sell their fathers, but I doubt many know who they are.