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Everyone Cashes in on Polanski: DA, Directors, Victim, Governments

September 30, 2009

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ZURICH (RPRN) 09/30/09 — Vultures and doves circle frequent fleer Roman Polanski

By Jeffrey Jolson

Like the latest Hollywood hotspot, everyone is flocking to Club Polanski, though with differing agendas.

L.A. prosecutors planned Polanski arrest after learning he would be accepting award in Zurich

Director Roman Polanski is in Swiss custody and awaiting extradition to Los
Angeles after being arrested in Zurich in connection with his 1977 Los Angeles sex with a minor case.

Brett Ratner is producing a Roman Polanski movie. He is the director of X-Men: The Last Stand and the Rush Hour movies.

The film will be directed by Marina Zenovich, who directed Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired. The news that Ratner would be working on a film about the in-the-news-again Oscar-winning director of Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown was first reported in the New York Post.

Ratner also recently joined several other directors including Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese in signing a petition protesting Polanski’s arrest.

Film director Roman Polanski, arrested in Switzerland over a U.S. charge of having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977, will fight extradition to the United States, his lawyer said on Monday.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office learned last week that Polanski had plans to travel to Zurich this weekend, Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, told The Times.

Prosecutors sent a provisional arrest warrant to the U.S. Justice department
which presented it Swiss authorities.

Samantha Geimer said Polanski took topless pictures of her when she was 13, and the second topless photo shoot took place at Jack Nicholson’s house.

Polanski gave her a Quaalude and they had sex. In 2003 when “The Pianist” won, strongly felt “justice should be served.” In the years since the incident, she settled a civil suit with the director – and Geimer now says she has forgiven him.

Asked if prosecutors would ask Polanski be sentenced to time behind bars if he is returned to the U.S., Gibbons said, “We’ve always maintained this is a matter between Polanski and the court … We initially recommended prison time for him, but I can’t see into the future.”

Polanski’s lawyer is going to tke up the fight in Swtzerland, not California – if he can help it. “He is in fighting mood and determined to defend himself,” Herve Temime, Polanski’s lawyer, told France Info radio, adding his client was stunned by the arrest as he was a regular visitor to Switzerland, with a chalet at the ski resort of Gstaad.

“We have begun by requesting his release, which should be done today in principle,” Temime said. “There is no reason in law, or regarding the facts or in terms of the most basic justice to keep Roman Polanski a single day in prison.”

A Swiss justice ministry spokesman said it was theoretically possible that Polanski could be released on bail, although that was very unlikely. “The criteria for bail are very strict,” spokesman Guido Balmer said.

Meanwhile the question came up whether the director’s arrest had anything to do with the recent tax and banking negotiations with the Swiss and America. At stake is millions, perhaps billions in secret Swiss bank accounts held by Americans.

During a visit to Paris on Monday, Swiss Economy Minister Doris Leuthard said the country had no choice but to enforce an international arrest warrant against Polanski. He goes to Switzerland often and even keeps a ski chalet there. So why now?

“The Americans strongly believe that the arrest of Mr Polanski is necessary. That’s for them to decide. Switzerland is simply a state where the police functions and where we treat all people in the same way,” she told a news conference.

Leuthard rejected suggestions Berne had arrested Polanski to help patch up ties strained by a high-profile U.S. tax case against Swiss bank UBS, which agreed a settlement over charges it helped wealthy Americans stash assets in secret accounts.

“The two things have absolutely no connection,” she said, and when pressed on the timing of the arrest referred further questions to the Swiss Justice Department.

Swiss authorities have said that in the past they only heard about Polanski’s visits after he left the country.

Wearing red badges reading “Free Polanski,” the Zurich Film Festival jury accused Switzerland of “philistine collusion.”

“We hope today this latest order will be dropped. It is based on a three-decade-old case that is all but dead but for minor technicalities. We stand by and wait for his release and his next masterwork,” said jury president Debra Winger.

Other members of the movie profession including Italian actress Monica Bellucci, French actress Fanny Ardant, president of the Cannes film festival Gilles Jacob and Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai issued a petition demanding his immediate release.

Public opinion is divided. Responses to a Reuters blog on the Polanski arrest included those who opposed it as a waste of U.S. taxpayer money and people who supported the move.

“In my opinion it is totally right to arrest Mr. Polanski,” wrote Otto Meier. “What he has done is awful and needs to be atoned.”

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