Money Matters, Simplified.
Polanski's request to be sentenced in "absentia" denied
by Natalie James - January 23, 2010 - comments
Polanski had got some support from the victim in the case, Samantha Geimer, who was 13 at that time, after she requested for his release
Los Angeles, January 22 -- Film director Roman Polanski must return to California to be sentenced after a Los Angeles judge on Friday rejected the fugitive filmmaker’s request to be sentenced in his absence.
Earlier this month, the 76-year-old Polanski had requested a Los Angeles judge to sentence him in his absence for his 1977 guilty plea to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl.
Polanski fled the United States in 1978, after pleading guilty to his crime. Since then he has been living in France.
The Oscar-winning director currently remains under house arrest at his villa in the ski resort of Gstaad, Switzerland. He was fitted with an electronic bracelet by the Swiss authorities to keep him from running away, after being arrested in Zurich in September (09) on a U.S. warrant.
Last week, Los Angeles prosecutors opposed the fugitive film director’s request and urged a judge overseeing Polanski's more than three decades old child-sex case to reject his request to be sentenced while he remains under arrest in Switzerland.
Request rejected
On Friday, Judge Peter Espinoza of Los Angeles Superior Court rejected Polanski’s request to be sentenced in his absence, and instead ruled the director must return to the United States to be sentenced for having sex with a minor girl in 1977.
"I choose to insist that he appear," Espinoza said.
Espinoza said he would not sentence the director as long as he remained a fugitive. "I have made it clear he needs to surrender," he said. "Motion is denied."
Polanski's response to ruling
Meanwhile, Polanski's lawyers told reporters immediately after the hearing they plan to appeal the judge's decision.
“We will seek our remedies in the court of appeal,” Polanski’s lawyer Bart Dalton said after the hearing.
Victim in the case
Polanski had got some support from the victim in the case, Samantha Geimer, after she requested for his release. But, but Los Angeles prosecutors opposed the move.
At the Friday afternoon hearing, judge Espinoza also rejected Samantha’s request to have the case dismissed.
Samantha, now in her 40s and a married mother of three, came forward long ago, saying she was disturbed by how the criminal case has been handled.
"There is no requirement that my client surrender," Larry Silver, her lawyer, said. "Her suffering must come to an end."