THE COMMENTS to both the case-only and four-part TENANT OF CHINATOWN – HE SAID SHE SAID THEY SAID – AN OP END CASE ANALYSIS blogs – which one day (March 31st 2 AM to be precise) mysteriously vanished. Someone must be seriously panicking by now. If that’s not boycotting my findings and pro Polanski comments, I don’t know what is. But guess what? I copy/pasted them all into Word – to save them! Here they are – again! All 183 of them at that point in time, and then some! Besides – I get them as emails, so they won’t be lost anyhow!
FIND THE MAIN ARTICLES PART ONE HERE, PART TWO HERE, PART THREE HERE, PART FOUR HERE, AND THE SHORTER CASE-ONLY ANALYSIS HERE.
POST A NEW COMMENT WHERE YOU LIKE, AND LET’S SEE IF THEY WILL VANISH TOO ONE DAY. They will be added here once received and replied to. I will add the comments to ROMAN POLANSKI – THE LEWIS/VOGELHUT FILES concerning the latest ‘allegations’ of ‘sexual misconduct’ (found here) to these posts as well as they come in to preserve them. Find Part Two of the comments here and Part Three here.
Dana Mello
Posted December 1, 2009 at 12:13 AM
Thanks for the positive commentary on this particular case. The same as you, I feel that Polanski is being unjustly demonised in the media and ALL the facts need to be considered in the context of WHEN the events took place. I must say that; yes, all the facts you show are true/correct. Your presentation is somewhat colorful and some comments/quotes are paraphrased, but good job bringing it all together.
Novalis Lore In reply to Dana Mello
Posted December 1, 2009 at 1:32 AM
Thank you Dana. Indeed, I tried to bring in as many details/facts and most of all ‘thinking’ into this as possible, hence, length. But after all the over/reactionary vitriol and semi true accounts out there to paint it the crime of the century, I just needed to point people to the wider picture of this by now undoubtedly highly politicised and wilfully ‘abused’ case to make them see what is going on here. In my own admittedly ornate style and paraphrasing, just so to make it more poignant, since some need more than one reminder.
DeMoy In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted December 1, 2009 at 11:40 PM
This is indeed very extensive research delving into the case on a more critical level. I can only agree on the misplaced vindictiveness this case has endured so far, or Polanski. Your great effort demonstrates the vital need to see this in the then and now in more sociopolitical and juristic views. The slightly ironic tone in places and indeed repeat endeavours to point people to the key elements of this drama are well justified.
Novalis Lore In reply to DeMoy
Posted December 1, 2009 at 11:52 PM
Thank you DeMoy. I tried my best to keep it investigative, pointing to the discrepancies between key statements and findings. Indeed, had the case gone to trial, a competent judge had led a proper investigation, it would have been undoubtedly dismissed on these grounds, certain parties found guilty of perverting the course of justice and Polanski released after he had served his probation time, and none of the current very ugly ‘outcries’ would ever have been raised. They should never have accepted that plea bargain.
Samskara In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted January 1, 2010 at 8:58 AM
Novalis:
Thank you so very much for this well researched work. It should win a Pulitzer. I have never believed these charges from the day it was reported. As a victim of rape myself, I can tell you, one does not advocate for the full pardon of one’s rapist. It just isn’t done. One can forgive, if one can, but to campaign for a full clemency as Ms. Geimer has, just boggles my mind. Then her flip-flopping on the whole ‘he raped me, he didn’t rape me, he hurt me, he didn’t hurt me’ mantra has never sat well with me. And this continued Polanski vilification I’ve noticed first hand. One only has to go to Roman’s IMDB page message board to see the spectrum of stupidity his arrest has engendered. I’ve even been called a pedophile myself because I support him.
I have to say I saw that bit about the cops retrieving the panties after the event, but cannot remember where. I’ve been trying to find that factoid since Roman’s arrest, but couldn’t find the corroboration until reading it here. Thanks for that. I also thought it revelatory about the mother’s boyfriend and Samantha kanoodling in the prosecutor’s office. This confirms what I read about there being two men over the age of 18 she’d had sex or sexual relations with prior to the Polanski Affair.
To let you know, I’ve linked your blog on my blogroll here on my blog http://samskara.org/journal. Hope you don’t mind, but I truly think the more of us who reveal these things in the blogosphere, the more the truth will get out. Hopefully, it might make some difference.
Once again, thanks for the wonderful work you’ve done here. I’ll look forward to reading further commentaries.
Novalis Lore In reply to Samskara
Posted January 1, 2010 at 9:13 PM
I don’t mind at all, Samskara – thank you so much for a very positive reception of my efforts. It is very heartening, and just had to be done after all the mire of vitriol and falsehood, and I DID base my research on facts from several [more] reliable sources. It cannot be disseminated far and wide enough into the blogosphere for people to at least rethink. It’s not about me, the researcher, it’s about justice per se and [more] objective conclusions of this much maligned case. I watched it from day one, and long before that from the day of Tate’s murder, and I did and do NOT ever believe Polanski did what she said, only to waver in her words and try to have the case dismissed even more urgently than he did. I only hope he will NOT accept the offered deal to be sentenced in absentia, but to have a proper evidentiary hearing or even retrial if he withdraws his plea, to expose ALL the facts and find the perjuring party or parties. It would be unbearable if he could not ever exonerate himself that way. He still has time and the will to tackle this, but they cannot be allowed to get away with it. Rittenband had already. Thank you again.
Samskara In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted January 2, 2010 at 5:30 AM
You’re more than welcome Novalis. I’ve been with this case since it happened and I never, ever believed Roman was guilty. There was always something ‘wrong’ about Geimer, and after she came out in the 90s and I found out she received monies in a civil suit, I believed her even less.
And I agree with you when you say about the sanitization of the blogs out there when people take a more centre-line approach to this case. The ‘wait and see’ aspect. All those comments are deleted, or the mass attacks with the ‘you’re defending a baby rapist’. I’ve been called a female misogynist due to my defending Roman. Never mind the rule of law. Heck, what’s that?
I only hope Roman sees this site of yours. I really hope he does know how much we support him.
Novalis Lore In reply to Samskara
Posted January 2, 2010 at 6:05 AM
I gave up on posting on these irresponsible and reprehensible blogs or newspaper sites intent on smearing him relentlessly. Only the other day again, several comments of mine were deleted. It’s a losing battle and I hope they all will be sued at one point for extreme [racist] defamation. Or at least the bigger publications. And actually, I have sent my link to his friend B H Levy of Huffington Post, after he posted his thanks to his supporters in an open letter on his journal the other day. But I of course have no idea if he forwarded it, or if Polanski might do the same as I do, and gets daily Google alerts with any blogs/sites that carry his name. The hit and miss rate is too great, and I’m not too sure if he wants to read anything concerning himself – good or bad. But since he’s suing these magazines, I in fact saw too and the material in question was taken down, he might in fact. What else is there to do under house arrest, after he finished his film now, other than battle with the courts and be a prisoner in his own home.
As I said in my longer analysis, I think she was successful with her lawsuit after closer research now, and she certainly received more than enough other monies from her story, or later photoshoots. I don’t even begrudge her the money, only that she sued him and the way she earned the rest. One can almost say, she never came forward to harvest more of it, but that might be a case for libel – and with her direct campaign now to see this case closed, she of course would still be in the clear, and receive more. On his finally broken back.
It’s heartbreaking to watch what they’ve done to him through these decades. And it’s not over yet. I have no faith in justice.
Samskara In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted January 2, 2010 at 9:08 AM
I think for me, I will continue because the truth has to get out there. And hopefully, it MIGHT change a few minds. Maybe not the collective, but bring at least a modicum of understanding of this case’s intricacies. I’ve passed this page’s link onto many sites I visit regularly on this case. I hope you don’t mind? I’ve also accompanied the link with your little warning at the top about posting negative comments. But for the most part, I just want the TRUTH to get out there. It has to.
What bothers me the most is that others like actor Jeffrey Jones (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), Pete Townsend of The Who, R. Kelly and Rob Lowe who did that underage sex tape, aren’t treated this way. Look at Lowe, he’s been on two very successful series and as for Jones, he still receives praise for his work despite his conviction and registration on a sex offender registry. The only thing that Roman is technically to be ‘blamed’ for is the flight from sentencing. But in light of Rittenband’s persecution, how could one blame Roman?
I should tell you, I’ve been in touch with Richard Brenneman after reading his blog about Rittenband. I asked some other questions about him that I wanted some clarification on and what Brenneman told me was a little mind blowing. His proclivities toward younger women, not unlike Roman, might have flowed into girls as young as Geimer. Brenneman told me that he believed too that Rittenband was in his mind, a brilliant sociopath. I’m not sure how much that matters in this whole thing, but I thought I’d pass that onto you.
Another aspect of this whole thing is the lead detective on the case. None other than Phillip Vannatter of the OJ case. Interesting you should mention the collection of the panties after the ‘event’ and his allowing Samantha to go and get them herself. The very same Phillip Vannatter who failed to book a vial of OJ’s blood into Parker Centre, then carried it back to the crime scene on Rockingham to retrieve OJ’s NIKE runners, and let’s not forget that EDTA that just happened to get on the socks in OJ’s bedroom. Why mention all of this? Simple, that case rose or fell on the veracity of the investigators. Furhman was discredited, the DNA was questioned and the jury found enough wrong to bring about a not-guilty verdict. Now unlike Roman, OJ just couldn’t help himself. How does this all relate to Roman’s case?
To me if Vannatter and the panties can be discredited in terms of chain of custody, then the crux of the whole case evaporates. Why now can that DNA on those panties be typed? If it’s not Roman’s, which I doubt it is, it can be determined whose it is. If it belongs to the boyfriend of the mother, we have success. Why now hasn’t Hummel or Dalton asked to have a piece of that garment for typing? That in itself should be enough to clear Roman. As for bucal swabs of all involved and find out for sure who is the owner of that material. Heck, it was done with Monica Lewinsky, why not for this case? That is unless Vannatter did some hinky things with them to get that there. Why not get a sample from Vannatter himself? Richard Brenneman told me his impression of Vannatter was something akin to in his mind, he’s a supergod. So anything is possible.
Sorry this is so long, but I’m kind of trying to get things out of my head and someplace to force the questions to be asked. Bring them out. Not sure what you can find out about these things, but I just thought I’d share.
Take care.
Novalis Lore In reply to Samskara
Posted January 3, 2010 at 3:40 AM
Hell, no sweat, keep commenting, and disseminating my findings, please. I’m with you on others having done the same ‘openly’ and never were lynch mobbed, but then of course, no one cried [statutory] rape in these cases and are not ‘Polish’. I know Rittenband was into young flesh himself, since he had a twenty yr old partner while being in his seventies right then, and I read Brenneman’s blog. And I’m with you on Vannatter, he’s crooked and arrogant and was more than adamant to see Polanski behind bars, he’d done anything. I didn’t want to point too much to Vannatter in my blog, but he surely was out of order in several cases and so far got away with it, like slimy Wells. Rittenband didn’t allow the panties evidence for obvious reasons, but they equally could have helped the defence exactly because of it. Dalton tried to have them admitted as evidence but failed, and then the plea got in the way anyhow to bring forth any evidence that could have helped Polanski’s cause, like the clerk’s report of the two kanoodling in the prosecutor’s office.
Or of course, Huston’s statement Vannatter turned against her/him by that cocaine possession blackmail he damn sure had staged and is illegal anyway, though Dalton obviously would have objected to it and Huston most likely wouldn’t have testified ‘against’ him if it had come to actual cross-examination, she could have pled the fifth – and he also arrested Polanski against the attorney’s wishes. I’m certain that he knew the evidence was corrupted, but tried anyway, and to frame Polanski with it, though that failed with the plea too. Had Rittenband not tormented that rape victim days prior, Gunson might not have pressed for that plea bargain on Gailey’s behalf anyway. But of course, they only did so once they had no case of rape, despite, or of course because of the panties and the others’ statements, and she’d been shredded by pompous Rittenband. If only they had not.
Unless someone vamoosed the panties, they should still be there to do DNA testing on them – and as I said in my blog, ‘it [only] permits prosecution of unlawful sex within one year of the date on which the identity of the suspect is conclusively established by DNA testing or within ten years of the offence,’ after which the statute of limitations kicks in and nothing moves anymore. But that doesn’t seem to apply to any ‘fugitive doctrine’. Obviously then they didn’t have DNA testing, but now after three decades, they cannot retry him without doing so [within a year] – by retesting the panties – since they know it was him with her, and they have him pinned down anyway. Even if they were her panties, he said he never ejaculated over or inside her to get his semen anywhere on them, and as I said, some ‘image’ sources claimed they were found inside the crotch essentially, leaked from her vagina. The semen cannot ever be his, her panties were nowhere near them while having sex, she undressed by the Jacuzzi in another room – her own boyfriend’s, her mother’s boyfriend or anyone else’s, but not his.
Polanski cannot be ‘cleared’, as such, since he admitted sleeping with her, which is still a [more than pointless] ‘crime’, but medical evidence then already discredited rape/sodomy, and it is in fact crucial that the case not be closed on grounds of more transgressions etc., but to bring in more evidence/statements and expose all these lies. And if they were never her panties, so much the better – or worse – coz then it’s even more deliberate planting of false evidence, by her, unwittingly or not, or most likely Vannatter, and all they needed then was semen, and/or saliva, no one could be sure of to whom it belonged. We had enough cases of such weak ‘evidence’ that much later found someone guilty, or indeed innocent through DNA testing. Since Roman was not American, the chance that his DNA profile would match anyone in the US is highly unlike, since, in 300 million US people there are 60 people who would in fact match the same profile. So there is zero chance for that.
I always argued that they wasted their time to have this case dismissed instead of going full reverse and demand a retrial – but of course that was impossible without Polanski back in the US and behind bars he’d probably not survived, unless on secure remand like in Zurich the US couldn’t guarantee. Now he even could withdraw his plea and have an evidentiary hearing and I doubt the Swiss will extradite him. I’m sure Dalton & Co gave them enough to think about to take their time, and after more and more judicial mess is being uncovered by the US judges already, the US courts cannot simply close the case. Unless of course they want to see it go away the same, like her, without prosecuting the surviving offenders and create more mess to cover up the old mess. They claim to seek the integrity of the law implemented and/or restored, but are mighty open to Polanski’s ‘cause’ suddenly – i.e. ditch the ‘fugitive disentitlement doctrine’ they so adamantly applied before, even offering him to suddenly commute his jail times spent, when the psyche evaluation couldn’t in fact be used as punishment/sentence. I truly hope he won’t accept it – since for one, most will keep thinking he got away with once he’s freed, did it, is whatever they call him, without ever exonerating himself and be declared innocent of these five counts, but withdraw his plea and demand a retrial, so all the others will get their deserved punishment. Other than ’sociopath’ Rittenband, or even her father, who died only some years back and surely knew she told porkies. Shame. Gailey was three-times divorced already then and hardly end thirties. No wonder the girl never had any proper supervision or father figure, while mom desperately tried to get [her] into the biz.
Did you know that the entire case files went kissing one day? They had to be recreated page by page, and I sure as hell believe it was Rittenband who took it – or certain DA['s] or cop[s] – to hide the truth and what really happened and their own part in it. Unfortunately Polanski never had the court files sent to himself as was offered for his records, or we’d have a proper/original copy of it all, and his (and Huston’s etc.) full statements, which are greatly missing on that ‘gun’ website proudly showing only Geimer’s oh so harrowing account to make us [prejudicially] retch. One can only hope that Dalton checked on the correctness of it all, or has his own records, or we might find things that weren’t there before, or of course were conveniently omitted. They should bring in Gunson for the defence, since he already helped with the dismissal attempts, or even Dalton, and let Hummel and the rest play defence DA. Cooley is no match for them and is over his arrogant head already anyway.
So yeah, if Polanski is clever, he’ll not go for any new deal, but demand [his] justice. I wished I could in fact tell him not to, but there’s always the good old fashioned mail to write him a letter as long as he’s at his Milky Way. Or for anyone in the US, to Dalton @ 128 Fremont Pl, Los Angeles, CA 90005-3867. He cannot allow his children to bear his vilified legacy, only to find themselves fighting for his destroyed reputation even further down the road unable to puzzle all this mess back together, with more and more pieces missing over the passage of time. Or people. Dalton is already eighty. Now is the time – Polanski still got a few years to go and should do that as his last big effort. He might be immune to his continuous abuse, but his family should not bear the same burden.
At this point he’s a political pawn playing ping pong with him for several parties’ own ends, and made an absolutely disgraceful example of. If the [good] powers that be will be more auspicious this year, he might finally get a break – but with his [extremely bad] luck, probably not. Unless he starts fighting for himself, not keep ignoring his fate.
Lidia Corbis In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted January 3, 2010 at 5:37 AM
Oh, God, this is a great job. You have done extensive research and you have good law knowledge. Your thinking is superior. What I can say, when I finished reading this I just cried.
So, I have escaped communist Poland like Polanski years ago – to have this. I can’t accept that. It’s about justice-most important thing for every citizen of every country.
If Roman Polanski is still today in the same situation he was some thirty years ago, it’s not his fault but corrupt American justice.
My husband always says: “I like to read history books, because there is a pattern to historical cycles; lots of historical events will be repeated, so I can predict what will happen in the future”.
The same in this case: Roman Polanski is again in the same situation or worst he was some 30 years ago. Again today all kinds of political and law manipulations are taking place in front of our eyes.
I have also posted pro Polanski comments on various newspaper articles and they were deleted.
Nothing is more anarchical than lynch mob, which is accumulating, absorbing, reiterating, making big pile of multiplied, exaggerated nonsense’s.
That is live fire in dynamic and erratic form, is an extreme destiny and an explosion.
You will not be able to extinguish it, to stop it, to explain things; Mob lynch is cataclysm, earthquake, tsunami. We are powerless with such forces.
I do not want to live in a Country where lynch mob is used as a substitute for justice.
To the lynch mob: do not shout behind my back… go back to your country!
I will go back to my country; I have enough of everything here.
I hope this case will be dismissed soon, so Roman can come back free to America to see the tomb of his unborn child.
Novalis Lore In reply to Lidia Corbis
Posted January 3, 2010 at 8:34 AM
Thank you for your support in this effort, Lidia. You’re quite right in your outrage – and how certain blogs only allow for hateful voices. It is an orchestrated witch-hunt at this stage, nothing more. There’s no intelligent will to allow for innocent until proven guilty concerning the five other counts by the ignorant public, because he pleaded to one of the counts. If this case gets dismissed, or his jail times commuted, people will keep thinking that these counts are facts, despite evidence pointing to the contrary on each. They really should have a proper trial, or at least evidentiary hearing, to give him the chance to allow for all evidence, old and new. The lynch mob fortunately has not the upper hand, even if it might appear so, mostly online, where the anonymity makes them brave to slander anyone, since all the more moderate voices are suppressed or not known, heard. Many keep quiet not to suffer the same abuse, and only time will tell if they will prevail. Justice too often, comes too late, and Polanski might be too old by now to find it. I’m a pessimist in these things, not to be too disappointed when justice once again was beaten by more corruption or hatred. Polanski will never return to the States even if they declared him innocent, a free man, welcome again, it had caused him too much pain. He should never have returned after Sharon’s death – or he’d never met Geimer.
Samskara In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted January 3, 2010 at 10:16 AM
My belief here is that IF Roman is cleared, I think he might return if only to finally say goodbye to Sharon. It was so ironic that he went to her grave on the eighth anniversary of her death on the very day he was going to plead guilty to the one charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. I personally think this might be the reason such dignitaries like Martin Scorsese, Darren Aronofsky, Stephen Soderbergh and others signed the petition… and haven’t removed their names. There might be the slim chance that Roman might still have a place in that community. Interestingly, they love a ‘come-back’ story. Look at Hugh Grant. And had he not returned, there would have been no “Chinatown”. What kind of shame would that be?
Novalis Lore In reply to Samskara
Posted January 3, 2010 at 12:36 PM
I’m sure these people know better to stand behind him, and not like many believe just because they’re from the same Hollywood camp, but know him personally. I’m sure he always had a place in that community, since everybody knew of the case, it was never a secret, and they obliviously had more faith in his version. And true, had he stayed away, no masterpiece Chinatown, but also no master disaster Geimer, or at least had Vogue not asked him for another feature of nubile girls from around the world. I own the 1976 Polanski Vogue with Kinski, and had Gailey not called rape, Geimer would have been in the next edition. Shame too she never was.
Samskara In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted January 3, 2010 at 10:08 AM
Novalis:
I’ve been thinking of a way to get this information out to the widest possible viewership. What I’m thinking is making some kind of video to put on Youtube summarizing the case and Rittenband’s conduct. Zenovich didn’t cover a lot of the information you have here, which I’m surprised at. But I was wondering if you could send me via email, a summary of the main points or whatever you think might be pertinent to this case? I have an account on YT and would upload it there in order to get the maximum viewership. What do you think?
Love the new layout.
Novalis Lore In reply to Samskara
Posted January 3, 2010 at 1:25 PM
I only chose the new layout, since I never realised that the old one showed the public comments in grey on black. Not very helpful, since I get them as black on white edits. Zenovich wasn’t intent on doing a complete ‘exoneration’ of him, and he refused to participate, or people might have thought it a new plea for his innocence. But Geimer seems to have been quite happy to get more money for it. It only focuses on the judicial side of it, and that of course triggered many a renewed interest of various colourings before his arrest already – good and bad, official and judicial. She had unwittingly set the ball into play to investigate deeper, and much good came from it. And much evil too. I tried to contact her, since she in fact sat in on the Dec 10th hearing and said to follow the case much more seriously now for a later documentary, thinking like me, that an evidentiary hearing would be the next best step, but I cannot find a direct contact address to see to that. She might in fact do the same as I did, research it all properly, or concentrate on the legal side again only. She has much better resources to bring in more footage and access court records etc. – And YT, dunno. I saw so much self-righteous anti Polanski crap there it’s mindboggling. You’re welcome to take from my blog what you need to edit it into a script, or ask me of other relevant things I didn’t include, though I keep adding little bits here and there, or polish up the wording. The fact that we both have come to the same conclusions, like many others if not to that extent, shows that our perceptions of this case are identical. I don’t have a YT account, but if you’re on Facebook, you can find me, and we can exchange contact details.
http://www.facebook.com/NovalisLore
I’m set to private, so you’d need to ask me to befriend you. I’m with other serious Polanski supporters there, and the Dank Professor.
LT In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted January 6, 2010 at 6:19 PM
Novalis Lore, your article made a huge impression on me. I have read a lot of analyses and comments re Roman Polanski and you seem to me the only person who researched the whole issue carefully, taking into account every doubt and circumstance. Chapeau bas. I’ll contact you on Facebook, if you don’t mind. Cheers.
Novalis Lore In reply to LT
Posted January 6, 2010 at 7:13 PM
Please do, LT – and thank you for your kind acknowledgement of my efforts. I’ll keep an eye out for you on FB.
Hturteligarf In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted January 9, 2010 at 6:15 PM
I don’t think that I, personally, can say much to benefit this cause or to add to it in any way…but since justice is no laughing matter, and yet this whole matter thus far has been so ridiculous, I have to stand behind this cause. Before I saw this blog, I had never, ever seen anything like this of its kind. You would expect to see this sort of effort in more private, official documentation, and maybe that’s why people aren’t actively seeking it. I guess it’s just the nature of the beast, and yet the unawareness of the availability of info on Polanski thanks to public experts like “Novalis Lore” is detrimental to the public. You just don’t expect to see the more serious stuff in a venue that sports mostly entertainment (to quote an unfortunate song, “The internet is for porn”). I must confess that I was, in no way, looking for such a case for Polanski out there, least not on the internet, until someone shook me awake and directed me to this blog. Research and devotion like this might be able to make the dream of the whole world teaming up on the internet for justice a real possibility! The precision and detail of “Novalis Lore” decisively threatens all negative press and bogus cases on Polanski. I’m sure it’s hard for a lot of people to imagine, but the efforts and wisdom of Novalis Lore makes the writer a true savior of the times; we wish Novalis were in a real position for judging!
It’s depressing how fanatical America is (Polanski’s demonization can be a paragon, symptomatic example), and it may take no less than the whole world (on the world wide web, perhaps?) to spank this toddler nation. We’ve seen how much terrible, suicidal pain the silly Toddler has caused a good man who evoked a realistic view of humanity and could have encouraged a more realistic and therefore better handling of life. So for all of us who share in his lucid view and this pain over injustice, we wish for a quick turnaround. And I’m very excited about this blog, because to me, Novalis’s work is the speediest, most direct path to this point that I have ever seen officially or unofficially published. To humanity, and to its justice!
Samskara In reply to hturteligarf
Posted January 10, 2010 at 5:18 AM
hturteligarf:
This is the reason NL’s work has to be distributed to as many places as we can get it out to. So far, the Polanski vigilantes all think we who support Polanski are doing so because we are supporters of pedophilia. It doesn’t matter how many times we tell them we’re not, that doesn’t matter to them. They have to be right. Full stop!
I’ve posted the link to this work on so many sites, I’ve lost track. But the important thing though, is that it gets out to the widest possible view. Roman’s TRUTH has to be revealed.
As for what you said about America being a ‘toddler’ nation, I couldn’t agree more. The actor Brian Cox (“Deadwood”, “X2: X-Men United”, “Zodiac”) had this to say about America while as a guest on PBS’ Charlie Rose show: “America is still a very puritanical country. And it is also an adolescent country. And what happened with Clinton I thought, “Wow! That’s really interesting. Finally, puberty has happened.” Finally, you get a blow-job on the air and in the Oval Office. I mean, sex has arrived. In America, sex has arrived! And all young countries go through that. You have to go through your period of puberty. Now we’re in the adolescent period. And now we’re in the period where the kid goes out and crashes the car. And that is part of America’s dilemma. And you can’t help that. That’s to do with youth. It’s the growing up process. ”
It fits so well with what you just said. Right now, America is just discovering sex. It has its hands over its ears, eyes clenched shut trying to ignore the bad stuff, yet it loves to writhe in it. Yet this ‘toddler nation’ as you called it, is so steeped in the Cult of Death, it doesn’t know what to do with itself on a quantum level.
And I agree with what you said about NL’s work. I found out some things here I hadn’t known about the case, specifically concerning Samantha and her mother’s boyfriend. Interesting find that one.
Novalis Lore In reply to Samskara
Posted January 10, 2010 at 9:25 AM
Thank you again, Samskara. Charlie Rose once interviewed Polanski not so very long ago, and he asked him if he might ever come back to the States, to address the matter in hand, and Polanski only looked at him, saying, perhaps, and one could see that he wanted to tell him what really happened, and, added, that the media is ruling the justice system in the States, not justice per se, and that he would never receive a fair trial. As we saw it happening with Rittenband then, with Fidler later who offered to commute his time spend but only if televised and Polanski back in their hands, or maybe even with Espinoza, which all had destroyed him twice over – once after Tate’s murder, and again after, or because of, Geimer.
The extradition treaty between the US and Switzerland leaves it up to the discretion of the Swiss whether to extradite if a detainee’s original sentence was less than six months, which it is in Polanski’s case since he was supposed to do three months, then was released after half that, despite the evaluation period to be precluded to serve as punishment and/or sentence. If Espinoza rejects Hummel’s brief to explain why he should be sentenced in absentia due on the 15th, which then can be appealed against by the DA by the 19th, after which Espinoza makes his final decision on the 22nd, or not, and everything will go back to square one, or if he wants to either sentence him for longer, which I doubt, Polanski’s team can in fact appeal against again, or have the case reopened [if Polanski withdraws his plea], which no one wants, with all the pressure back on the Swiss, which I also doubt will extradite him. It’s one big mess ever since Rittenband played his own game with his legal staff, and Polanski at the receiving end.
Samskara In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted January 10, 2010 at 12:03 PM
NL:
I agree with everything you stated here. What I’d like to know is, Espinoza has said he is under no inclination whatsoever to follow the higher court’s direction. Even though they did in fact, spell out the ‘solution’ to this case…ergo, the sentencing in absentia. Certainly, not the solution you’d like to see him take, but given he does have Emmanuelle, Morgane and Elvis to think about, I’d say it’s pretty much up to him. Or at least it should be as for how he feels the best ’solution’ should be. Though I do agree with the fact that I’d love it if Roman fought the charges. I think if there were no Emmanuelle and the kids, he likely would.
I’m wondering though, there’s plenty of time between now and the hearing on the 22nd, I’ve found that Morgane Polanski has a twitter page. I’m not sure if this is the way to go because I’m not sure how much Roman has told the children about this case, but I’m debating as to whether or not to point her to this page and pass it off to her father. First of all, the research you’ve put into it, plus the fact that it does have vital information Hummel and Dalton could put before the court.
I’m not sure what to do.
Novalis Lore In reply to Samskara
Posted January 10, 2010 at 1:47 PM
I doubt it is really her – and I for one would not risk it, since it could be anyone no matter she looks her age. But what she writes sounds less than genuine to be her. She’s in Switzerland not Paris, Seigner took the kids out of school while all this is going on, and she sure as hell would have a few haters by now to content with and not just a few odd tweets. Don’t trust that Twitter person to be her, she doesn’t sound ‘concerned’ enough or talks about her father etc., and wouldn’t in fact write in English first of all – she’s French. I doubt it’s her. Don’t bother with her.
His kids know exactly what happened – he never made any secrets of anything and he never lied to them about it or anything else. I’m sure Polanski’s team have all the relevant details I included at any rate and Espinoza was presented with all there is, just like the others in Switzerland. Since it seems they’re not intent on having another trial with a potential witness missing any day to conclude this, they have to prepare their brief as to why they should sentence him in absentia by the 15th at any rate first, and then go from there. As much as I hate to see it end like this, Polanski seems intent on passive surrender, and from his perspective, he just wants to be done with it, free of the legal system, free to go where he pleases and continue to work. He can only do so if he finally is sentenced and freed, otherwise this will drag on and on and causes only more pain. A renewed trial would cost the state easily 2 million dollar, and even if he carried some of the costs once over, he’s not that rich to lose more money – rather than use it more creatively. He’s an artist who needs his art, and to get his bail bond back first of all to create more movies. I myself would go full counter attack and withdraw my plea to have a retrial, but then I’m not quite his age and must provide for a family and many people dependant on him working in the film industry. I only wonder what will happen to his lifetime achievement award they wanted to give him, but maybe that was a ruse to get him to Zurich, wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Novalis Lore In reply to hturteligarf
Posted January 10, 2010 at 7:55 AM
Thank you ‘fragiletruth’ – which I think is your nom de plume backwards. You’re right, the US most of all, regarding any western country, is still stuck in their puritanical settlers’ ‘ideals’ who came from Europe of how to ‘mis/handle’ the most basic right to our [private] sexual behaviour and most of all how to punish it regardless of age and, yes, sex, instead of promoting a healthy attitude and freedom of ‘choice’ between the age groups, and most of all teaching safe sex. Of course, there must be a cut-off point when young is too young, or we reach into muddy waters and exploitation and abuse is rife no matter the gender. But in regards to this case, we cannot ever tackle it in today’s terms and views, laws and most of all fanatical small-mindedness still, or even more so rampant in the US than ever before for reasons given. Of course, if one says this, the [sex and Polanski] haters will accuse us of feeling we’re superior to the US ‘morale’, but in the same breath expect us to accept their high and mighty sexually repressed attitudes in return. This is a tragic tale of not two cities, but two different cultures and unlike eras, social status quo and broken laws which are not compatible as an interchangeable sign of our times, but theirs alone we cannot judge from today’s standpoints, or the girl’s age, nor the man’s age.
What I personally think of this case in regards to her allegations is irrelevant – I’m just a voice for many to highlight major flaws in her story, and to seek justice per se, and that there are always two sides of any story, if not three in regards to hard physical evidence which can only support one side, which must be allowed, which must be analysed to its full potential to form an objective opinion, to give the accused his right for defence which was blatantly denied, resulting in decades of more judicial ignorance to correct any of it. I believe I have achieved to address these points with my extensive research to rethink very hard, and not blindly believe someone purely for her ‘age’, and disregard the man’s side for his very own and his ‘power’ status. Since this is what it comes down to, the huge age gap between the two concerned and the power differentials, while others find no such condemnation. Unless they’re students and professors. And to round up my comment on this, I will link to someone who has done his own extensive research into sexuality dynamics per se since decades, and a little in regards to the case Polanski.
http://dankprofessor.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/polanski-defenders-and-rape-baiting/
Samskara In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted January 10, 2010 at 12:42 PM
NL:
I’ve related my story about my own rape here:
http://samskara.org/journal/2009/10/14/polanski-no-hard-feelings-pt-2/ …
I should sit down and write the follow-up to it. That is that after that experience at 13, the following year when I turned 14, I began a relationship with a man who was 50. He was the father of my brother’s fiancée, not the best thing to do, but it was my CHOICE to begin the relationship. I knew what could happen to him should what we were doing be discovered, and I did everything I could to protect him. Why? The relationship belonged to ME. It was MINE, and no one had the right to tell me after what happened to me the year before, it didn’t.
It’s so amazing to me how many try to impose their ‘up right’ attitudes on sex to situations that don’t belong. I grew up during that period of Samantha Geimer’s generation. We’re the same age. I knew plenty of so-called ‘girls’ who were discovering their sexuality and the power of it. They were going after their friends’ fathers and after teachers. One friend of mine actually wrote a letter to our marketing teacher in high school, telling him what she wanted to do to him with regards to sex.
There was a permissiveness back then that no one will understand. The film “The Ice Storm” with Keven Kline and Sigourney Weaver is so indicative of the atmosphere back then. It cannot be ‘cleaned up’ due to today’s senses. One cannot retroactively indict a culture based on sexual repressiveness today. One simply cannot do it. Those very same people that are trying to indict Roman Polanski, are the very same ones who went through the sixties on flower power, through to sexual liberation of the 70s, then went on to become Reganites in the 80s, then god fearing idiots of the 90s. Now they’re the ones sitting with their collective blinders as to what is going on today, allowing for the rise of the Bush/Cheney model for the New World Order.
Roman Polanski should not be the scapegoat for their flaws and their errors of character. Yet he is. This isn’t about what he did or didn’t do. This is about turning a blind eye to what is happening in their own country, and Roman Polanski has become the proverbial foreign enemy as if he’s some kind of sexual terrorist. Just ridiculous.
Novalis Lore In reply to Samskara
Posted January 10, 2010 at 2:11 PM
I read your blog the other day and left my comment there too – on your profile page, and was waiting for the follow up. Your own story only highlights the flaws in this law, and what it forced people to do to evade it, with the state prying into our bedrooms, while rape or sexual abuse can be proven otherwise. In regards to your reminder of the different times and attitudes, you’re right with your recollections and analogies, but the actual haters of today are not really those who were there, since the case was never a secret, bar to those not alive then, those self-righteous know nothings and overzealous moralists not half his age who have no firsthand experience of then, or will to inform themselves better in general to understand this case, not only in its cultural and sociopolitical differences, but both sides. Polanski is a political pawn of today’s over-PC and ultra feminist times as the easier ‘family value’ target, the famous director who dared sleep with a minor like everyone else did, and still do but no one cares about, rather than lock up real rapists and paedophiles, let alone any other much more dangerous criminals or terrorists. He is being attacked and prosecuted by today’s people and lawmakers who didn’t even realise what the case was all about, or of its plenty judicial improprieties, only now slowly getting the idea of what scope it is, having to rethink and readjust their own learned attitudes and make better law than their predecessors before any punishment. We’ll just have to wait and see what Espinoza decides, and I doubt it will be any more jail time.
Serenada
Posted January 27, 2010 at 7:10 AM
You’re quite correct with your last remark on your blog (and all else in fact); what gives people the right to blindly judge and invalidate the words of those who know and support him, being so adamant to think they know better. I seriously doubt his friends and family are all in denial or prone to ‘rationalise’ his act of now thirty-three years ago by explaining how it was then and what they believe he is, or not. It’s not their business or to reject their belief that it wasn’t rape, especially after no one else came forward to cry rape, which alone should make them rethink. I admit, it wasn’t too clever to sleep with her being underage, but as far as I [still] see it, she gave him all the signals to ‘let him’, only to cry rape and sodomy afterwards for [still very] dubious reasons, and then progressively went back on her words in her later, increasingly inconsistent interviews to ‘put the records straight’ in subtle ways that even came to match his own version in part suddenly, and that it wasn’t rape after all, without seriously perjuring herself. I followed this drama from day one, being in my late forties, and already then I simply didn’t believe her all too implausible accusations, only to contradict herself over time if one compares all her interviews she suddenly gave compared to her original testimony, and the only thing she [still] insists on at the end of the day, is that it wasn’t consensual, which I highly doubt was the case either.
It’s interesting to see how the times’ attitudes have markedly changed, and how she first was accused of being this Lolita who had entrapped him, with her mother’s ‘permission’, or not, [both] out to gain fame, which no doubt was the case since he would have given them the right start and was the whole idea of their arrangement, to later being ignored in her gaining support of him, forgiving him, saying all sorts of things in his favour. This of course, is downright rejected by people of today, thinking her corrupted and whatnot, now that it doesn’t fit into their picture of him being this rapist and absurdly made paedophile, after they never even knew of the case, to suddenly being this ‘victim’ of the brutal director predator as an adult woman, seeing her as this ‘child’ suddenly. It’s a distorted sign of our times regarding this in today’s terms, unable to realise the drastic [socio-political] changes, and anyone who wasn’t there, simply has no idea what happened in the Seventies. Now they believe her simply for her having been that young, while then she wasn’t believed exactly for the same reason. I doubt they were wrong then. Apart from a few details new to me, I am aware of the case as you unravelled it, and of course all the distorted ‘versions’ of it. Your analytical findings are the only ones that make any sense.
While then the media was hounding them both, today they only hound and demonise him to death, denying him his ‘male’ voice of defence outright, studiously omitting anything that could seriously jeopardise her ‘victim’ version, like the medical evidence, or of course, her own words of support to see this ended. All those who support him, but keep quite, simply do so because of the changed attitudes they’re firm part of now, just like he and they were part and parcel of the times then, or would be attacked the same and lose face, unless they’re brave and couldn’t care less, or of course, cannot debate the case while an ongoing court case. Those [unknowns] who blindly, or those [well-known figures] who publicly attack him, do so for either exactly that, or simply racist and or hypocritical reasons, now that their own attitudes have evolved with the more child abuse aware and feminism-heavy times, and cannot condone underage sex anymore. True, but while it still is happening right now, on a consensual or forced level and always will, Polanski is made the proverbial and very easy target scapegoat of this sweeping reform and r-evolution, while others see no such condemnation, which is simply unacceptable. Let alone all the disgraceful judicial improprieties of then, no one had bothered to correct since over three decades now, and no on seems to care about, today, either.
Novalis Lore In reply to Serenada
Posted January 27, 2010 at 8:47 AM
You’re very astute to realise that is what it boils down to, Serenada – exactly what you touched on, so there’s not much I can add in fact, except to thank you for bringing it to the attention of the wider audience, again, and for your diligent contribution.
Schlumpf In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted February 4, 2010 at 3:39 AM
Well, that pretty much debunks everything she had accused him of – the illogical ‘fear’, the unlikely ‘rape’, the more than dubious double sodomy I never believed from day one, all of it. All you present here makes perfect sense once chewed over and considered logically, after all we had was the same old ‘indictment’ drivel and her, ‘he did this and that’ old grand jury testimony, and nothing of what he did, or not. I always found the current media reports very one-sided and highly biased, downright nasty in places, and incorrect in certain key and legal points. And then of course no one ever knew of her later ‘campaigning’ and inconsistent interviews to know better.
I saw that documentary and several of his and her interviews over the last years, after she came out to publicly ‘forgive’ him, in essence dug it all up again. But it just didn’t feel right and I wondered why she ever bothered after all this time. But of course, she was afraid he might be dragged back into court, and this time she’d not be able to say I don’t wanna testify or be cross-examined. One big mess the whole thing, political cannon fodder for the lynch-happy public, and of course only now we have the finally exposed disgraceful judicial misconduct of ‘sociopath’ Rittenband, and then some. I fully hold her mother responsible for his downfall, and her daughter’s coached fantasies, and of course that Nazi judge having finally broken him with his own ‘cat and mouse’ game.
You’ve got it all down neatly from the very case details, to anything relevant on a sociopolitical level which is so important to remember, to the current state of very sad affairs. Much of what you undug was news to me, and I had no idea about all the legal issues. I never really believed he did all that after all these years with no one else having cried rape, it just didn’t make any sense. I feel so sorry for the man. And you’re right, it’s all just a political witch hunt by now, with idiot Cooley having done more damage to it all than Espinoza seems intent on mending. They’re all the same, then and now. Polanski doesn’t stand a chance of fairness in this day and age of hysterical child protection agendas and right-wing politics in general.
I like his films, knew of his terrible wife’s murder and all, and always found it most dubious and disgusting that they singled him out to be demonised so terribly ever since. But we all know why, and you made that more than clear in your microanalysis of this terribly distorted case, which is not only that, but the very bible of the tragic Polanski saga. Shame no one relevant knows of it. Especially those blind haters who have zero insight or brains to stop and question her never impugned allegations. Or their own alarming willingness to condemn someone so quickly simply for who he is.
Novalis Lore In reply to Schlumpf
Posted February 4, 2010 AT 8:55 am4
Thank you for calling my analysis to expose the nitty gritty details of this much maligned and abused case, the bible of this indeed tragic saga. I have nothing much to add to your correct assessment of the situation, Schlumpf, which is as you said, very sad. He is indeed a political pawn of incompetent Cooley, with Espinoza stringing him along just the same. I see no justice in any of it, while war criminals go free, murderers and terrorists, real rapists and paedophiles are doing untold damage right now. It’s a disgusting charade, a disgusting power game, a disgusting race game, a disgusting money game. The usual. Nothing has changed in all these years, only the names.
Samskara In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted February 4, 2010 at 1:10 PM
Oh, but, but, but NL, don’t you know Roman Polanski is the worst of the worst of all the baby rapists in the whole wide world? He doesn’t deserve any empathy for what he went through as a child or what happened to his pregnant wife. He did this inexcusable thing and anally raped and drugged up that poor, poor, poor unsuspecting girl. He procured her, got her away from her sainted mother and then had his venal way with her. What kind of a piece of excrement is he?
Of course, the above paragraph is the most stated misinformation of this whole case. No one wants to learn the truth of it all. Roman Polanski is worse than Charles Manson and Adolf Hitler doncha know? He, according to most, is nothing more than a pedophile the truth be damned. No one cares about that rarest of all breeds, the truth. Point these candy chewing children to the truth and they suddenly go all catatonic. Most of them don’t even read the truth because it flies in the face of what they’ve been told by a lazy press who refuses to print/air the truth. They seem to like their version of THEIR truth, not what the FACTS or the true TRUTH is of what happened. And I’m reminded of something that actor Ian McShane (Al Swearengen of “Deadwood” and King Silas Benjamin of “Kings”) said: “I no longer watch aired news. So much of it is just two or three second sound bites that bear little to the truth of what is actually happening out there. I prefer to read, but I read many papers, magazines etc because somewhere between the many things I do read, lies the truth…if you dare to look or want to look.” Then there’s the quote from “Deadwood” creator David Milch I happen to agree with wholeheartedly, “History is a lie agreed upon.” The one’s or the victors write the truth to be told, not the actual truth of what DID happen. Seems laziness is part and parcel of our times. The truth is a casualty of our need to dumb down on society to make them blind sheeple.
Thank the gods there is the internet where exposes like this one can be found and people can discover the truth. On some of the message boards where I post, I’ve seen a few people starting to question the ‘real’ story. It may only be one or two, but the questions are being asked about this case. Comments like Schlumpf’s are refreshing to read. Seems there are some who are having difficulties accepting the ‘reported’ facts of this case. If you’ve done anything, you’ve put those doubts into some minds willing to open up. Congratulations.
Samskara In reply to Schlumpf
Posted February 4, 2010 at 1:17 PM
Schlumpf:
That’s always been the problem I’ve had too with this case. Her inconsistent stories of fear and then the blasé, “Oh, it can all go away….” If she were truly a victim of rape, no amount of money, passage of time, nor need for publicity can make it all go away. Certainly the physical and forensic proof of no rape isn’t enough to sway anyone bent on making Roman Polanski some kind of whipping boy for all that is wrong with the 21st Century. Nope, not even a well thought-out and researched document such as what NL has put together here will change any of the stalwarts bent on painting Roman as some kind of pervert. And that truly is sad. They have one perceived view of him and that’s it. I know I’m not the blogmaster here, but I want to thank you for your comment.
Novalis Lore In reply to Samskara
Posted February 4, 2010 at 4:42 PM
Feel free to comment however you want Samskara, some commentators might not return, some might. Of course, only truly blind people will never be able to give his side any credit, but they’d do so in general and are beyond help. And to them I’d say, I hope that someday someone will accuse you of something horrible, and no one is interested in your side, your life, your pain, your despair, that you will be condemned without trial, without the slightest mercy, without any sympathy, without any voice of defence, guilty as charged, by a racist lawmaker and lynch mob out for your blood. I doubt anyone would want that.
Mea Culpa In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted February 5, 2010 at 10:31 PM
What I love best is this idiotic blanket repetition: ‘Polanski took nude photos of the resisting girl (‘resisting’?) after giving her champagne and Quaaludes, and then raped and sodomized her.’
Why does everyone take this as an irrefutable ‘fact’? Because she said so then? Don’t make me laugh. I thought he took photos of her several times first clothed, and she certainly didn’t show any ‘resistance’ as opposed to, yeah I wanna get into the movies he can arrange for me. Then they had a drink she could have refused, then she took the Q she could have refused, then she let herself be seduced by him, instead of really doing what she claimed she had, tell him off! But then, lo and behold cried rape and sodomy the next day and said she was afraid of him the whole time? Huh? And then they suddenly press for that pleas bargain. Huh!? Didn’t think that one through did they, no medical evidence, no case. The Grand Jury must have been idiots not to see through her oh so innocent lies. She couldn’t have fooled me.
Why does everyone blame only him for this tragedy? For who he was then, who people think he is now, what they rather believe him to be than he really was or is? Taking her later increasingly supportive actions and ‘views’ of today, she clearly was complicit in the whole thing, from the photos to the booze to the drugs and the sex, let alone her ambitious bit-part actress mother. First, she painted the events in the most lurid details, then it suddenly never was like that, and then she said it was blown out of all proportions – sorry, did I miss something? SHE accused him of the most terrible things a man can ever face, the lusting public went berserk already then, and now even more to the point of brain-dead lynching! It’s HER doing! And that of the Nazi judge at the end of the day, obviously, forcing him to escape the escalating madness. But that’s just another case of terrible miscarriage of justice if there ever was one. And today even more so, it’s insane.
What made her suddenly ‘adjust’ her so serious allegations, to, oh well, he just had sex with me and he didn’t harm me. Huh? Money? Guilty conscience? Pity for him? Why wait for so long? Did she think just because no one had nabbed him before, he could go on making his films, it was okay to stay quiet, while half the globe thought him a rapist, when the other did not, everyone forgot about the whole thing, bought his films, till today’s pathetic young witch hunters uncovered his ‘heinous crime’ and demand boycotting them, but allow real criminal be left running around? Did she really think no one attacked him throughout all these decades while they forgot about her? And did she really think no one wanted to see him in jail while she lived in peace and oblivion?
With the political and social changes having shifted the whole sordid affair to her even bigger advantage now, he’s suddenly made the even bigger criminal of whatever or as whatever they call him I’m unwilling to even repeat, and she thinks it’s enough to ask the biblically unforgiving public to absolve him? File these petitions to drop the case in a selfish move to ‘make’ it all go away’? Ask the courts to sentence him in absentia to ‘get it over with’? Hello? Ms Geimer, why don’t you just finally come clean so that the ultra feminists will love you even more for having done the one honorable thing to see this case closed, rather than be rightfully lynch mobbed [by them] yourself? Confess!
I’m sure the DAs can arrange another handy deal for you to escape multiple perjury charges by naming all those who made you lie then, unless it was just you, which I highly doubt – and they will probably all get probation, rather than years behind bars for having caused Polanski untold anguish after what he had suffered already! Shame on you all! And mind you, I’m a liberated and liberal woman and all for women’s rights and equality to men, but I certainly won’t be patting you on the back for this disgusting charade! You’re a disgrace! And for ALL women and true rape victims!
Sorry, I got carried away there, but that’s what I think – and if I were really mean, could say that all she wanted was his money at the end of the day after all this time. NO real rape victim can be bought! But then of course she never was.
Novalis Lore In reply to Mea Culpa
Posted February 6, 2010 at 3:30 AM
Your colourful outrage is well placed, ‘Mea Culpa’ – and I wouldn’t argue any of what you touched on, thanks for your contribution and thoughts. And as for your last sentiment, we don’t know if money was the reason, but it might just as well sound logical that it was.
Samskara In reply to Mea Culpa.
Posted February 13, 2010 at 6:02 AM
Mea:
I stand beside you in your outrage. As a victim of rape myself, which I’ve recounted in my blog piece here: http://samskara.org/journal/2009/10/14/polanski-no-hard-feelings-pt-2/ , I personally feel that Geimer has never shown me the haunting my sisters and I have faced when touched by the impossibly disgraceful intrusion of rape. She certainly has never shown anything but the opposite of what we true victims have gone through. That she is so publicly ‘forgiven’ him is ludicrous on its face. I have never forgiven my rapist. I never will. I’m not even sure I’ve completely to this day, ever understood what happened to me. That too, he continued to terrorize me afterwards speaks to his guilt. Polanski on the other hand, has never said anything but kind things about Geimer. He certainly has never acted the ‘rapist’ people want to paint him as.
What is particularly galling is that Michael Jackson with his continued abuse and continued procurement of children to molest, has so far escaped what plagues Roman to this day. Jackson has managed to die the undisputed King of Pop, yet no one will ever call him what he was. They say he was acquitted both times. Why? Neither victims were willing to testify against him in an open court. Interestingly, no one will lynch Geimer for her false allegations, yet all are too willing to lynch both Jordie Chandler, Jackson’s first accuser, and the 13 year-old Cancer patient who was at the heart of the second set of allegations. So why is it politically correct to publicly call for Jackson’s accuser’s lynching, yet fall all over themselves to support and continue to boost Geimer’s obvious perjurious statements?
Makes no sense to me at all.
Everyone is all up in their indignation that both Chandler and the 13 year-old Cancer patient took money in effect blackmailing Jackson, yet no one questions that Geimer also took money. Could that also not be construed as blackmail?
Novalis Lore In reply to Samskara
Posted February 13, at 11:27 AM
Oh but Samskara – don’t you understand? Michael was an adored pop idol, a huge cultural icon of youth[s] and blacks, he liked kids, he was like a kid, he had his fantasy Neverland Ranch to entertain kids, he wasn’t a serious, very sexual, and most of all foreign filmmaker of psycho films with a lesser followship, or had a horrible past and a beautiful wife he was accused of having murdered himself in addition. No one’s going to attack Geimer as a ‘rape’ victim for having taken his money, since they’d think it her deserved compensation, never realising she went back on her own accusations in certain ways right afterwards, fights for his freedom like no rape ‘victim’ ever has or would each time he came too closer to be dragged back into court. No, ‘child molestation’ ‘victims’ are pooed on when taking money – most likely for having been liars in the face of such a revered and ‘innocent’ pop star – while in the same breath the same child protection lobbyists calling for a ‘child rapist’ be hanged and his [equally lying] ‘victim’ be hailed for being so ‘forgiving’ and even wanting him freed. No, they never noticed he never said anything but kind things about Geimer or never acted the ‘rapist’ people want him to be. It’s their preferred delusion, based on her original testimony which has become more than obsolete over the decades they also never noticed. Or want to.
Even if she took his money after a whole two decades, should have shut up right there and gone underground again, no one questioned her real motives, while he maintained his side of the story. No, this ‘rape victim’ would campaign for her assailant be freed suddenly, publicly forgiven, for all to see he’s not her rapist, never was one before or after. But no one sees it. Maybe her conscience finally got the better of her, or the more [rape] ‘victim’ friendly attitudes, who then made the mistake to contradict herself ever more unfortunately still no one noticed. But no, all these same people who sneer at the Jackson ‘victims’ would never see it because it’s Roman, the little Polish director who did not fall into drug addiction, had all these grotesque ops to stay young, can be pitied for all his human weaknesses, not even his horrible past – because Polanski is strong, a survivor of these traumas, he doesn’t deserve pity for his continuous success despite public abuse out-shadowing Jackson’s and whoever else’s own ordeals crushing them, and, most of all, because he finally showed the corrupt US legal system the finger and said I had enough! And guess what, the Swiss won’t extradite him because they too saw through their deliberate lies and political manipulations just the same.
Smiley’s Comfort In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted February 6, 2010 at 1:02 AM
I hold the current climate of overzealous feminist agendas, and no matter how important in general, wholly misplaced child protection issues responsible for his merciless public vilification, all fed by a corrupt political agenda not to see this case resolved, but to hang him high as an ugly example, while current crimes are ignored. They all seem to miss the part where she increasingly spoke up for him, in effect refuted all her original accusations, in one way or another. Her later ‘explanations’ are so far off from the shocking indictment counts, that it’s just too blatantly obvious she lied in key point, but why is still the big mystery. Or why she later came out to suddenly ‘forgive’ him, painted it a much lesser ‘brutal’ and calculated ‘assault’, petitioned and pleaded the case be dropped.
I for one believe it happened exactly as she put it later, or as he described it in his autobiography. To keep on about that it wasn’t ‘consensual’ is clear why, because she couldn’t consent to it legally. But she obviously did in some form, before the adults forced her to lie she had and twisted it into something depraved. If she really just ‘let him get it over with’ rather than really tell him off, simply leave, wasn’t ‘really afraid’ she in fact never repeated later, that in my view was misleading him, making him think she’s ok with it, or he’d just found himself someone else. Polanski was about sex then, not ‘power’ over females which rape signifies, he had more social and sexual influence over people than those who now defame him, there was no need to force sex, it fell into his lap for his extraordinary skills and charm. Only [lesser] men were envious of him. Which should be telling.
A highly sexual man doesn’t need to rape anyone when he has more than enough offers at hand to call on, when even her mother seemed to have ‘signaled’ him her ‘willingness’. But obviously only to get into the business more directly and he declined at any rate, not quite his ‘type’. Don’t get me wrong, that’s all common practice in any industry, let alone Hollywood, any highly competitive workplace, with either sexes trying to get what they want that way, sometimes at all costs, rather than through hard work, skills, brains. If they have it. Many did and do it, many don’t, it’s a question of [no] morals, varying needs, [no] ambition, [no] self-respect, or simple greed. Everyone sells him-herself in some form, with sex, any other form, favours, true and untrue words, moral or immoral actions on a give and take, demand and supply base.
Today [so called] sexual assault victims are shown all the sympathy and support under the sun, while then she was called all the things he’s being called now in contrast, and much worse, which really makes me doubt the sanity of these ‘haters’. Her apparent ‘victim status’ in today’s eyes has shifted to the extreme opposite, while no one gives any consideration to his side at all [anymore]. Unless of course you know of their lives, the times, the circumstances, the actual details, and both sides’ accounts. Of which his never changed, while hers became ever more analogous to his own. That’s one reason why she resurfaced, to ‘declare’ herself, was finally ‘safe’ to be ‘believed’, only to say that it wasn’t rape and whatever else we heard, and everyone thought she must either be disturbed and whatnot, or apparently was ‘compensated’ a whole two decades later [to say so], not ever getting the idea that she simply lied then.
She tried to rectify the by now utterly uncontrollable situation as best she could, with again politically money motivated power structures ignoring her, only to garner more disbelief and opposition for his side, with obstinate courts playing their own games of im/morals, and two countries engaging in a power struggle. She’s in the clear whatever will happen, except the one who didn’t in fact harm her and is now imprisoned in his own home like a moral leper unable to defend himself, unless that court finally forces a retrial in a fair manner to give him the chance to declare his own side.
Putting all the true rape and child abuse victims aside, how often have we seen a woman cry rape when it wasn’t, tarnishing the man’s reputation forever, never free of any ‘doubt’ if he ‘really’ did, or done it before, after, no matter declared ‘innocent’, and no one ever cried rape again. As it was in his case, which should also be more than telling. While none of the women are called into doubt, unless found guilty of perjury by a court. Otherwise they’re either whores or saints, ‘mothers’, there’s nothing ever in between, nothing like a promiscuous teen trying to experiment or simply sexually active woman, like any man would be, which is the only natural viewpoint to actually defend.
Sex is normal, healthy, and important for one’s mental and physical equilibrium. It has been proven a direct link exists between the body and sex to find a spiritual balance, and that sexual frustration [or abuse] directly leads to a person’s misery, aggressions, and more pronounced mental illnesses of varying kinds, ending in a cycle of more dissatisfaction, irritation or [sexual] abuse. It has been established that the destructive drives of certain cultures are a direct result of the repression of the libido, with the built up tension and pressure expressing themselves only forcefully and brutally through acts of verbal and or physical violence, and ultimately, wars.
This, our deeply [sexually and otherwise] repressed society forces irrational and neurotic behavior on its people, by punishing their natural drives rather than foster them, prevent their resulting violent outlets. Human beings have taken a destructively hostile attitude toward sex in themselves and others, which is a living force, a natural force, and have brutally alienated themselves from it. This cataclysmic alienation is not even of biological, but of social and economic origin by now, always in need of working, seeing to their bills, excel, grab more prestige, more money, more power, with the formation of their dulled and consumer oriented character isolated within this oversaturated authoritarian mold leaving no room for parental, mutual or sexual love, but this dictatorial family – ‘society’. Its chief instrument is the suppression of sexuality in order to control this ‘society’.
Our whole society is oriented against true sexual freedom, and from infancy on, every effort is made to inhibit and repress any sexual manifestations, nurture and enjoy them. Owing to the split in this human character structure of today, nature and culture, instinct and morality, sexuality and achievement, are considered incompatible. That unity of culture and nature, work and love, morality and sexuality for which mankind is forever longing, this unity will remain a dream as long as man does not permit himself the satisfaction of the biological demands of natural sexual gratification. Until then, true democracy and responsible freedom, health and balance will remain an illusion, and helpless submission to existing social conditions, this, ‘society’, will characterise human existence. The extinguishing of more life will prevail, be it in compulsive education, [or ‘faiths’], in compulsive social institutions, compulsive punishments, or of course in compulsive wars.
The result is a neurotic, irresponsible sexuality that offers little release, accompanied by [violent] pornography, unnatural perversion, and of course, incest, rape and growing [child] abuse. Our [mainly feminist] sexual revolution has largely misfired with many in chaotic rebellion, imposing damaging sex laws, flaunting what they consider their freedom and their rights rather than taking on a responsible sexual life and safe sex. Everyone is endowed with the sexual capacity, which is necessary to maintain a stable energy level in the continuation of life, prevent stasis, frustration and emotional stagnancy. This is nature’s safety valve, to which man however now has drastically developed a negative, repressive attitude. The result is emotional and physical disease, exploitation, sadism, and destructiveness, not only of man himself, but also toward all nature. Rape of life.
She said it wasn’t rape, and the only one this repressed and disbelieving society is willingly raping by now, is Polanski himself, no one else. Based on misled vengeance, misled aggression, misled agendas. He was raped by the corrupted lawmakers of then, he is being raped by his regressed haters of today, and the lawmakers of now will never give him any break at their own corrupted agendas. Unless she makes a clean breast of it finally, he will never be free of the same abuse she accused him of, which never happened. If she really thinks her ‘victim status’ protects her now from amore abuse, let her finally end this nightmare she has forced on them both in the first place. Or whoever forced her to lie.
Novalis Lore In reply to Smiley’s Comfort
Posted February 6, 2010 at 3:04 AM
I can only agree with what you said, Smiley’s Comfort, and that much of the problems of today are directly linked with the frustrations based on an unhappy sex life, life in general, unsatisfying work and resulting ill physical and mental health. It’s all self-perpetuating lunacy, artificially crafted by man to control and ultimately destroy man – animal and nature – when all it takes is a healthy approach to one’s physical [and sexual] needs.
Polanski was a very sexual man, whereas the US was and still is [even more today] sexually repressed, though others around him didn’t seem to earn the same moral outcry while his American friends and colleagues slept with teens, did the ‘casting couch’ thing, and only Geimer cried rape in a more than sensational way. Only to end up pleading for his release and we all know why.
In some ways, the Seventies was the last decade of chauvinism, and Polanski like the rest was part of that, before women’s emancipation was on the rise, and they all had to adjust their ideas about easy sex and easy women. Before the Eighties finally put a lethal damper on all sex, with the rise of AIDS, and the ‘evangelistic’ US most of all called it their punishment for centuries of promiscuity, with the result of dogmatic sex laws that send down men for underage sex, let alone homosexual activities as the root of all [AIDS] evil, they still can’t get a grip on unlike the rest of the [modern] world.
And true, it all hinges on her unchallenged words of then against him, and her unheard words of today in support of him – but the courts as then have their own ideas, and as long as she doesn’t renounce her victim’s state, his victim’s state will remain till death.
Policy of Truth In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted February 6, 2010 at 4:52 AM
Excellent article – microanalysis isn’t a word ‘big’ enough for this mega effort of revelatory findings, intriguing background insights, legal explanations and Polanski’s life and his versatile art in general. The previous comments have pretty much covered my own sentiments at great length, and that there is a definite pattern running through the entire history of this complex case. First it was largely victim blaming, (just like in the horrible Tate case) now it is blind victim belief. Then it was a great deal of perpetrator sympathy, today it is absolute perpetrator condemnation. And no room for doubts.
Where naïve ‘little’ Roman once thought there was justice to be had, all he encountered was systematic power abuse, and as such I fully understand why he fled. I would have done the same. It is more than obvious today, that there was a catalogue of personal abuse thrown at him in the name of the law at the ‘sensational’ Polanski trial. When people believe fleeing is not an option, or cowardice on his part, blind to the fact that laws are made and executed by flawed people able to abuse their authority, because for them the law is absolute, just, and unimpeachable, especially in the ‘free’ and ‘democratic’ USA, they have to rethink very hard. It never was the case. Not even for the rich.
I personally find it absolutely disgusting that she sued him after all this time, when she had willingly engaged in the sex no matter it was unlawful, this charade to make him a rapist, and then subsequent refutation of her own allegations. There will be no extra time in prison that’s for sure, and the Swiss will never release him. It would not only make him a ‘pointless’ martyr, but would also be cruel at his age and hard life, after having done nothing but sleep with a promiscuous teen who in effect used him. Like her calculating, lying mother. But that’s Hollywood I guess.
Many called it a heinous crime, while the most disgusting of crime is true brutal rape, torture and murder. Even political war crimes. They all lost their rationale and brains in this, his outright vilification and name calling not knowing better. Nice how people condone the very same done to him we have no proof of he ever did to her, even less after she said he didn’t rape her, didn’t harm her, didn’t do this and didn’t do that, and the evidence they had already then discredited all of it. But people are just too dumb and vindictive to realise any of it. I didn’t know of a few things you present here, and I’m not too versed in the legal sector of this more than messy case, but the judge’s inexcusable actions, and all that followed.
This case seemed very suspicious to me thirty odd years ago and it still does even more today after she sued him and all her petitions and whatnot. Hard to understand why the ‘ambitious’ mother didn’t go after whoever else slept with her daughter, instead, she chose to go after rich and famous Polanski. Young Geimer was no catch, and he would have tried his best to get her into the business with a few good shots, knowing she’s not model material, and suddenly he was accused of forcing himself on her. It’s a painful joke he unfortunately allowed to perpetuate by never challenging her lies, defended himself publicly, for fears of more judicial improprieties the US legal system had forced on him. His silence sadly has imprinted his unproven guilt in historic marble. And the blinded public psyche.
Novalis Lore In reply to Policy of Truth
Posted February 6, 2010 AT 5:15 pm
You’re quite right, ‘Policy of Truth’, as that it is, the bare bones basically, the truth in the legal matters, the truth in the face of two disparate opposites – the fabrications and the facts. Thank you for your own voice of reason and thoughts in this.
Geneva S
Posted February 7, 2010 at 5:46 PM
Very well written. My opinion, you have succeeded: “That’s all I wanted to achieve – to make people see that there’s never only one side to any story – no matter how old. To make them re/think, question apparent facts, use their brains, logic, reason, discard personal agendas, feelings, step back and demand objective analysis they would want to be done unto them had they been accused of such things, see the whole picture, not just a fraction of a girl’s allegations.”
Thank you for sharing.
Novalis Lore In reply to Geneva S
Posted February 7, 2010 at 6:04 PM
Thank you, Geneva – you said it perfectly with my own comment. It had to be said and cannot be said more often.
Voice of Reason In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted February 8, 2010 at 10:55 PM
The general consensus then was, that he had been set up, people of today see him as the one who acted with malice aforethought under the pretext of this shoot, changed with the times of women’s and child protection rights. I believe Polanski has paid for his ‘thoughtless moment of passion’ more than enough, and I don’t think that he should be punished for running in fact.
The law became the criminal here the moment he was placed in a horrible situation that forced him to flee. In fact, the U.S. [legal system] should apologize to Polanski for failing him a fair trial, since by the time he fled, there was already a catalogue of other improprieties flung at him he couldn’t escape. Why his attorney never helped him better is beyond me.
Then Polanski was a fairly cocky man and very self-assured superior auteur, while today he’s still a highly self-possessed and even more superior artist, but hardly that brash an old man anymore. Today it is all too ‘victim oriented’, too hers, not his side, and that’s why I believe she finally resurfaced, to give her now again ‘amended’, indeed highly inconsistent accounts, and we still don’t have any word of his defence.
He learned his lesson in the game of sex the hard way, and, that the law is more corrupt than whatever he did to the girl. He in fact should be released, since he’s been incarcerated now for more than the 90 days the judge ‘apparently’ wanted him to sit out, after they agreed on letting him go free. His inhuman house arrest cannot even be counted, and I so detest reading ‘child sex [abuse] case’, when she sure as hell wasn’t a child anymore and wasn’t abused by him, but her mother.
Now he’s imprisoned in his own home like hardly anyone suffered before for a minor offence from decades ago, while war criminals and murderers are freed on bail and whatnot else dangerous criminals are running around right now. It’s inhuman what they’re doing to him. He wanted to live in a country that believes in the rule of law, but that law was wilfully corrupted like so often, made a shameful travesty of and him, all for personal gain of a pompous old bastard who did even younger girls.
The law is the criminal here, not Polanski, and we don’t have the right to apply today’s just as corrupted laws. It’s all a terrible political farce at this point, with the lynch mob out to get him. This isn’t justice, this is pure vengeance by now for his daring to escape the imperialist warmonger, daring their prudish arrogance. This is a political war between two states, with him as the helpless scapegoat stuck in between.
Polanski’s interpretation of events that day differs greatly from Geimer’s, and too many take her word over Polanski’s for various reasons, which is not very helpful in finding a balance in this. I personally think the real truth lies somewhere in between the two, leaning towards his interpretation of events, with the rape and sodomy definitely a no event. So all we ‘still’ only have is conjecture in most part, since no one else was there, bar Huston and Helena, and they stated the same as him.
That said, the one thing that can’t be argued is that Polanski had sex with a promiscuous girl, who wasn’t a virgin, admitted to having had sex with younger and older men before, had taken Quaaludes on several occasions, liked champagne, and that is what she had that day, only to cry rape afterwards for more than dubious reasons.
I still wonder why to this day and is open for debate, and probably leans more towards the girl simply lying the others took for fact at first, before the evidence told them differently and they made up things a they went along. But even so, she was still underage and no adult should have slept with her, regardless of whether or not she consented. Having said that, she also could have refused to do any of it, walked out the door, and in fact, really have done what she claimed she had. But she didn’t.
She’s complicit in the whole thing just as him, regardless of her age. I personally reject the notion that only the adult should be held responsible, while they can and should be held responsible for all else. Sure, he should have known better, but in his own culture that was nothing special, and she obviously had allowed him to do whatever he did. I believe Geimer should be held responsible too, and for her lies.
Now we have the situating that she wants the nightmare go away she could have avoided, he has another beautiful wife others are envious of, a proud family, and some ponz intent on destroying that fragile idyll again, like madman Manson had in different form four decades ago, while the so called victim wants him freed. No victim wants her violator freed. Had that madman and his crazed killers not taken away Sharon, none of this would have happened.
His son would be forty by now, Sharon in her mid sixties, and I believe they’d stayed together since they were made for each other. He’s with his third wife now since twenty-five years who adores him as he adores her, and anyone saying he’s a pedophile, rapist, a danger to society and all that bullshit, is clearly out of touch with reality. Or simply dim-witted or jealous.
Overzealous feminism, rape myth exploitation, child abuse and pedophilia agendas are his accusers of today which have nothing to do with this, while then it was the prudish culture and repressed jealousy of the U.S. mind. With self-important DAs like Walgren and egghead Cooley at the helm these days, and Espinoza biding his time – it’s just like Rittenband had done it before.
Nothing has changed as others have pointed out. Except, Polanski is too old to survive this ‘cat and mouse’ game, and will go down in history as this genius director who was made this sordid child rapist by an ‘aspiring actress’, and then died under house arrest. Unless a [forced] retrial will finally exonerate him.
Free Polanski now. He’s paid his debt to this corrupt and shallow ‘society’ decade after decade with a heavy price of social exile and unending public abuse unheard of, after never even having ‘reoffended’. He has given us his art, and nothing but his wonderful art. Anyone thinking different, is beyond ethics.
Your epic analysis should be fed down every doubter’s throat, Novalis, to chew it over thoroughly, and then think again. Or, even if they still might think to sleep with a teen was wrong even then, reconsider this, if they really can condone this disgraceful political charade of today most of all to continue unchallenged.
Novalis Lore In reply to Voice of Reason
Posted February 9, 2010 at 3:47 AM
Thank you, Voice of Reason. As usual, with these kinds of intelligent and thoughtful comments as yours, I have nothing much to add, except to say you’re right, and that at the end of the day, unless we finally will hear his side in a court, challenge hers, we’ll never be sure. People are so numbed by today’s media fodder they simply eat up as if it’s the truth, when it hardly ever is, and no one ever impugned her words. One can say they cannot form a better opinion, but it is even more criminal not to question one-sided news feeds, thinking the more they are repeated and alike, the more they must be true. Biased journalism is never right, when there never is only one side to any story.
But to answer your thoughts on why his attorney never helped him better, it seems rather clear, because the man who wielded the gavel, didn’t allow him to, and when he finally joined the prosecution to have him removed, it was too late, Polanski was gone, fed up to be Rittenband’s little Polish mouse he could torture for public amusement.
Friedrich In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted February 9, 2010 at 3:17 AM
I personally [still] believe it was as the way he described it in his autobiography, especially since her own account was highly disputed already then, and later became more and more inconsistent, down to contrastingly outright lies she never even had brought up then, like how he met her first. That is so telling of deliberate lying, since she sure as hell would remember that her own sister’s boyfriend and mother had brought her into the game. Telling too is the fact, that she later said that, if this would happen to her own daughter, though she has three sons now, she’d not ever report it, or engage in mindless lynch mob justice. Just like she didn’t want it be known then, since of course, it never was rape, she later had repeatedly stated herself. No real rape victim recants her rape as terrible as she had let us believe. Or takes money after such a long time. I doubt I need to elaborate on that point. Despite no one else having cried rape, and no one ever having tried the case, people simply take this isolated incident as irrefutable fact. It’s a sad affair.
As for Polanski, one could say, he is ‘ill’ – but not ill in the way people might think. Polanski is ill with all the old pain, all the old sex and pursuit of all the old affairs, all the old abuse he suffered, and all the new abuse he suffers now, all because of one moment of temptation spread out before him he couldn’t resist, was pushed right into his lap. He’s ill with his obsession of film to escape all his ills. He was ill already before Sharon’s murders, and he was found even more ill later by the prison shrinks, and that he ‘might benefit from psychiatric treatment over his unresolved state of depression, stemming from a series of traumatic incidents in his life’. How anyone could cause him ever more ill is beyond me, it’s callous, it’s unethical.
And then there came the ill law to finish him, and made him even more ill, and now even more beyond anything I’ve ever seen before. He was made ill in the face of ill treatment, is ill in the face of today’s even more ill treatment, by our ill society, and only more ill can result from it all. Social ill, financial ill, mental ill, physical ill. Until the ill will ultimately claim his ill life. But until then, he has his loving family and friends, devoted fans and support to forget about these ills. They will never be healed, merely ‘treated’, as we do it in this ill society with ill people. Polanski deserves his final cure, but no one is merciful enough to give him this merciful remedy.
Novalis Lore In reply to Friedrich
Posted February 9, 2010 at 3:44 AM
Your analogies are quite intriguing, Friedrich – ill is a very apt word for this entire situation in fact. Our whole planet is ill in that respect, the way we treat each other is more than ill, and we can only become more ill with each day, year, decade. It’s the ill nature of our ill beast, which eventually will kill itself.
Until then, we, standing behind him act as his cure, even if it will be only a symptomatic cure, not final healing. His ills have been too many to fully heal.
DeMoy In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted February 9, 2010 at 5:36 AM
Many rape victims, emotionally burdened by their own trauma, most of all are the ones attacking Polanski blindly as seen so often by now, incapable of avoiding to use their role as victim to view this case objectively, while at the same time bluntly ignoring the one person they in fact believe was his rape victim, who on the other hand wants him freed.
No rape victim wants their rapist go free. But then of course, she isn’t a real rape victim to her own words, and therefore many can simply ignore her. Which in effect, would nullify their idea that Polanski in fact is a rapist, since no victim exists anymore in their world. And as for Polanski being a paedophile, these voices obviously have no clear understanding what a child molester is or does, and is more than absurd.
These people put their personal experiences into the public eye as excuse to attack someone they simply believe a rapist for her very old testimony, not having a shred of concrete evidence to back it up and the developments ever since. They believe their rape or own life experiences give them the right and best defense, or rather attack strategy to nullify others’ support of Polanski, no longer in control of rational, critical analysis of the case in hand that doesn’t in fact concern them, while in the same breath they deny him his own life’s plenty of traumas and public abuse and want him destroyed.
Theirs are the typical voices of pain striking out at someone the polluted political climate and dirty money machine has throw into the greedy public arena for their convenient lynching, to mercilessly vent their anger at the one who cannot defend himself – engaging in a virtual, verbal killing of a politically generated monster unheard of.
And then there are many rape survivors who in fact defend him, being the ones civilised enough to think, knowing what real rape is – and this was not, to her own words. Your research is the ultimate accolade, Novalis, and indeed the bible of this complex case as many said before, but it cannot be said more often.
Novalis Lore In reply to DeMoy
Posted February 9, 2010 at 11:02 AM
Thank you, DeMoy. Indeed, in my ploughing through the mire of ugly voices defaming him on private blogs and inaccurate news articles repeating the same old ‘crimes’, many rape victims have voiced their outrage and blind accusations at anyone dare defending him in the most vitreous and overemotional form as never seen before. It’s as grotesque as it is unsettling, and of course needlessly upsetting, since these individuals obviously haven’t come to terms with their own experience to separate their issues from this case. Blinded by their own apparent ordeal, they cannot see beyond others’ better knowledge or faith of the man they know didn’t rape anyone. And Geimer had often enough declared in recent years he didn’t rape or harm her, so I’m at a loss that they don’t even listen to her now – after her original testimony was more than debunked over time by her very self, and already then by sheer medical evidence. But people seem to have missed that crucial part and development. Or simply decide/d to ignore it – to maintain their delusion of his monstrousness in an absurd show of mass hysteria. Just as the Nazi DAs want/ed it.
Spoonful of Lies In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted February 9, 2010 at 12:13 PM
Here is what rape victims suffer – man or woman. In the period immediately following a sexual assault, victims respond by expressing fear, anger, and outrage or by adopting a controlled style of response, exhibiting little visible reaction. Despite outward appearances, this latter coping style does not reflect the victim’s inner turmoil in the wake of the assault. During the first few days and weeks after a sexual assault, the victim may also experience acute physical symptoms. These include soreness, especially in the stomach, throat, arms and legs. Or of course, local pain resulting from direct injuries. Muscle tension often results in disturbances in sleep patterns, including problems getting to sleep, crying out at night, and mumbling during sleep. Generally, victims feel distressed, irritable and jumpy.
Rape victims don’t want to be touched or anywhere near any other males. Not even their own companions, let alone undergo any examinations to establish the extent of their injuries, unless sedated, or put to sleep. Loss of appetite is also common. Initially, victims experience a sense of disorganization in which their lifestyles are disrupted by the rape crisis. Emotionally, fear dominates, but shame, humiliation, degradation, guilt, anger, self-blame and revenge are common. Given the intensity of these feelings, victims may be susceptible to mood swings. Long-term emotional symptoms, ranging from mild to severe and beginning anywhere from a few days to a few weeks after the rape, involve reorganization of the life shattered by the assault. One of the primary characteristics of this stage is difficulty in returning to daily schedule of activities. Victims often express and may act upon a strong desire to change jobs/schools.
Has Ms Geimer displayed any of that? Apart from the unlike crying in the car, or of course, dubious ‘fear’, the only thing she claimed happened was anger at her mother to have called on the law, and to have refused talking to anyone because of her actions. She also refused all therapy or help, with her mother claiming that she’d like to ‘save the family the cost’. No family would spare costs to allow their violated daughter professional help let alone the traumatized victim, had their been real rape trauma, or ask for the rapist not to face trial. And as we saw, she seems to have been quite OK with her own beau, and her mom’s two-timing boyfriend in the prosecutor’s office. She also went out with other boys to become pregnant very quickly.
Polanski came along on their ‘invitation’, the poor sex obsessed sod eventually does the foreseeable, finds himself accused or rape and perversions, when by all means she could have been on the pill, told him not, he resorts to coitus interuptus, and she can claim he sodomized her. I wonder how all the other men succeeded not to impregnate her, when she apparently wasn’t on the pill, while I doubt they all used condoms let alone her boyfriend she gladly received. What more can be said. She must be the only rape victim who ever publicly campaigned for her rapist’s freedom, and I’m sure we all know why. In regards to the legal mess this case is in, I’d say, show the U.S. the finger and let him go. It’s a travesty of justice.
Novalis Lore In reply to Spoonful of Lies
Posted February 9, 2010 at 1:26 PM
Thank you for explaining the dynamics of the aftermath of rape, Spoonful of Lies, and that indeed it is highly unlike that Ms Geimer fits the profile – although, many say, she’s just really strong and forgiving to be on his campaign trail, or of course in need to close the damned case and find peace. Which some find selfish, others only natural, others a sign of weariness with this whole spectacle claiming illness, others more than unusual since indeed no rape victim wants their violator freed, when the truth is no doubt more to the fact that she’s afraid to testify again. But her lawyer is helping Dalton & Co on her behalf more than any prosecution ever has in the history of any ‘rape’ case to prevent that, and I doubt I need to explain why.
Espressivo In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted February 9, 2010 at 1:03 PM
Dude, this is amazing research. What gets me is the disgraceful double standards applied to the man, the entire case history mess, and of course all these inconsistencies. I knew nothing much of the case, only nasty rumours, and I kept thinking, hold on a minute, how can he be so revered and successful if all that were true? All I ever came across was the same old c/rap of charges, and never anything to what he said about it. So I started digging deeper, and went back in time, watched all these interviews, his, hers, others, that documentary, and I went like, whoa, this seriously sucks, man. Especially all these self-righteous and ugly comments all over the place. I never read any books about him or his own, but now I will. I only watched his films I find absorbing enough, and then came across your mega blog exposing all these lies and facts, and it suddenly became clear to me, he is as guilty as far as it goes to have slept with her, but nothing beyond that stupid stupid act. Let the man go, right-wing Swiss dudes, and spit into douchebag Cooley’s arrogant face. And Walgren’s, who incidentally is after Jackson’s doctor now, to send him down for ‘involuntary manslaughter’. Yeah, why not, seems they need to punish someone for Michael’s own addiction to drugs. Typical.
Novalis Lore In reply to Espressivo
Posted February 9, 2010 at 1:37 PM
Thank you, Espressivo. I’m glad I could help you puzzle together the wider picture, and that you took the intelligent time not to blindly accept the media fodder thrown at you.
As for the doctor, shame, but someone needs to be ‘punished’ in the eyes of the not so blind law, while really important cases are left untouched, and shame about Michael to have been so addicted that it ended his ‘fairytale’ life to tragically.
Vahan In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted February 9, 2010 at 3:36 PM
A bit off-topic here, but here’s something to consider:
Why do so many people say that his marriage to Sharon was on the rocks shortly before she was murdered? Granted, Polanski slept with some women during the marriage (he even admitted in an interview during the 1980’s that he wasn’t 100% faithful to her), but that may have been just a sign of the times. There’s no doubt that Polanski would have most-likely settled down with Sharon once the baby was born (much like how he settled down once his current wife gave birth to Morgane and Elvis). This pretty much proves that the marriage of Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate was, by no stretch of imagination, on the rocks.
I also agree with the people (including Voice of Reason) that had Sharon not been murdered, the now infamous encounter with Geimer, and the events that transpired after it would never have happened. And yes, both him and Sharon were made for each other. It also didn’t hurt that Sharon was known to have a thing for artistic men.
And furthermore, why do so many people hate on Debra Tate (Sharon’s younger sister) so much for strongly supporting and defending Polanski? If they’re gonna do that, they might as well hate on all the other Tate family members (Mother Doris, Father Paul, and sister Patricia), because they also strongly supported and defended Polanski as well.
By the way, if I ever once believed that his marriage to Sharon was on the rocks, I apologize. I was not thinking clearly enough at the time.
Novalis Lore In reply to Vahan
Posted February 10, 2010 at 10:52 PM
Simple – the voices that might have stated so then, or now, are made of plain jealousy. He, as who he was, a fairly short and unconventionally handsome but indisputably bright and charming man, an unabashedly sexual man, a brilliant artist many envied, simply didn’t fit in with the conventional views of the rigid and repressed US ‘morale’ and ‘ideals’. He attracted stunning women for various reasons, while others were left with the ‘rest’, so to foul-mouth him in regards to Sharon, who was so very beautiful, so gentle and in full understanding that he might have a wandering eye – but as long as it came roving back to ‘her’, the mother of his child he adored, settled down with, gave him that freedom, like she had the same – is to be expected. They both had an understanding, and their marriage was by no means on the rocks – it was destroyed.
Just like Kinski had an understanding with him, otherwise she’d not stayed with him [before and] after the Geimer affair, (which should also prove she didn’t believe that he raped her and Nastassja said so herself, no woman would stay with a rapist lover). Just like his casual encounters were accepted by others he was with longer during the Sixties sand Seventies, and it worked for both sides. Yes, as a sign of the very promiscuous ‘swinging’ times and sexual revolution in general. But, others were even more promiscuous, like Warren Beatty and no one scolded him. With Sharon something special had happened and connected them in a way the others couldn’t deliver – and in Emmanuelle he later had found the same, without the ‘swinger’ tendencies anymore and stayed faithful to her alone, with his kids as their very backbone.
People were/are simply jealous that someone like ‘him’, could ‘pull chicks’ in the old days, attract young and older females into his olden days, and simply need to make it all dirty or fake, call him a paedophile and whatnot – while others were/are not defamed like that. Had he been some handsome American, someone who made soppy love films or was less a genius in his field, they’d worshipped him in their shallow ways, and no doubt forgiven him his ‘transgression’, like it happened with others. No, he was/is this foreigner with a thick accent, a very dark sense of [movie] humour, who overshadowed many other artists in his field and had the misfortune to have his wife murdered which they just as well twisted against him. It’s also a cultural thing, and the vast differences between the US and European. It’s even a by now viciously political thing – the [still sexually] repressed US mind vs the liberated European mind. The fact that Geimer is openly campaigning for him now has no meaning to them either, since they simply cannot see why.
As for people hating on Debra is obvious, because they think she [too] is loopy to defend a rapist – when she of all would know better – or Geimer. These sad busybodies think they have the right to ignore their voices, while loudly proclaiming their own self-righteous garbage knowing nothing. This has gone far beyond these two people of then having done something ‘immoral’, it’s a political tug of war on [these] old ‘morals’, driven by today’s changed attitudes in regards to nudity and other agendas in general that simply don’t fit in [anymore] with the times, the sex and drugs and rock’n roll mind-set of then.
Jessica Roberts In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted February 17, 2010 at 3:15 AM
In modern terminology “witch-hunt” has acquired usage referring to the act of seeking and persecuting any perceived “public enemy”, particularly when the hunt is conducted using extreme or illegal measures and with little regard to actual guilt or innocence. It is used whether or not it is sanctioned by the corrupt government, or merely occurs within the “court of public opinion” based on political manipulation. Unwanted thoughts and unstable feelings are unconsciously projected onto another who becomes a scapegoat for one’s own problems.
In psychopathology, projection is an especially commonly used defense mechanism in people with the following personality disorders: Rhetorical use of the phrase “for the children” often suffers from the logical fallacies of appeal to emotion and irrelevant conclusion, elaboration, fabrication, or, “what if this would happen to your child”, or yourself.
These arguments simply appeal to the listener’s emotion by connecting an argument to “innocent children” that many people feel an instinctive need to protect. Appeal to emotion is a potential fallacy which uses the manipulation of the recipient’s emotions, rather than valid logic or vital need for objectivity, to win an argument, or by using abusive rhetoric if cornered.
Also, this kind of narrow thinking is evident in those who let damaging emotions and/or other subjective considerations influence one’s reasoning process in general, who can also become aggressive once objective facts are not accepted in their world. This kind of appeal to fallible emotion is a type of blackmail and encompasses several logical fallacies these people apply to “persuade” others into their biased world.
All these “children’s issues” have a place in our “world” today, true, but something is very wrong when “forgiveness” has been given and both sides want to find closure and third parties, i.e. this obsessed, child molesting and raping “society”, won’t accept it in their self-righteous blindness out for blood.
But, something is even more wrong when, after 32 years of exemplary conduct, a person is set-up for an unsound arrest and a continually warring country uses arbitrary tactics to single out an old sex case and a harmless old man who has done no injury to any “children” in all his life, blackmailing the Swiss to serve him on a political platter. This has gone far enough beyond any common sense and someone in real power should put a stop to this. Good enough the not so gullible Swiss won’t extradite him.
The current judge stringing him along and the corrupt DA are the main problems today as it was then with old limelight hogging Rittenband and deceitful Wells, and when justice is exchanged for political purposes, it’s a crime, as simple as that. Polanski has suffered enough and I doubt I need to elaborate on the facts of the much maligned case in hand. You’ve done so just brilliantly, Novalis. Thank you for your enlightening findings.
Novalis Lore In reply to Jessica
Posted February 17, 2010 at 3:15 AM
Very good analysis of what a witch hunt is, Jessica, and that this is indeed what’s happening here, with people getting over their heads with current, indeed important issues, over some old case that however has nothing to do with them, or these people, intent on making this a very ugly ‘test case’ for their own agendas I doubt I need repeating. All else I can only agree on, and that this indeed has gone far enough – too far by now.
Vanessa In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted February 18, 2010 at 8:20 AM
This is the best analysis in regards to the case I’ve seen so far, and I doubt anyone can top it.
I grew up in the Sixties, and I, as my same-aged or older friends, had sex like it was the last time with the event of the pill, and with quite a few adults from the age of Geimer’s in fact already then. I’m ten years her senior. We were much more “mature” then, physically as mentally than what people today think is “morally sound”, or want their own kids of today to be in fact. Or even know of what they did themselves then.
It was a completely different time, different culture with a different set of rules in regards to sex and drugs, and no one rallied around any “child abuse” issues the way it is today.
You, diligent author, pointed to that fact several times, and I also fully agree on why they singled Polanski out–and not any other “American”–to demonise ever since Tate’s loss. What they wrote about him or the victims then already bordered on sheer psychosis and surpassed disgusting smear.
We weren’t any more “abused” then than anyone today, and I’d rather say there’s more systematic child abuse and rapes going on today than then, and in the prisons too, and not because we weren’t aware of it. It just wasn’t that widespread, which should speak of our much more corrupted “morality” of today, rather than our more liberal morals of then.
Polanski’s behaviour then was nothing special, and he certainly wasn’t a child molester or lured her into his clutches and all that crap. He had girls waiting for him, and to say this Vogue assignment was a ruse is just dumb slur.
They made millions with his glossy 1976 Kinski edition, and then suddenly fell into his back. They later apologised and “amended” their recanting lie they gave Interpol never to have heard of their agreement just because they hadn’t signed any contracts, but the damage was done. Typical money grabbing bastards. I never bought another Vogue in my life.
The girl wasn’t doing anything she hadn’t done before, and for whatever reason she had cried rape the next day, “lies” with her “ambitious” mother alone and she should be held responsible, not Polanski. She clearly had her own agendas and used her daughter. I never believed her and Geimer’s allegations from day one.
Sadly, anyone covering the case loves to repeat the same fabrication you highlighted, that there was “anal bruising”, since Leaming, two years after Kiernan must have invented that first, said in her own biography about Polanski, that there was no tearing etc., when the med report clearly said the same. There’re all available online since years now, and why people still ignore them eludes me. No, it’s just to discredit him fully. The report even said, “adult female”, which is more than remarkable, and you mentioned too.
When even the doctor stated “adult”, not adolescent or teenager, no wonder everyone but that shifty cop Vannatter out of spite, thought her up to twenty years old. I never met her, but those who had seen her in the flesh too said she looked older, or let’s say very mature, “developed”.
Polanski apparently knew her age, but looking at her pictures alone, she might just as well have been older, and if one considers what another commentator here stated that she could have been fifteen, can we really be sure she was “only thirteen”? Her sister was apparently twenty, and she looked no older than Geimer, so who’s to say which sister is which? Or their real age. Just a thought.
When I later read his own biography it only confirmed what we had suspected or heard already had really happened, which you rightly picked up on: nothing she had claimed. I knew Polanski through friends of his closer circle in London (ever since he was filming here with Sharon), of his sexual conquests, sure, that he was cocky, sure, but he had no need to drug and “rape” anyone. He did less drugs than most of us and nothing hard. None of us believed Geimer, we all knew she was keen to get into the movies.
Nothing wrong with that, many tried, most failed, only the cry rape part is. Then it all went awry when someone called on the law against her will and the evidence didn’t support her claims, and hey presto, a handy plea bargain was struck which was Polanski’s death warrant.
I knew someone who had dated him, I knew of someone who had slept with him for casual fun, they were early twenties, and sodomy wasn’t part of it. He apparently was a very skilled lover and well “developed” himself. We knew of the rumours that her mother was pimping her out to other men to get into the industry, I’m sorry, that’s what we heard, and when naïve little Roman came along, he was the golden goose to pluck.
I even heard of the rumour that her mother had slept with him, but he never confirmed that, and he wasn’t too shy to kiss and tell at times himself in his earlier mildly chauvinistic way like all the men did it. It could well have been some “gossip” thrown out there from her mother’s side, or by someone else, or this Kiernan wouldn’t in fact have written about it. Unless he invented that too, half his trashy book is a cock-and-bull story anyhow.
When she came out later and gave us all these “inconsistent” interviews to downright filing petitions for his freedom, saying it wasn’t rape, took his money after all this time, it only proved to me that she had lied. No doubt on her mother’s behest. She claimed to “stand up” for herself because it was more pro “victims” friendlier times, I say it was her conscience nagging, only to get muddled up over her “ordeal” specifics.
No genuine rape victim ever forgets the details or circumstances. Exact dates perhaps, but not specifics. But it obviously never was “imprinted” in her mind as what she made the grand jury believe, told the cops, and then the public, and therefore had to “improvise” when she forgot over time. You brought up a few of these “gaps” I had noticed too.
When Polanski fled, we didn’t think for one moment because he wanted to evade punishment, we knew what was going on behind the courtroom scenes. He panicked over the illegal deportation threat the judge thought he could impose on him against all recommendations, and we all were shocked when he left him no choice but to flee and saddened he had to destroy his future career in the US film industry for such a racist opportunist and shameless exploiters.
Dalton could have helped him better, and much earlier, that’s for sure. But it was all for the “innocent young victim”. Now it’s all an even bigger legal mess still no one wants to righten at our even more corrupt legal system, and Roman’s made an even bigger fiend than before. I’m only glad the Swiss have more sense not to ship him off.
I deeply detest today’s bigoted times, I tell you, these two-faced people intent on destroying someone who had done only good to others. He had no interest in big money, he gave away his last penny to friends, and made his films on a shoestring if needed. That was, is his passion. Film.
He’s an eternal survivor able to take all the abuse, an artistic genius they envy with equal passion, and unfortunately never spoke up for himself. No matter what Geimer does for him these days, good on her, or for herself, but I have not the slightest sympathy for her, unless she finally owns up her part in it. I realise she was a minor, was out of her depth, manipulated by her mother, he should have left her be, but it takes two to tango no matter their age.
But what I hate even more are today’s idiot voices ignoring her wishes to see this finished, thinking they ‘own’ her or her ‘victim status’ as feminists, the infamous case as a case for ‘justice’, or of course ignore his own political forfeit status as the ‘evil predator’. Sad, officious little people who should rather find their own neighbourhood rapists and paedophiles.
Novalis Lore In reply to Vanessa
Posted February 19, 2010 at 2:37 AM
Again, I can only agree with what you so eloquently stated here, Vanessa, and it is interesting to hear a voice who actually knew him, and through others. Thank you for your little personal insight, not only of the ‘gossiping’ and ‘swinging’ times, cutting analogies, but the much misjudged man himself.
neville c. In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted February 19, 2010 at 2:00 AM
To me, a “testimony” means nothing unless it was proven in a trial. There never was a trial, hence, her allegations still are only that to this day, no matter given on oath or not. The only thing we have as hard evidence is the medical report disproving her claims. His version makes more sense to me in general, since all this “I was afraid” nonsense just doesn’t cut it for me. I think she just let it all happen out of curiosity, peer pressure, his “prominence”, what he could do for her, due to the personalities involved and the fact that this sort of incident is so common even still.
He expectedly engaged in sex on a benign if possibly more “selfish” level, she didn’t “resist” believably enough, he thought it was consensual, mom was pissed off about that, and the nude pics, so let’s call it all rape coz you’re underage. Then they made her say this and that to make her the innocent “non-compliant” party in the events, him the sole “seducer”. But then the evidence said, sorry, there was no rape and sodomy, and they both were in deep shit. Everything afterwards is a different story that screwed it all up. That’s the short for me.
And as you said, many things are cultural, era and attitude related issues people of today simply cannot grasp, since they didn’t live in the 70s where “underage sex” or feminist agendas were of no consequences, which today are his vocal accusers: the “times”. Today’s morality, not any justice, or objective understanding is his lynch mob. It’s our morals versus their promiscuous ethics. It’s our social codes versus applying dynamic values to their personal situations of then out of whack with today’s views. Personal values can turn anachronistic, and in this case they’ve turned anarchic.
The temptation for all concerned parties to capitalise on their own interests then was too huge, the power dynamics were a bit off too, not only the age difference, or each of their individual “needs”. The girl never wanted it be known, Polanski wanted to see her again, mom wanted to “protect” her, after she in fact had used her [with other men] already, and then it went more than wrong with the law wanting to push its own ideas. Indeed, the different eras usually start either accusing, or vindicating people/times suddenly for their own changed times not/or in alignment anymore, and now they’re still in deeper mud for our different attitudes and it’s too easy to think small and in black and white in this more than grey area case.
Novalis Lore In reply to Neville
Posted February 19, 2010 at 2:24 AM
That’s about the short for me too in general – well put, Neville.
Enforcer In reply to Novalis Lore
Posted February 20, 2010 at 10:12 PM
It’s funny how you refuse to post the stuff I put on here in fear it will violate your little bubble you live in thinking Polanski got treated somehow uniquely and the justice system is any different for anyone else.
Novalis Lore
Posted February 20, 2010 at 1:03 AM
I posted enough of your ‘stuff’, Enforcer – and the rest was irrelevant to this case. If anyone is living in a little bubble, than that’s you, in your delusion of paedophilia I humoured long enough now when you posted under different names too just to have an audience. If you bother me again, or others I’ve seen you spam too with irrelevant blather, I’ll block your IP outright and never even get your comments. Your choice – stay civil or stay away.
And you said it yourself in another self-defeating remark, that Polanski was indeed ‘treated somehow uniquely’ and the justice system is arbitrarily applied to individuals as they like it, since the old judge made an example of him at his own amusement for who Polanski was, that he was rearrested for political gain, that he’s being exploited once more for who he is as pawn between money states, when murderers need not post bail of such extortionate amounts and can walk. But he has to sit out house arrest after a thirty year old sex case that was messed up already then and should long have been dismissed – just as both parties wanted it since years now – only for other judges to play with it some more. And now we have another ambitious DA who’s playing his own game of spinning it out as long as possible to become GA, after Polanski had already asked to be absentia sentence as the judge allowed him, only to refuse it in another show of cat and mouse to amuse the public, triggering more appeals and counter appeals to drag it out even more, costing US taxpayers money they sure as hell could use better for current crimes to see prosecuted.
Vahan
Posted February 21, 2010 at 5:35 AM
Novalis, don’t even bother dealing with Enforcer. He is just going to continue believing in his rape/sodomy/pedophilia fantasy. I wouldn’t be surprised if he believes in Kiernan’s delightful works of fiction as well. (I know someone on Shakesville does, as does Julia Baird, in her article “Roman Polanski: Forgiveness is not Enough”).
“Minor anal bruising” wasn’t the only thing that Kiernan made up. He also claimed that Polanski was quoted saying that he couldn’t stand that “dumb hag” (referring to Sharon).
On a side note, I finally got the chance to read Polanski’s 1984 autobiography at my local library today. It is a wonderful, and well-written book that has been raved by everyone on Amazon (and rightfully so). I also read everything that he wrote about Sharon in it, and nowhere did he ever recall calling her a “dumb hag” like Kiernan claimed.
BTW, it has been brought to my attention that Geimer used to be anonymous, and Polanski hoped for her sake that she would remain so. When exactly did she finally reveal her name?
And speaking of Kiernan, besides what I mentioned, what else did he make up about Polanski in his book? The sad part is that I used to believe what he said, until I was moved into the right direction.
Novalis Lore
Posted February 21, 2010 at 8:21 AM
Vahan, I will humour Enforcer if he keeps civilised, but that’s about it, and I’m sure he’s not the only one to believe in Kiernan’s trash, see Shakeville’s indeed. Sad and misled people who simple need to revel in nasty scenarios – it’s just not fun to accept the much more boring and simpler truth, even if Geimer herself declared so they ignore just as much, they simply have to make things nasty and people evil. It’s their obsession in life.
It’s pretty easy to detect what Kiernan made up and what’s fact – since he does include true events and certain details. But every time it sounds like ‘sordid trash’, with dubious dialogue, that’s the fiction. Just compare Polanski’s autobio with his crap, and you’ll see. He included too much negative-only hearsay or quotes from not too well meaning ‘friends’, and then embellished it with his is own lurid fantasies, since he ‘apparently’ knew Polanski. You can get it cheaply on ebay, it’s good enough for a disbelieving headshake and laugh. Polanski had declined him several times to write t/his bio, so he just went ahead and took bits and pieces from here and there, people he interviewed, anything he could find in media and other records, claiming it’s all based on facts, like the court transcripts.
But he even came up with the unbelievable thing that Polanski had violated her orally, which was pure invention, (I mentioned in my long version, which others turned into a near murder case, like demento Judith Reisman, check her out; Kiernan’s a dirty lusty bunny in contrast to her sicko fantasies). I gather/ed he ‘re/constructed’ that from the media given count of ‘oral copulation’ – thinking it meant he penetrated her orally, rather than perform cunnilingus which Geimer had stated, Polanski had always denied and couldn’t be proven. So he sure as hell made up half his book and probably never saw the transcripts. And as I said, since it does cite certain facts, the added fiction made people believe it ALL was true. Too many still believe this trash, despite having proof to the opposite these days. Kiernan was one sick man to smear Polanski out of spite and to make money and fully succeeded.
There have been other recent well-written bios on him, and many include more details Polanski hadn’t thought of then, or of course only occurred over time, but are more or less true and unbiased. Except some of them unfortunately repeated the same old shit in their own research Kiernan had invented – like the ‘anal bruising’ – while others gave the correct findings, as Barbara Leaming did in her own short bio on him she wrote two years before his own and two years after Kiernan’s. As a rule of thumb, anything that makes Polanski look or sound sordid or a callous cad, is basically invention. Like calling Sharon a dumb hag – it’s pure bullshit. He was a bit cocky, very self-assured of his artistic talents, but never cruel to anyone, though on the set he kept an iron thumb on his perfectionism some couldn’t deal with and would throw temper tantrums. So foul-mouthing him comes from either envy, or one ‘lie’ turning into another as in a [Chinese] whispering campaign.
Even harmless interviews can be [mis/]represented as not actually given, when the editors willfully change things, usually for the worse. I have plenty and some are totally different in a different publication. Unfortunately the media can do what they want anyway, especially online – as we saw in his case, omitting vital details, or of course simply keep repeating the same old drivel to maintain a biased level – until they get sued. Which Polanski couldn’t do, or filth like Kiernan’s, because he had no legal resources of defence. And I guess he needed his time and efforts to make films, not bother with slander suits that have to be brought before the right US or UK courts he of course couldn’t get anywhere near, which by now has reached epic proportions he can never rectify. Except for the one time I mentioned concerning Sharon’s legacy via video link. And recent French tabloids since he’s French. He can defend himself against any foreign lawsuits, but not file any himself other than in France.
As for Geimer’s identity – as a rule, minors or rape victim case names are never revealed to the press, and Polanski stated so in an interview at the time too, only his side of the story until he gave up on that, and time forgot about it. But the nosier Euro press got hold of her name and pictures soon after the headlines were smeared all over the place, her address, school, and it went from there. That’s why they eventually moved to Hawaii to escape all that. She later came out herself to give interviews for various reasons, and in varying versions, once her lawsuit was settled, before she filed these petitions to drop the case and declared that it wasn’t rape etc., and to let it all rest.
But as we saw, the lawmakers have no interest in that ever since they fiddled with it on and off, not because they want to ‘punish’ Polanski, since he’s sat out his originally agreed sentence twice by now, but to exploit it for political fun and gain. They’re not interested in ‘justice’, when they even declined his absentia request. That’s why the Swiss said, sod you [US courts], we keep him until you can prove Rittenband really wanted to send him down for longer, which the attorneys had feared and of course Polanski was afraid of included unlawful deportation, and was the only reason to abscond. He knew he could face a few years despite no such agreement, and was ready to take it, before Rittenband just flew off the handle and was removed. Too late.
Enforcer
Posted February 27, 2010 at 9:56 PM
Vahan, even if you read Polanski’s biogrpahy how can you not say that even he admitted to starting carass and kiss her without him jumping on her or anything, and if nothing else that is taking advantage and at least a child molestation charge and that’s before the sex even occurred. I understand the 70s used to have a criminal justice philosophy that ended up failing and that was to rehabilitate not punish and keep locked up offenders, as evidence by the Polly Class case as well as the recent Rodney Alcala case (he ironically took a film class under Polanski) it didnt work.
Novalis Lore
Posted February 28, 2010 at 9:20 AM
I doubt Vahan will engage you, so I will. Polanski never denied what you state, and he pled to more than that one charge which was one of the indictment counts – so we’re long past all that since then. Besides, the US criminal justice failed in general as seen in Polanski’s case alone. And it keeps failing [him and others] to this day.
Enforcer
Posted March 2, 2010 at 3:31 AM
Novalis, the criminal justice system in every country is not fair or honest. It can’t be due to human nature. Human nature makes it impossible to work perfectly because by nature we are biased, unfair, emotional, etc. whether we are cops, judges, citizens, or whatever there is always bias and emotion involved its nature. Anyway basically this quote by Osmond and others I presented shows that it isnt just morality police like you claim or those in power or fathers defending virginity of daughters that is the reason for the recent phenomenom and paranoia. It is because the victims themselves say it is bad and the most damaging done to them. Whether they play along at the time and you spin it to make it consentual, whether they were coerced, whether they came from a horrible family where it was introduced too early, they still end up hating it.
Novalis Lore
Posted March 2, 2010 at 12:34 PM
I read your other links/posts, and true, it’s a difficult issue in general, and no case is the same, which in effect is the key. And the arbitrary punishment or none in some cases doesn’t help either. And true too, because of who and what we are – fallible humans, who fail themselves, others, the system which in turns fails them again. Us all. True too that many end up as you state – while some don’t feel that way, weren’t damaged to whichever extend. Some cope well while others don’t. But the main problem is, while most cases are of no interest to the wider public, a similar case like Polanski’s is flogged to death in an unprecedented witch hunt beyond all sense, exploited purely for political gain – which is simply wrong – purely for who he was then, and still is, I’m sure we can agree on.
Enforcer
Posted March 3, 2010 at 8:36 AM
But local damage and local journalist flogs do more damage to those people than Polanski is damaged by the media. And those people dont have you, or la times, or anyone on their side at all. No one dares defend them because they dont have any name attached to them or anything to offer the la times or esp their local cop-ran or owned media.
Novalis Lore
Posted March 4, 2010 at 12:32 AM
I would disagree on the point that the wider media does Polanski lesser harm – they do him the greater in fact, since his exposure and defamation is on a global scale, deliberately manipulated by politics and fame-hungry DAs who can choose any case they want to pursue, which ‘small-town’ cases cannot deliver them to be reelected. That was Cooley’s whole idea to force his arrest/extradition, and the Swiss judges obviously won’t play his game. But I agree that these other people haven’t the same scope of defenders for the very same reasons of being unknown. That’s why I find it not only so needlessly demonising to pursue one [very famous] case, but most of all time and tax money wasting to latch on to this very old case in particular just because Polanski’s famous, while many other cases are left untouched. The case was already then treated differently when the judge exploited it and was one factor why Polanski fled.
Any other case since then, of worse or same magnitude was/is the news too, but the wider population will never know of them, not even from one US state to the next, let alone country to country, unless it’s a really shocking discovery like in the Garrido case. But in effect it’s still the same, since the ‘tactics’ of the local/global media to ‘exploit’ a cases, rather than merely do unbiased reportages, are of the same hypocrisy/sensationalism to make a feast of them, to get more ratings/sales/comments. But they do it more often and extensively with someone who’s known worldwide to increase ‘hits’. Thus the man will be marked forever and recognised more widely, while Mr X from any town X can leave his place after jail, and start anew somewhere else – Polanski will never be able to do so, since he’s just too well-known. The media had done him great harm already after Tate’s murder in the most blasphemous forms, only to do more in 1977/8, till it escalated today into a concerted witch hunt unheard of.
CB
Posted March 8, 2010 at 6:20 AM
I came across a completely self-defeating article plucked apart by some feminist blogger to “demonstrate” Polanski’s apparently cunning ways of “manipulating” people, taken from a book in fact, which I’m sure will strike great interest in your readers. Here (greatly abridged I might add, since I own the book with * to indicate my own additions):
The transcript of a polygraph exam given to Polanski a week after his wife’s murder in August 1969 offers the following exchanges:
Q [Examiner Lt. Earl Deemer]: Mind if I call you Roman? My name is Earl.
A [Polanski]: Sure… I will lie one or two times during it, and I will tell you after, OK?
Q: Well—all right…
Deemer asks Polanski about how he met Sharon to put him at ease, (*which he did at great length in purely positive and very admiring terms). He mentioned his prowess with women, several times calling himself a “swinger” who was not interested in a long-term relationship anymore (*after her death). Questioning then proceeds requiring a yes or no answer only.
Q: Do you have a valid California driver’s license?
A: Yes.
Q: Have you eaten lunch today?
A: No.
Q: Do you know who took the life of Voytek and the others? (*Tate and their friends)
A: No.
Q: Do you smoke cigarettes?
A: Yes.
(*There was a long pause before) Polanski then begins laughing and Deemer says: “You know what you are going to do with that screwing around? I’m going to have to start all over again. (*A: Sorry.”) Look at the increase in your blood pressure when you start to lie about your cigarettes. Boom, boom, boom, just like a staircase. (*OK, let’s start over again…)”
(*The interview was much longer in fact touching on others involved and they had started over, before) Deemer was satisfied that Polanski had nothing to do with the murders. At the end of the interview, Polanski stood up, lit a cigarette and left. Deemer said, “Hey, I thought you didn’t smoke cigarettes!” (*But Polanski had long gone.)
In the dumb blogger’s opinion, that meant: “Take anything Roman Polanski says with a grain of salt. He fooled a polygraph!”
Eh? I’m sorry, but Polanski said yes, he DOES [or did then] smoke ciggies, so to light one confirms that! So he certainly could NOT fool this cop, whose reaction seems more than curious but was given like that in the very extensive book. The blogger aimed at the possibility that Polanski could charm any probation officer or psychiatrists, and corrections officers while undergoing the psychological exams into eventually giving him a clean bill of mental health.
The blogger completely lost the plot and that Polanski in fact could NOT “manipulate” either a machine, or several impartial officials. Of course, the blogger also said that he had paid them all to give him a nice psyche evaluation. Yeah right. I know Polanski can be a bit of a temperamental “pusher” on his sets to get the exact results he wants, but I believe such people need a psyche eval themselves for thinking he multi bribed his way out of this.
Actually, to my knowledge, Polanski behaved perfectly civil at Chino, was treated well, though kept away from the hardcores and put on cleaning duty, since the first thing he did was scrubbing his cell – and volunteered for that. I’m sure they had the cleanest prison tier during his stay!
That polygraph test excerpt was taken from the former DA Vincent Bugliosi book, “Helter Skelter”, who had tried [and written about] the Manson case. If one might be nasty, I’d say he made a lot of money with Polanski’s and the others’ tragedies. Fascinating thing is, Bugliosi is exactly one year younger than Polanski, to the day and month. How spooky is that.
The blogger puts as if he thought Polanski overestimated his sexual prowess, or irresistibility which was bull, remarking: “A 13-year old girl who had already been in situations no 13-year old belongs in, either in 1977 or today. Famewhores all.”
I’m sorry, Bugliosi never said that about Polanski, and certainly not about Geimer, since the book is from 1974. Maybe in another later interview with Bugliosi, dunno, and might have been aware of what you have touched on in your remarkable article, that her mother did everything to get her into the business, and herself. So I don’t know where the blogger got that “remark” from.
It only shows how some people mix and match sources of information, take ‘em out of context to smear Polanski even more in their blogs. I get it that she was underage, no dispute. Lucky for them there was something like this plea bargain once she blabbed about his “pushing” her into sex she “just let happen”. I don’t think so. And then a pushy mom pushed her into ugly lying ignoring her wishes not to pursue this–unlucky for the “little Pollack” there was someone like this pushy old judge, who then messed it all up for all by pursuing his own agendas.
Now I realise why Rittenband disallowed the clerk’s report over her unseemly conduct in the prosecutor’s office with mommy’s boyfriend, since I’m sure he’d loved to have “pushed” the girl himself, or that uniformed skunk Vannatter, and nail Polanski to the wall. I wonder what she’d say nowadays if anyone asks her about that incident no one knew of anyway, or today. Play it down I suppose, like her “rape”. As far as I’m concerned, Geimer was left to her own devises, and Polanski did not harm her. To sleep with her was certainly “unlawful”, but both were and are still today exploited in an even more shameful way that’s just plain criminal!
Besides, if you wanna pursue Polanski, you’d need to incarcerate half of Hollywood from then to now, half the music world from then to now, and half the planet, from then to now for having done and doing exactly the same right now. It’s preposterous to pursue THAT case! But we all know why. I hope Espinoza finally pulls his finger out and actually sentences him to time served, it’s not like Polanski didn’t even ask him to do so three months back, only to play him for keeps as Rittenband had, going, na na na na na, I’m not gonna absentia sentence ya!
Polanski should be allowed to get this over and done with, like Geimer, on with her life, on with his life and do what he does best: movies! It’s not like that neither he nor she don’t want this ended since years now, how many more times do they have to ask? He was ready to face sentencing! Again! Disgusting charade.
Novalis Lore
Posted March 8, 2010 at 6:31 AM
Thanks for the little ‘anecdote interlude’, CB, and that some people simply cannot accept the more mundane and ordinary facts about this much abused case.
As for Bugliosi, I’ve got that book too, and it is as you state; he didn’t think him overstating his sex appeal then – or guilty of their murders. That was the most blasphemous allegation he ever had to deal with. And true, it’s ‘spooky’ what with their birthdays.
As for Espinoza, let’s see what the appeals come up with for his next move, to end this ‘disgusting charade’ perhaps after all.
Enforcer
Posted March 9, 2010 at 5:55 AM
“Besides, if you wanna pursue Polanski, you’d need to incarcerate half of Hollywood from then to now, half the music world from then to now, and half the planet, from then to now for having done and doing exactly the same right now.”
yes cause its so normal to have sex with little girls. After all the inmates, das, and judges all see the clear difference between 13 yr olds and anything below and thats why they go after every sex offender pretty much equally right? And thats why as I stated in the local article the little girl (herself 13) kept saying she now has to live with the word molest and this is the worse thing that coul. So you admit to publicly liking young teenagers do you? Cause its so normal. After all, that da who shot himself, and all those guys doing hard time for internet stings and entrapments are so normal. Brad Pitt, and everyone secretly f@ks kids too right?
A guy is doing 400 years in Yolo County for absolutely no proof he even had sex with her, and the jury all stated he was guilty since he said he f@ked the girl after she turned 18 in a taped phone call (she claims it started when she was 15) cause after all he is so normal right? And this is with no dna evidence and the girl already ahving served time for visa fraud and not a credible witness herself. oh and all these sex offenders in the news and all these tough on sex offender laws 9even arnold is not releasing any sex offenders early no matter the charge vs other offenders) cause they are so accepted and normal huh?
And Novalis you didnt read all the links I gave you. Go read up on the ajay dev case. Btw sex offenders are all over the news again, and all sex offenders are again by the media grouped into the worse case scenario or compared to the worse case emamples. Oh and on top of these even those guys deserve due process yet I saw CNN and Fox labeling them without giving them due process last night.
Novalis Lore
Posted March 10, 2010 at 2:39 AM
Enforcer, to repeat myself one last time – This is about the Polanski case ALONE!
I DID read all your stuff, but it doesn’t concern THIS case, nor do WE hear about any of YOUR cases in the UK and don’t concern us here at all either, it’s YOUR problem. We have our own cases YOU don’t know of and none have anything to do with this old case most of all. I don’t have to discuss any of them HERE in any form. I know a man accused of rape is automatically a rapist despite NO proof in any form or even conviction, & plenty turn out false accusations to start with. And a 13 year old isn’t a ‘little girl’, but adolescent, a teenager of child-bearing age and the doctor who examined Geimer described her as an ‘adult female’ in fact – BIG difference. And yes, EVERYBODY did it then, or NOW, that’s the whole point of this debate! Because, how many stories have been hushed over by them all that we don’t know about of more or less famous musicians, actors, directors and producers who have done exactly what Polanski did? But ONLY Polanski was made an example of THEN and TODAY AGAIN, not only because he was more famous and a foreigner, but because he fled a racist judge who did EXACTLY the same as they had, and most of all, he escaped YOUR corrupt US legal system you yourself described as arbitrary and biased often enough by now with your case examples.
And what exactly did you mean by that line: ‘So you admit to publicly liking young teenagers do you?’ Is that just more sarcasm directed at those who think it’s ‘all so normal’, or are you by any chance referring to me? That’s their problem to think so, I don’t, so be careful what you’re saying here in case it’s directed at myself. Besides, YOU seem extremely obsessed with all these other cases and paedophiles in general, why not tackle them on YOUR OWN blog or these other sites, if you don’t want to discuss THIS case, hm? You’re running in a circle here – you’re repeating yourself over the same issues over and over, which aren’t related to the case in hand. Normal, abnormal, right or wrong, if you’re so keen about these issues, get your own blog to discuss them with likeminded people THERE – but stay away from mine from now on.
Besides, it’s people like you who keep the Polanski case alive and kicking up more dust, just like the press & petty little bloggers who are pushing this case into the foreground AGAIN, in sensationalistically overblown & disproportionally distorted ways beyond all sense. not me. I just picked up on it to expose these exact double standards applied to this case, & reveal the actual facts of the utterly twisted details & most of all the plenty judicial misconduct everyone want to conveniently bury.
Sybyll Vaine
Posted March 10, 2010 at 8:01 AM
You’re right, Novalis; other people were involved in every film of his too, people who could be in trouble with the law otherwise, or not at all, have families to look after as well and depend on any revenue he can bring them without compromising their ‘moral virtue’. It’s their life, their livelihood. If these ill-informed accusers want to point their pious fingers at Polanski only or boycott his films, it’s just too easy to get all hyper/bolic about this particular case, when in truth any ‘moral’ issues is affecting a large number of Hollywood’s annual ‘artistic’ output. Or Bollywood’s for that matter. Only those stories never make it to the global papers because they’re not what you cited already: famous foreign fugitives. If people knew of others’ ‘immoral deeds’, and most have been supporting them all their lives willingly or unwittingly, to boycott them all would be impossible, since in all art, all morality is out the window once created by a fallible human, or we’d not have any to look at, listen to, read, or buy. Life would be void of ALL art. Life is a morality play you can take part in or not. So to single out Polanski over some decades old ‘immoral deed’ the adult woman today long forgave him for, but not by those who have absolutely nothing to do with them, is braindead bigotry and folly by now. Many artists were murderers, but are the museums hiding their work? Many writers had incestuous relations or violated their partners, but are we burning their books? Many musicians slept with underage ‘fans’ drugged out of their skulls, but are we throwing out their albums? The list is endless and bleeds into all sectors of life. We’d be back at Nazi fascism of boycotting their ‘degenerate’ art or whatever they created. All art stands on its own and I judge it purely by its merit, based on my own taste. How many women and men of all ages slept around to get a part in a movie through the ages? (Or in ordinary life for that matter.) Do people really think that particular ‘aspiring model’ with that particular ‘ambitious mother’ did not seek fame and fortune through him foremost, she in fact said herself was the whole idea, and he would have delivered had they all played by the ‘rules’ of the ‘casting couch’? Today’s moral crusades are a total waste of time when it comes to Hollywood, always was. As long as she thinks today that it wasn’t rape then, is good enough for me for her underage status he pleaded to and was ready to face his judgment. To declare one person guiltier than others who did or do worse, after the corrupt law had let that person down already and still does so today, can we simply ignore that fact most of all? As far as I’m concerned, the law is unable to correct what it had done to him decades ago, and we have no right to moralise about the man today who never committed any crime. Polanski is not a paedophile or rapist, and no matter how much people need him to fit that picture, he’s a highly intelligent man who survived many traumas and vastly superior artist foremost, and everybody who ever met him said the same. I doubt they’re all morally corrupt. Everybody’s entitled to one big mistake, to sleep with her was just that in the eyes of the law. Americans never forgive any ‘foreigners’ their ‘mistakes’, while letting their own Hollywood elite, musicians and most of all crooked politicians do the same without equally condemning them by turning a blind eye to that same law. They’re all sanctimonious hypocrites. But that’s nothing new.
Novalis Lore
Posted March 10, 2010 at 9:54 AM
You’re right, Sybyll, the ‘art-artist’ dynamic is a problem for many, while it’s not to others, but only if they catch a ‘current’ case – or at least one within their own time. As soon as it’s ancient history, they couldn’t care less anymore either way – or we indeed would be very bereft of most art. Many of course don’t know of their backgrounds, and some might come to light only later, but as soon as it’s not within their own interest, agendas, and/or era, they’re not interested anymore, or ‘morally invested’ to pursue any vilification or boycotting – They have no ‘target’ anymore, and that’s why Polanski’s case lies embattled for today’s more prevalently addressed issues, which were of not much concerns then. That’s of course where the double standards stem from to make an example of him today and again, but no one else even these days. It’s pure hypocrisy they think they can apply to one case but not another. They pick and choose as it suits them, making a mockery of their own ‘moral principles’ in fact.
And then there’s of course the law issue most have no clear ideas about either concerning this case, which on the other hand if some do recognise that side, they can differentiate between the actual events and the changed people concerned, and the law that broke down to give them both closure they demand be fixed. Which has failed to this day, and we all know why – you said it yourself.
Vahan
Posted March 12, 2010 at 1:55 AM
Novalis, you mentioned earlier about how more often than not, the media likes to twist anything Polanski says and make him seem worse than he really is (Just like Kiernan).
I’m pretty sure this quote from the New York Post is an example of what you’re talking about:
“And this little w***e (possible reference to Geimer) and the California laws won’t either.”
Yet like you said earlier, Polanski had nothing but good things to say about her, and isn’t it true that after winning his Oscar for best director, he contacted Geimer and thanked her for her support?
And slightly off-topic here, but in 1994, didn’t Polanski say, and I quote:
“I have a hard time to persuade myself that it was wrong.”
However, when he did that interview with 60 Minutes’ Mike Wallace in 1978, he said:
“Whatever I did was wrong, I think I paid for it. I went through a year of incredible hardships, and I think I paid for it.”
And speaking of his interview with Mr. Wallace, there was one part I didn’t get where Polanski said the following:
“If I tell you that we lived quietly, and had quiet evenings, and listened to the music, and that Sharon was a lovely cook, it will all seem like alabiay.” (not sure if that’s the correct word, Polanski’s thick accent is sometimes hard for me to understand)
Yet when he did an interview for Rolling Stone magazine in 1974, he said that he and Sharon did indeed have quiet evenings, and that she was a lovely cook, etc.
Was this his idea of making fun of the media or something?
Oh, and one more thing: What were Jacqueline Bisset’s thoughts on the Polanski situation and which side was she on? And what are her views on the situation today?
Novalis Lore
Posted March 13, 2010 at 9:54 AM
Vahan – these articles are always subject to ‘personal interpretation’ of things, i.e., the journalists’ ‘factual representations’. I have come across a UK report from a cheap tabloid in which an American guest editor had interviewed Geimer on Hawaii right after the Oscar Award for The Pianist. Unless you know it’s a sleazy sensationalist paper, you’d be bound to believe it, when in fact he literally took Kiernan’s own words and quotes of the events in place of what she really said, and I couldn’t believe the audacity.
But I saw the exact same interview (and most likely original) in a US mag which had quoted her factually – and was the exact opposite where she was happy for him to get the Oscar in 2003, and again said that he should be forgiven, and finally be allowed to come back to the US. I.e., see the case dropped or closed etc., with her petitions etc. – Polanski indeed thanked her and said it was very nice of her to say that, in regard to the award etc.
So, the whore part, I know of too, might just as well be someone’s own idea to ‘un-quote’ Polanski, since he sometimes was very upfront way back then and mellowed over time. But he’d be really dumb to call her that to garner any sympathy. Unless heard from his own lips, I haven’t, it can be discredited as another attempt to smear him. It depends on the reporter/paper etc., and in her case, she was quoted of having called him an old creep (in that UK paper), which she in fact never actually said. It’s all just fabrication in most part out to damage/slander people – and get readers to buy their lies, and papers.
As for the 1994 quote, I saw that interview, and I believe he said, ‘had’ a hard time, in regards to sleeping with such a young girl – since everyone around him did it. He just couldn’t get his head around the fact that even if she had consented, the law didn’t allow her too in the US – just because judging from his Euro roots where young teens were, or are allowed to. It was more a culture clash between them – not only laws and a teen not quite sure what to do, or not. She might have been overwhelmed by the demands of her mother and the entire sex at the end of the day, and just let it all happen. That’s why she later said that she wouldn’t consider it rape, since he wasn’t forceful, mean, etc. as she put it. But who knows really, since none of her words were ever impugned.
As for: “If I tell you that we lived quietly, and had quiet evenings, and listened to the music, and that Sharon was a lovely cook, it will all seem like alabiay.” That should say, ‘an alibi’ – Meaning, whatever he would tell people, it will always be seen as an alibi, empty excuse, not real remorse etc. – though he often enough apologised then and later and tried to explain his side, his mistake in regards to Geimer’s age etc. That’s why she later said, I think he knows it was wrong. It’s only that people never know of these rather amicable exchanges, and that they both honestly try to get this over with since ages now, no one is really interested in and the lawmakers are in a big muddle to sentence him, or not, ever since Rittenband messed it all up, or Espinoza had done so months back.
So, to repeat that Rolling Stone quote later wasn’t taking the mickey, just giving his thoughts of his short time together with Sharon as an example of trying to explain, that, no matter what he would say after 1978, people would simply misconstrue his words into something else – And, for many years in fact he couldn’t say anything to his defence, as soon as the case was under a lawsuit from 1988 to 1998 when they settled, and people concerned cannot comment on it anymore by law. And then he was becoming weary of apologising and/or explaining, since no one listened anyway, and simply didn’t react to any questions regarding, as in the very affable Charlie Rose interview from very recent.
As for Bisset’s – she was a long-term friend then, and police only took her statement in regards to while he was there with Geimer. As for being on his side, since she saw Geimer, she had said then that teens like her were very hip, and know exactly what they’re doing. Geimer obviously must have appeared rather confident to her then, while the caretaker believed them behaving like lovers, and Huston had thought her to be much older. So that would all reflect in fact Polanski’s own impression he had of her. As for Bisset’s views today, same problem, no one can discuss the case while being handled officially, which it is since years again on and off with each new judge messing with it some more, and of course Espinoza since his arrest.
Endgame
Posted March 13, 2010 at 12:42 AM
You have no idea how he could be charged today with his crime. He could today be charged with a separate rape every time he changed sexual positions and acts. On top of this he could be charged with creating child pornography, attempting lewd acts the time he met her and nothing happened, and the kiss itself is a felony lewd act now he gave her. Also even if he did not furnish drugs to her which most accounts to him having those at his house at least, he surely furnished alcohol and I dont even think he took the cahmpagne himself so thus his attempt started at this point and lewd convictions.
Novalis Lore
Posted March 14, 2010 at 9:04 AM
You obviously have no first clue how the law works, then or now, ‘Enforcer’ – I know it’s you – and furthermore didn’t read my blog property or you’d not bring this up. Let me enlighten you.
First of all, once a plea was given and accepted, all other dropped counts become subject to the ten-year statute of limitations, which expired two decades ago. Only if the plea is withdrawn by a judge are they back on the table for a retrial. This has not occurred nor is sought by the current prosecution, or they’d simply withdrawn his plea by now and the extradition is intending to seek sentencing his old plea. He was charged and pleaded guilty to one count, end of the legal story. Ergo, only the count of unlawful sex is still pursuable for being a fugitive from justice, since in the US such count has no statute, unlike in Switzerland e.g., where he could not be sentenced after that period anymore.
Furthermore, according to Californian law then and now, retroactive application of current statutes of limitations violates the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Constitution, and thus eliminates any possibility for prosecution of a crime committed before the implementation of the extended [ten year] statute. Or, if it may aggravate a crime by bringing it into a more severe category than it was in at the time it was committed. Ex post facto laws are expressly forbidden by the Unites State Convention. Furthermore, article 11, paragraph 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides, that no person may suffer any penalty heavier than what existed at the time of offence. It also adds that, if a lighter penalty is provided for after the offence occurs, that lighter penalty shall apply retroactively. Ergo, no laws of today can be applied to his plea sentencing, but that of the time or the lighter penalty of today, which was an undetermined sentence on probation – no further jail time.
While on the date of the incidence he could have looked at fifty years, March 1977, the penal code however changed on June 1st that year and California adopted a new set of sentencing laws that imposed determinate sentencing for particular offences. Although the new laws applied only for felonies committed after that date, it also had made changes to some committed before that date, for which Polanski had not been sentenced yet. Based on the change in this law, and because the incident occurred before that date, but had not been sentenced by June 1st, the maximum time he could be looking at today – on extradition and the prosecution demanding such penalty – for unlawful sex is two years maximum on probation. However, since no one told him of that change either, and he had pleaded to max twenty years, that too is a grave failure of informing the defendant of such drastic departure from sentencing rules, when he believed the max was twenty – not withstanding the other ‘omission’ that he could have looked at fifty had the Attorney General so demanded, of course no one wanted before he ever pleaded.
In addition, he cannot be charged with anything additionally today than what the original indictment counts were: the expired five counts and what he pleaded to – i.e., ‘child pornography’ is not applicable. Not even if the plea is withdrawn, since certain laws or violations of today didn’t pertain then or weren’t an offence and is unlawful to apply to any old case. The core of Polanski’s defense is that both the Court and DA’s office conspired to deny him his right to due process on several levels, which is simply criminal in itself. Apart from that, he didn’t furnish the champagne, since Geimer could have refused it once they found it in Nicholson’s fridge.
Razza
Posted March 14, 2010 at 1:54 AM
I strongly agree with your legal standpoints, Novalis, and Polanski’s arrest at this late date is both objectionable and more than arbitrary, while hardcore criminals are allowed to wander around. The bedrock of our legal system is a defendant’s right to due process, and when that process is highjacked to exploit it for personal ego games, we corrupt the very system and as a consequence assault the very principle of the U.S. Constitution.
I was also was under the impression our legal system took cases individually because each was different. Polanski no doubt was a much burdened man at that time, and some high degree of nihilistic self-destruction and more atypical behavior would be expected by then given his traumatic life experiences, especially for sensitive and highly intelligent men who are wide open to practice life to the max on all levels as he did, which the shrinks had spotted right away.
There is also the cultural difference in age of consent between where he was and where he came from. Apart from the fact that some 13 year-olds are still children, and some are far from it. Some 30 year-olds could behave like adolescents. Men today are classified as animals after an era of feminism gone out of hand, resulting in blanket condemning them as predators or pedophiles for even looking at a younger female. Such generalising misandry is an unacceptable starting point for any intelligent and objective debate.
Having said that, I’m very pleased to have found your all-encompassing analyses of the complex case not engaging in such BS, great job.
Novalis Lore
Posted March 14, 2010 at 9:14 AM
Thanks – I second your overall emotion, Razza.
MT
Posted March 14, 2010 at 2:54 AM
One thing is clear, and no matter how many ‘theories’ and details have been brought forwards, as long as there’s no trial to pick it all apart, we’ll never know exactly what happened between them. But I’d rather go with the non-forcible ordinary sex on a more self-indulgent level from his side, and for her later counterclaims that she wouldn’t call it rape not feeling like a victim. Up to her I’d say. Though I always wondered why she came out suddenly, what with the different ‘shadings’ of the events, gave her public forgiveness, and now she’s a victim of the state just as he had been from the start, with the courts unable to make sense of their messy legal legacy to close the case finally.
Nice bringing it all together, mate, gave me a lot more to think about than I expected, to puzzle together this more than complex case to a more completed picture. This case is obviously striking so much more attention in people rather than other cases from their own hood, unless directly affected. I can see where some commentators get into a fuddle wanting to push their own ‘cases’ needing a sounding board, since there are indeed many others no one knows of and are important issues.
But of course, they’re not universally ‘famous’ people like old Polanski they can attack and exploit for political reasons, despite being much worse cases worldwide, you’re right. They have to play self-righteous condemners in his case very vocally, jeering at his wife and even children by now, calling them his ‘latest victims’, while for their ‘US’ own ‘celebrities’ they express their sympathy to the affected families, or even those of hardcore offenders. His family, as Geimer’s, are victims only for the legal failings and renewed double standards this public morality play can force on them. Bigotry.
And to paraphrase Polanski himself: the extremities of American culture are all too obvious – it’s either total prudery, or total pornography. Once not even married couples were shown sleeping in the same bed, to full frontal nudity even in mainstream cinema, resulting in mental imbalance, sexual frustration, social disharmony, and most of all overreaction to what’s ‘normal’ nature these days, lying right in between the two.
No other western culture has this problem, resulting in the need to compensate with sexual aggression and political wars like no other country does. The States have more violent pedophiles, rapists and murderers than any other Euro zone in statistical comparison for their repression and extremes of upbringing. So what ‘Smiley’s Comfort’ has already brought up, is more than an evident trait of the American psyche and behaviour foremost. In that sense it’s also a culture clash, and the ensuing overemotional ‘outrage’, reaching into the political and farcical name calling.
Taking aside TV series or other films, you only need to look at their actual ‘star concept’ movies to reflect their inner ‘ethical mores’; all blood-soaked hardcore violence, mind-numbing ‘action heroes’ or CGI driven ‘SF’ with hardly any real ‘human’ elements left anymore. Or real acting. While Bollywood keeps it to singing and dancing melodramatics, Hong Kong cinema is foremost stunning martial arts and soppy love stories. The Japanese having evolved film through their own history, the Godzilla era to today’s popular Anime, European cinema is more intellectual and balanced between any genres. Polanski would be out of place in money-driven Hollywood anyway these days, with his ‘art housey’ and deeper, psychological thrillers that would only tax the US mind into ‘thinking’, making his films for arts sake not riches.
Novalis Lore
Posted March 14, 2010 at 9:25 PM
Thanks, MT – it is as you say, these are important issues and happen as we speak, but have no trophy value to any posh LA DAs, or the leering public who otherwise are ignorant to their own criminals around them, ‘feeling’ for THEIR families, but not his.
And true too, their films are a reflection of their so young and purists’ ‘Western’ history, resulting in extremes of ‘culture’, predilections for militant adventures, and obsession with guns resulting in a vicious cycle of violence, giving us ‘tough heroes’ with the highest body and bullet count. It’s lunacy.
Samskara
Posted March 15, 2010 at 7:50 AM
NL:
I just want to thank you publicly for the materials you sent my way. They’ve been a treasure trove. My eternal gratitude.
One question I have after reading through Geimer’s Grand Jury statement (since it’s not testimony because Dalton wasn’t given the chance to give a cross-examination), but she claimed that she was pretty drunk when she returned home from Nicholson’s place. What I’d like to know is, were there any toxicology tests taken on her at the time of her rape exam? That would tell if Polanski indeed did give her the Quaaludes and Champagne? In any rape kit, blood is always taken from the victim to test for STDs (at the time, now it’s to check for AIDS), but also to check the victim’s blood alcohol level. Also, is it known whether Geimer submitted to a breathalyzer blow test? If she was as drunk as she claimed, then why didn’t they perform the usual tests to find out how drunk she was? It would stand to reason that if the initial breathalyzer test showed alcohol, there would be reason to charge Polanski with providing alcohol to a minor. Yet, if memory serves, that charge was taken off the table. Why?
Samskara
Novalis Lore
Posted March 16, 2010 at 9:25 PM
Ahhh, now this is where it all went wrong from the very start anyhow, you see, Samskara – Guess what, NONE of that was done in any form, for whichever highly deplorable reasons.
I mentioned that in my blogs too, and what criminal oversight, and/or unprofessional and/or deliberate neglect that was, whichever. All it took in those days was a ‘victim’s’ allegations given before a grand jury to be added as indictment counts – that’s what trials are for to establish them as false or true by challenging them. But of course the case never went to trial, and her words to this day are therefore undeniably never impugned claims only and not fact – correct. All they did was take his fingerprints, and for whatever reason the cops and/or attorney’s and even judge didn’t request these vital tests, is failure of due course on a grand scale at a very early stage already by several parties. But wasn’t the only at any rate and they all got away with it too.
The rape kit exam was done within 4 hrs, and came back negative, but no other tests were conducted on her – Dr Larson wouldn’t take her blood anyhow, that would have been another department’s duty then they obviously failed to call on. I doubt in those days they had breathalyser testing done at any rate, not even on drivers – that’s all a more modern day course of action. It is very difficult in the first place to apply retrograde extrapolation since the breath alcohol concentration test result itself can vary between individuals consuming identical amounts of alcohol due to gender, weight, and genetic pre-disposition. And that with today’s more advanced techniques. In blood tests alcohol levels are still traceable within 24 hrs according to the amount ingested, and with many drugs too even for days, while others are only detectable within hours, though today other more advanced methods can still trace them otherwise over weeks or even months. Like in hair.
Quaaludes would have been easily traceable, but the tiny amount she took wouldn’t increase intoxication, only the sex drive and euphoria, or as whole pill relaxation, it has no influence on the alcohol level and many drugs lose effect or become contraindicative when taken with alcohol anyway, rather than increase effect. Alcohol is a suppressant, which makes it harder to get, yeah, hard, while Quaaludes is a relaxant (for what Polanski used them) or sexual stimulant depending on the amount, for which she had used it then, since he never said if he took some for needing to drive. So yeah, a blood test would have been the more appropriate and reliable course of action to probe/dis/prove any of their words – or even urine analysis, since alcohol and drugs can be traced in urine as well.
Besides, there were three people drinking from that one bottle: the caretaker who seems to have finished hers, Polanski who hardly touched his, and Geimer who apparently had his too. That makes hardly two thin flute glasses holding not much, and the average size bottle was still half full. According to some sources the caretaker had poured their glasses, while Polanski said he did, in his bio. But either way, she had told Polanski she liked champagne, and that’s why they went for that rather than anything else. While at the house of Bisset’s just prior she had refused an offer of wine, once at the Nicholson house she said she was ‘thirsty’. That’s why the count of furnishing alcohol was still in the books, since he had said they had something to drink. All they needed was to find out how much of it was his fault, and even with both their rather inadequate statements already, it was clear that he hadn’t ‘provided’ the alcohol, (or drugs) since they found it in Nicholson’s fridge (or bathroom) and someone else too could have told her not to have some. Geimer could have refused the [Q or] champagne at any rate and used it only for posing, asked for something else to drink. If you’re ‘thirsty’, you go for juices or water, not alcohol which dehydrates you even more.
Besides, according to her very own testimony she had some food in the kitchen during the shoot there, with the intention to counteract the alcohol effect, and some sugar cubes she nibbled on for the pictures as Polanski put it in his bio – so in that case it’s even less likely she was ‘pretty drunk’, since all food absorbs alcohol reducing intoxication. Besides, Huston didn’t take her as inebriated or drugged once introduced during her phone call, but ‘sullen’, and if we take that literally would mean gruff, that’s why she said she found that/her rude. But for whatever reason Geimer was impolite to her is a mystery, and neither Polanski nor in fact her own mother thought her drunk once Geimer rushed into another room at home to tell her about the asthma lie, or she’d said so during her grand jury testimony. She rather tried to make it sound that her daughter was ‘afraid of him’, ‘didn’t like him’, (while on the phone to her during the shoot) not drunk, ‘maneuvering’ her daughter’s words towards that dubious ‘fear’ factor and the prosecutor struck from the record as unfounded information.
The charge of furnishing alcohol was taken off the table since you can plea to only one count, and all other counts are automatically dropped in addition – which is usually the highest punishable, or the one most likely having taken place, so to say he pleaded to the ‘lesser’ count of unlawful sex is incorrect, since any other count would had given him less time, rather than the 1-20, or of course 50 yrs if the prosecution had wanted it, he didn’t know of could be applicable and no one ‘advised’ him of. But as I said to ‘Enforcer’/EndGame, the law had changed during the ten months of proceedings, and the max it would have given him was 2 yrs inside or on probation applicable to this day, according to the plea arrangement, no one told him of either, and prosecutor Gunson didn’t seek any further jail time at any rate. They had no case after the family’s expressed refusal to have a trial to allow for cross-examination and five months deliberation, and he pleaded to that one count ready to face the sentence after this release from Chino.
Had he known of the 50 yrs looming, he’d demanded a trial, thinking himself innocent of the dropped charges, and even at that stage had a good chance to be found innocent of them by an unbiased jury, at the mere findings so far. But then he was forced into the plea on several levels for a number of these family/procedural/legal reasons, I had also addressed, and was basically messed with from the very start, and the law enforcement’s shady ‘panties evidence’ dealings on the side. That’s why he ultimately fled, in the face of such procedural/legal failings and/or biased/incompetent actions, Rittenband’s growingly ostentatious and racist antics later, and mainly the unlawful threat of self-deportation not Rittenband’s call. If even Gunson said only two yrs back, he’d fled too, that alone proves that they all failed him, and a very unprofessional counsel in Dalton’s case all under the thumb of Rittenband, who wasn’t acting out of a sense of justice, he was trying to regain the esteem of the jury of his peers, the only ones who counted to him — his equally racist buddies at the Hillcrest Country Club.
That’s why they cannot close the case still today, no matter how many times Geimer pleaded to drop it, since they’d needed to in fact resolve all this shite they had left judge Espinoza with or they’d just close a case of gross misconduct. That’s why he couldn’t absentia sentence him either no matter his repeat nonsense that he has to be present to be sentenced. It’s all BS, since they’d be forced to tackle all that once done so, they sure as hell want to give a miss no matter what the say, and Cooley of course studiously has avoided to this day despite the courts in fact having instructed him to, once they discovered all these ‘shocking judicial failures’. The case has become so corrupted by now over the decades far beyond any remedy, that they cannot move back nor forth, trying to make us believe they seek his extradition in the name of serving and preserving justice, which had failed him now multiple times for human incompetence and/or [deliberate] obstructions.
It’s a farcical catch 22 case by now, with Polanski trapped within these old legal mess-ups and current stalemate status quo, and the more astute Swiss unwilling to deliver an old man into their amateurish hands that cannot even prove what his actual sentence had been, and today’s laws cannot be applied unless the same. They opened a very old can of very nasty worms for public amusement and personal gain they cannot get rid of anymore ‘legally’, with Cooley’s idiotic interference having worsened it immensely I’m sure he forever will regret. And I hope will NOT be reelected because of that.
How did reporter Brenneman put it last year again who was right there: “The director fled not to accept the punishment that had been approved by prosecution, defense, the judge and her family. He fled because an ego-obsessed judge had jumped the rails, reneged on the plea bargain after Polanski had already spent the approved amount of days in a state prison cell. Despite the media furor now underway, I can state without equivocation that Roman Polanski has been the victim of a deplorable case of judicial corruption.”
Correct.
Lewis
Posted March 18, 2010 at 1:31 AM
Now I finally know how she ended up in that “T.V. room”! Of course, if she wanted to rest because she felt too hot after the Jacuzzi dip photo sessions, he brought her there after she didn’t take that pool dip–which she never told the Grand Jury, but instead invented this “asthma” and “fear” baloney when he never was with her in Jacuzzi either! Ahhhhh..…I get it. This makes at last sense now, even if she had swum that one cooler pool lap.
I always wondered how he “made” her do things, go around the house–she asked for a place to lie down and they obviously couldn’t use Jack’s bedroom or lie down in the bathroom or kitchen, lounge whatever! Aye yes, I got it. All this, “I said, ‘no, no. I don’t want to go in there. No, I don’t want to do this. No!’” never made no sense to me anyhow, or he’d needed to “force” her somehow to get there, push her through the place, right–but she never said that he had, rough handled her or whatever. That part was always the biggest head-scratcher for me since I read that, man. Of course, she went there willingly to rest with the photos done and then they had casual sex before Anjelica returned.
What I also found most curious was the fact that she never said “why” she was “afraid” of him–and stupidly no one asked her that either–what did he “do” that made her afraid? To say she “felt” it was “scary” doesn’t mean anything, and no one asked other more specific questions to explain anything really either. None of this rings true, and the whole Grand Jury thing don’t mean nothing to me not being irrefutable evidence anyway. Gunson sure as hell didn’t probe enough.
Like, what “exactly” did he do–placed his mouth on her vagina–and then what? Just left it there? For a few minutes? Sorry? “Cuddliness” requires certain actions she didn’t describe either. How did he open her labia? With his fingers, tongue? Did he use his tongue–“only”–when he performed cunnilingus? How did he it use it? Inside, outside? How did it feel? Did it hurt when he entered her vaginally? No. Did it hurt when he penetrated her anally–twice? No.
Well I’m sorry, but it should have–if someone “freezes”, is really “unwilling”, they clench up, make it even more painful and injurious. Anal sex in general is more painful than not as it is and alcohol definitely dries you up even more to have comfortable vaginal sex. Unless extra water-based lube is used only natural vaginal fluids enable painless intercourse after sufficient stimulation, or lots of saliva, let alone anal sex which definitely requires lots of lube. But there was no saliva found inside in her, or lube, and she didn’t say he soaked her either. He would have torn her not only on entry, if he ever had gotten it inside for the dry friction in the first place, but repeat strokes of the actual intercourse action and not just leave it in there. Even is she just “let him get on with it” as she claimed later, she’d screamed in agony from start to finish resulting in rectal bleeding, I tell ya.
Quaalude doesn’t relax vaginal walls or anal sphincters to allow painless sex, unlike other drugs like amyl nitrate people use specifically for anal sex. He’d needed to prise open her legs or cheeks without that. But, no marks on her or genital tearing, and I never heard her say he hurt her or to have felt any pain as it would. I don’t believe in that being drunk and drugged and most of all double sodomy either–purely from a scientific or medical standpoint, logical sequence of events–and the oral sex cannot be proven either.
Sorry this got a bit graphic, but a “rape” case needs scrutinising on exactly that level–from any gynaecological angle possible. I used to take Quaalude back then, and amyl, and lots of lubes, so I know what I’m talking about. You touched on that several times with clarity and breakdown of events like a police report really, excellent job.
A scrupulous cross-examination most certainly would have unravelled her unlikely sodomy and “apprehension” yarn had Dalton had a proper chance to “psyche” her out. And her complicit mother. Stupid plea bargain. It’s all a big mess from start to finish, let alone the completely compromised juristic side of things bully Rittenband orchestrated, and Polanski paid for it big time. All for stupid sex with a stupid young girl. But he learned his lesson decades ago and the entirely corrupted case should be dismissed on legal grounds alone. Just as they both bloody well deserve it.
Novalis Lore
Posted March 18, 2010 at 9:54 AM
You’re correct, Lewis, it needs to be viewed this rather intimate way, or all these justified ‘doubts’ cannot be answered more logically and/or scientifically. Your brief analysis and résumé of the case hit it right on the nail.
Samskara
Posted March 18, 2010 at 12:01 PM
Lewis:
I completely agree with everything you said here. And I think the thing that really gets me is that she said “he put his mouth on my vagina”. It’s impossible to put one’s mouth on a vagina. The vagina is up inside the female genitalia. Unless using fingers, penis, Q-Tip, dildo, anything, you have to go up inside and past the outer and inner labia. To simply say he ‘put his mouth on my vagina’ is either stupid, or not even having an understanding of one’s own genitals. Given Geimer ‘testified’ in her Grand Jury testimony she’d had sex twice before that event, she’d know what is what on her body. Reading through the Grand Jury Testimony, I picked up on some things that really hit me. She seemed to be really knowledgeable beyond the normal ‘prepping’ prosecutors do in such cases, on what things were. Yet, she came off as really stupid when it came to the ‘cuddliness’ issue. I think that was her ‘acting’ as she said she liked doing. Hence her statement, “I wanted to be like my mother.” Like mother like daughter alright.
Lewis
Posted March 18, 2010 at 2:31 PM
Samskara –
Why else do you think her boyfriend said: “She’s always acting,” and didn’t even believe her words of, “Polanski had sex with me”? Her mother said she’s very precocious, meaning “bright”, yet came across as really “naïve” and “scared” to give us the impression of a helpless teen, while Polanski and the rest didn’t think so. I doubt they all got it wrong; Helena thought they behaved like lovers and Huston thought her crotchety let alone scared.
Didn’t another commentator on here say Geimer might have been a better actor than Polanski, and that she was probably pissed off that they had to leave, since Huston wasn’t too happy with them being there? Geimer today surely doesn’t appear as dumb as that, and after all her more than curious “recall gaps” and sudden declarations of “it wasn’t rape” is ever so keen on getting this thing closed.
Ha, if only they could–not only for her undeniably never challenged allegations for one, but all these Rittenbandian–(hey, I like that word, sounds like bandit 
–and subsequently added legal transgressions a more than serious litigation process would require in this case they’d needed to initiate, once they’d sentenced him. I live in LA and know what’s going on. I’m so glad the Swiss didn’t fall for their bloody lies. Many people in Europe think we Americans want his head, not so, many know he’s a political forfeit by now, holed up in his Milky Way home. It’s a damned disgrace purely from the legal perspective. We have no real justice here.
That’s why Espinoza didn’t absentia sentence him, he couldn’t, and douchebag DA Cooley as they call him, yeah, has been warned by the Appeals Court several times now to see to the misconduct allegations. But does he? No, he couldn’t care less and that pathetic DA Walgren name-caller without any legal ethics is even worse. Many have already stated the case is messed up from start to finish and Novalis has compressed that into headshaking reality. Polanski sure as hell never had any chance of fairness from day one. I was there.
Everyone told Polanski then that she hasn’t got a chance in hell once on the stand; Dalton was very astute and would have cracked her, but of course, bandit, yeah, let’s call him that, Rittenband had his own show game to act out and unfortunately they forced “the little Pollack” into this plea bargain which it sure as hell wasn’t. I have read loads of stuff by now about her and him, followed their interviews, blogs and whatnot over the years, and NO one has come even close to what Novalis has unearthed here on every level. Or want to anyhow, but rather revel in their ugly lynch mob sentiments and or criminal ignorance. Pathetic.
Having said that, I watched The Ghost Writer, and all I can say is–it’s a must-see polit thriller and one of Polanski’s best works to date. All the glowing reviews got it right.
Samskara
Posted March 19, 2010 at 9:57 AM
NL:
Well, well, well, the wonders of it all. MORE misconduct than we already knew about? This is shaping up to be the lollapalooza of all illegalities. One prosecutor (Gunson) coming clean to hopefully wipe out another’s (Cooley’s) chances of re-election! Amazing.
I’m going to use this juncture to tell you about a dream I had sometime around the early 80s. I know, “Dream! Come on there Samskara!” Well, here is the essence of it. In the dream, I was able to got to California where I sought out Geimer. I was able to find her and had a ‘sit-down’ with her. In the dream, I told her about my rape and what mine did to me. I asked her how she recovered from her ‘trying’ ordeal and this is what she told me in the dream. She told me that she had in fact, lied on the stand. In the dream, she told me that it was a plan right from the get go to try to get money out of him or a career. She said that when both failed, the rape allegation was the only thing they could go with because of the knowledge of Polanski’s infidelities during the Tate/Polanski marriage.
That dream coupled with what I already had known about Roman after finding out about Sharon’s untimely death in 1976 in light of reading Bugliosi’s “Helter Skelter” and seeing the 1976 movie based on the book. I knew in my heart of hearts that Roman was totally incapable of doing this. His history in Poland and the murder of Sharon and their friends and Steve Parent made this incident implausible from my standpoint. This man is a survivor, not a perpetrator. Given all he’s been through in his life, he cannot ever be called a criminal. He’s seen the injustices done to himself and others around him. His behaviour does not denote, as his psyche report corroborated, someone who could commit a crime like it was alleged he’d done to Geimer. Couple that with the lack of evidence of either anal or vaginal rape and you’ve got here the rarest of all breeds, an innocent man.
I just needed to say that. Thanks NL.
Samskara
Posted March 19, 2010 at 10:19 AM
Lewis:
That comment by her and the boyfriend always struck me as odd. Every single time I see her on the television, I know I’m looking at the most incredible of all audition tapes. I’m looking at a woman who could convince the masses she’d been raped despite all the evidence stating the opposite. She’s a real Aimee McPherson Semple. When I read her later comments about being ‘scared’ or ‘afraid’ it never comported with the stuff she’d been saying then or now about her not caring about Polanski. She’s very flippant about all that stuff really. No victim of rape can be flippant about what happened to them.
There was a case of a man named Paul Robinson in California (link here:
of several women who were raped by the same man. I won’t go into the ins and outs of the case the link I provided spells it all out. But all of Robinson’s victims have all stated they’ve felt murdered in a way. That what he did to them constitutes a murder of the soul and who they were before this was done to them. I saw this on A&E’s Investigative Reports with Bill Kurtis. I thought to myself about how I felt after mine and what they stated is the truth of how one feels after that kind of violation is done to them. Geimer’s flippancy just flies in the face of all you are as a survivor. One just does not simply say “judge the man on his merits and not for what he did to me.” It’s just not done.
For me it all has to do with her telling the truth. What’s she got to lose now? If she came out and outright told the truth, she’d have the nation at her feet. The United States loves to forgive and ultimately forget. However, Polanski wouldn’t fare too well here. He hasn’t despite that her testimony is constantly being given as the sole proof of the rape. The Smoking Gun has done a lot of injury to Polanski and not once, have they offered anything but her side. Yet the proof is in the Grand Jury testimony given by Dr. Larson who examined Geimer at the hospital. He found no evidence of vaginal, anal or any other kind of rape. He found no fluids, nothing. Tumas, the police tech who examined the panties, found a small amount of what he said tested positive for sperm, but no blood typing was done to match it to Polanski. It’s all been conjecture on the mob’s part to convict Polanski without first investigating the facts. And you’re right, Novalis’ work here should serve as the trier of fact. If all Novalis has collected here should be presented as the State’s case, Polanski would have been found not only innocent, but innocent beyond the shadow of doubt. Because after reading this and what I’ve presented on my blog (http://samskara.org/journal), if one STILL believes Roman Polanski to be guilty, then I just have no words.
Novalis Lore
Posted March 19, 2010 at 6:22 PM
I concur with your last paragraph, Samskara. And yeah, ain’t that just dandy – more misconduct revelations – committed by Gunson of all people, or rather was obstructed to act on his misgivings, no wonder he later teamed up with Dalton to get rid of Rittenband in a joint effort. But far far too late, and I always said they both have failed Polanski miserably from day one, next to all the other ‘circumstantial failures’, like conducting these vital tests. That he waited three decades to tell us about his misgivings already then is unbelievable, and that’s why he said in that documentary he’d fled the same. He as a Mormon of all should have been more honest really. But yeah, if that’s true, and I bloody well believe it is, it could well topple arrogant Cooley off his post – as it should.
Schwarzenegger should intervene at this point to force an investigation, he has the power to do so and said already last year that if there’s allegation of misconduct, it should be taken seriously, but no one has. He could relieve crooked DAs like Cooley of their duty, or useless judges like Espinoza who deliberately failed to follow recommendations in the appellate ruling last December. Nothing new there.
As for your dream, it rings true enough, they had an agreement for her to get into the modeling/movie biz through that shoot at any rate, and rumours of blackmail of other older men had been rife before he arrived too. If true or not is for them to know. Don’t forget, she had TV appearances under her belt already, and the mother was a bit-part actress, and the first thing she asked Polanski when he was at their home was to give him the contact of a better agent. Which he did, his own agent, who oddly enough was the same guy who later married Kinski after Polanski had asked him to further her in the States. He did more than that.
Everyone knew of Polanski’s ‘infidelities’, which weren’t so much that since he never made any secret of it, so to exploit that was more than logical and many did or tried. Both he and Sharon had an understanding about that, like with all his other lovers who accepted his swinging, were swingers themselves as it was ‘fashionable’ in those days even Rittenband confessed to, till Polanski found Emmanuelle and finally settled down.
That’s why I always said to sue someone ten years later is more than suspect, when Geimer’s mother could have done so the moment he fled. It was ‘awarded’, or rather taken, on none of the actual indictment counts since they were dropped bar one, but charges they didn’t even bring forth at the grand jury hearing which in effect couldn’t be proven either, since for one the original counts were never tried, and was the only way to get money out of him by tweaking the specifics. Like, for her having apparently said she wanted to go home and he refused her, he of course denied and she could just have left at any rate, and so they turned that into ‘false imprisonment’. The cheek is amazing.
And as I said, where the count of ‘battery’ stems from is beyond me, which connotes violence that was never proven or even brought forward by her at the time of her testifying, and no such counts were ever part of the original indictment or therefore proven. And then of all things she comes out two decades later and says, “The word ‘rape’ for me always brings to mind a level of violence that wasn’t there.” Rape, violence, she later said never happened, but before that sued him over exactly these even lesser challenged claims he couldn’t contend.
That was all a major reason why it took ten years to conclude the suit, since he was unwilling to pay her for something he never did let alone any ‘new claims’. The different judges residing over it didn’t agree with her accounts anyway simply for never having been tried and found fact, let alone these new claims suddenly after ten yrs she never had brought up then with different lawyers handling it, so they simply took his money from his film refunds of value-added tax instead of turning them over to the completion guarantors who financed his Ninth Gate film back then, depositing it into a private account: hers. I doubt I need to elaborate on the morality of any of that. So to say, “judge the man on his merits and not for what he did to me,” might sound forgiving, or in fact that he did ‘something’ to her, when nothing she alleged had ever been tried to be fact. It’s nothing more than the typical US mind in action to sue everything and everyone over whatever possible for extortionate amounts of $.
The McPherson example is a good one, but as long as the case isn’t dismissed on these mounting legal misconduct grounds, she still could be done for perjury if she gives us even more inconsistent recollections now people unfortunately on the whole aren’t aware of. Reading the same headlines and shit ranging from he pleaded to statutory rape to listing down all the indictment counts again and again they simply take for fact, only seeing that he fled ‘sentencing’, only when it’s closed she can finally come clean. Like Gunson now retired to expose these disgraceful transgressions. But of course, she wants it dropped not tried, which the DAs want to do in contrast, and which in turn finds her in jeopardy of testifying and being cross-examined finally if they succeed. But as far as it looks with all the old and new misconducts it’ll probably have to be dismissed or Polanski sentenced in absentia and they have to clean up all the mess, which none of them want to do either, and it’ll never happen either way.
It IS a catch-22 case not only legally by now: “There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. ‘Orr’ was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to.” Polanski fled in the face of such abstract lunacy when Rittenband threatened him with deportation – or self-deport, which he didn’t want to and was unlawful either way.
I argued myself in-depth too that Polanski is a shining example of perpetual survival, not a bloody perpetrator. He had enough girls to call on for sex, and he’s seen what real rape and brutality does to people during the war and ghetto years alone, and especially to Sharon later, he could never do it to anyone himself. And to this day none of it was ever proven that he had, after the mistake of the plea bargain already which could have been avoided altogether had Gunson had the guts to tell Dalton, and they’d gone not only to trial to blow apart her allegations, but with a more professional judge like Breckenridge who put the case on ice instead of investigating these claims. As I said, Polanski was messed over from day one on several levels – purely for who he was. Of course no one would ever think he’s innocent until proven guilty, it just wouldn’t fit into their warped ideas about him.
I read somewhere today, that he’s ‘tainted by brilliance’, and that all he does is tainted. Well, for one brilliance is surely not tainting, and nothing he ever did is tainted or it in fact wouldn’t be brilliant, but circumstances and people tainted HIM – from his war torn childhood and harsh ghetto years to Tate’s brutal loss and vile public demonisation and the still never proven rape allegations and only further public haranguing. As you said, as I said and many others said, in his case he’s guilty until proven innocent not the other way round, just because he pleaded to one count and still believe the others fact, too stupid to realise that no grand jury testimony is fact until a trial says so. I’m sure they’d love it to be seen like that in their own case, or irrefutable hard evidence given credence in fact saying he’s innocent of most counts already.
Of course, today’s DNA testing would once and for all determine if the semen stain in ‘her’ underwear is really his, which I highly doubt anyway, purely for reasons of both saying that he didn’t ejaculate inside her, but as she put it all over her back. But there were no traces of semen found on her or her other clothes either, and she left her underwear by the Jacuzzi and didn’t wear it in the TV room to get stained, so for her to say he took it off – twice – to sodomise her, twice – could never be proven by the medical report alone. Besides, she gave the underwear to the cops hours after the events; no court today would accept such corrupted evidence. In fact, the medical evidence is on Smoking Gun too for all to see but ignore it, as part of Dalton’s plea argument.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/1203081roman11.html
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/1203081roman12.html
The underwear would have been needed to be taken off her right afterwards, not hours later. But it of course could still establish whose DNA it is, and as I said, since Polanski is not of American descent, the likelihood that his DNA matches anyone there, is zero, since there are ca. 60 possible people in the entire US population having identical DNA matches between them. Otherwise his 13-loci DNA profile has essentially no chance of its being duplicated in the US population except in the case of genetically identical siblings. He’s French born of maternal Russian and paternal Polish descent.
Of course it’s all about the truth and justice, but with the unending legal troubles generated 33 yrs ago, and the one-sided and repetitively imbecile comments of: Polanski=drugged/raped/sodomised/fled full stop, no one is interested in the facts – just as Polanski had said in his autobiography near three decades back. Everyone prefers a warped caricature of someone rather than the real thing. Except us.
Vahan
Posted March 19, 2010 at 8:49 PM
Novalis, what TV appearances did Samantha do before she met Polanski? I couldn’t find anything on IMDB on her TV appearances prior to that event. The only thing I know is that her mother Susan had done an episode of “Starsky and Hutch” (1975), an episode of “Police Woman” (1976), and two episodes of “L.A. Law” in the early 1990’s. She also had done TV commercials for Ourisman Chevrolet automobile dealerships in the Washington DC area.
And is Polanski’s agent who later married Nastassja Kinski Egyptian filmmaker Ibrahim Moussa? I couldn’t find anything online about him being Polanski’s agent.
A while back, I watched part of “Wanted and Desired”, and one thing that I found fascinating was when they showed Samantha’s school I.D. During the 1976-1977 school year she was a 9th grader (she was at Hughes Jr. High School). As someone who’s lived in the Los Angeles area for almost all of his lifetime, and has obviously been in the 9th grade, I can tell you that most 9th graders are 14-15 years old. And unlike Samantha, I was a 9th grader during my first year at Hoover High School. So why did Samantha claim to be 13, if that’s actually true? (Unless of course she somehow skipped a grade) It is also worth noting that sometimes Junior High Schools (Or Middle Schools) here in the U.S. are 5-8, 7-8 (the configuration for my Middle School), 6-8, 4-6, and 7-9 (the most-likely configuration for Samantha’s).
And one thing that has recently been brought to my attention about Polanski’s autobiography was when in the New York Time’s Review for “The Ghost Writer”, they said the following: “It’s also tempting to observe that Mr. Polanski used a ghostwriter (the journalist Edward Behr) for his 1984 autobiography, “Roman by Polanski.” I’m not sure what they meant by that because the book sounds like Polanski’s own words.
And finally, I just wanna say that the newly revealed misconducts really add a lot of twists and turns to this case more than I ever imagined. Like you said, Cooley could very well be toppled soon, and this case will be over before we know it.
Novalis Lore
Posted March 19, 2010 at 1:51 PM
Vahan – I hope Cooley will lose his lying face soon, he’s got enough egg on it already the Swiss judges most certainly have put there for one too after blocking him and his more than unsound extradition request – he’s a disgrace to any country’s court. But even if the case were dismissed, the main problem is that people will still believe he is guilty of the dropped counts too – unable to realise that they to this day are still mere allegations not fact. And after what I found out, I only believe in the one count he pleaded to and am happy that it wasn’t rape/sodomy per medical evidence and her own later statements I give more credit. The morality of their [unlawful] act is not down to me but the times I shared with him – we all did it – and people still do it today but more covertly. The UK laws are more flexible to establish if there was rape involved or not – and cannot proceed without the minor’s consent, unless a parent pushes for a trial in even a consensual but unlawful sex with a minor case. But I doubt that – there’s no point in destroying the lives of two families over sex and costs the tax payer pointless money. The US set a very bad example in that matter to pursue such cases regardless. So in that sense, the once so called ‘oh no sex please we’re British’ joke is a joke, while in the US [courts] sex is being punished without any sense.
A ghostwriter is someone who literally writes someone’s memoirs for them who’s either not very good with writing per se, or the [foreign] grammar etc., usually taken from audio tapes. So they ARE Polanski’s words, except put into a proper narration and/or more appealing style they agreed on or even based it on someone else’s bio they liked as a template. Ghostwriters sometimes have to think as that person and of course go by what they told them. It’s like acting out another character through their words only and many journalists are very good as ‘book’ writers with easy-on-the-eye syntax and so forth. But it wasn’t Behr only who had put it all together, he had two more helpers to polish it all up.
There’s no way anyone can skip a grade, but I heard others say she was a 7th grader depending on the source, and then again as you might have seen in the comments, that she in fact could have been 15 at that time and most in fact say she was a 9th grader. But if they both are in the same bracket, it might still be correct either way. But to prove her age one would need to pull her personal birth records from the Public Record Office – which anyone can either visit or access online, but unfortunately requires paying quite a lot to even look at them. But as Samskara has said before after she had searched some ancestry site, she might have been born on Jan 9th 1962 – and not March 31st 1963. I’m not sure how diligent the courts in fact were to establish anyone’s real age – by passport, birth certificate or accessing public records etc., or even the school records which might be easier today and to access the yearbooks. And to be honest, those who met her in the flesh like Huston or the caretaker all said she looked much older, was already taller than Polanski then, and behaved very maturely. Pictures can be more deceiving than not when even seeing people face to face cannot always establish anyone’s right age. So her ‘real’ age in fact is another mystery. Or her rather ‘childish’ testimony wording.
As for her TV ‘appearances’, that’s the TV commercials I meant, since her mother did quite a few car commercials – maybe I shouldn’t have said appearances but TV ‘ads’. As for her mother, that’s the only two things she had done, yeah – despite the fact that Polanski gave her Moussa’s address as an agent – but he didn’t think her talented enough to represent and rejected her. Which might have been another factor of t/heir growing antipathy and then they left LA anyway. And yes, it was Kinski’s future husband who obviously was bowled over by her in contrast, and Polanski had offered her to him to take her under his wings, and bedcovers later when they both had separated after Tess. So she liked older men in general too. Polanski made her go to Lee Strasberg to coach her to become perfect in English for his film with her and then they both parted.
His actual agent was Sue Mengers who had just taken him on then in fact, but he sent promising faces to Moussa rather than her. Agents have a certain flock of actors and specialise in a field, like only TV comedians, or movie action stars etc. or are only supplying a certain studio with their clients. She dropped him as soon as he was arrested and the film she had organised for him along with the studios, not wanting a [foreign] ‘rapist’ in their midst, when they wouldn’t have dropped their own like that. But she later changed her tune and wrote to him in prison after she got him another film contract during the proceeding to start on The Hurricane for another studio, which he ultimately lost too unable to finish it within the time of proceedings before he left the States. Which almost happened to his last film too, I’m sure Cooley had loved to happen, he however could finish in the remand prison and later at home unlike most directors would have done it. He’s not mentioned in Menger’s Wiki page as one of her former clients either, but then again the only two assignments they had failed anyway. No idea if they kept in contact after he had fled – most probably not.
Lewis
Posted March 21, 2010 at 1:51 AM
Samskara -
I read your own blog, and you have done your own good work in regards to Polanski’s case, and as a rape survivor is very insightful and telling and I can fully agree with your last comment paragraph on here.
Well I’ll be damned, more judicial shit flying. No surprise at all, that’s for sure. But Gunson? What a coward that it took him three decades to tell Dalton. I took him for a more decent guy than that in the documentary, where he said he’d fled too. Obviously, if he couldn’t even get his very own dismissal petition through back then! What disgusting bastard colleagues he had to deal with, apart from that slimy Wells already, and now another one wanted to get this hands on the case! Wells in fact accompanied that crooked Vannatter when they arrested Polanski.
Had Gunson told Dalton then already, all this could have been damned well avoided, including his plea and flight, that’s for sure. But better late than never and all help is needed to fix this deeply corrupted case.
I’m only in wonder how much longer people can in fact sustain their brain-dead belief in something that never saw a trial to back it up, but of course in Polanski’s case they can make a gracious exception. I detest such prejudiced thinking, it’s unethical.
BigBadWolf
Posted March 22, 2010 at 10:30 AM
So, basically this punk ass judge forcing the old dude director into ‘exile’ after he had faced more abuse of his powers over the coming months before Polanski finally showed the crooked law the finger, and then faced further ugly media and public harassment rising to the level of a blind witch hunt today, was for f*** all? All his suffering before and ever since? Wow that stinks to high heaven, had Gunson told of his brave effort and ugly colleagues’ refusal all that definitely could have been avoided outright, what disgusting losers. I wonder ‘why’ exactly he tried to remove Rittenband long before he did so with Dalton, or if he told Silver, though, or her and her mother. It’s oddly quiet in their camp to be frank, after she usually jumped to Polanski’s ‘defence’ right after some new development, like the absentia request she supported. But now? Where is she? Where’s her support to have all this newly exposed mess investigated? I bet they both knew. It’s criminal beyond belief what they did to him as it is, what with you have uncovered and collected on evidence already, but where’s her outrage about this new development? It affected her too, after she even said in that documentary that they didn’t care about what happened to her or Polanski. That sounds pretty much as if she knew about Gunson’s attempt to get rid of old Rittenband before Polanski pleaded to that one count on mommy’s behest, and then was sent down against all recommendations. No wonder Polanski had enough after that. I’d buggered off too I tell you! Especially if I hadn’t done most of what she had accused him of, only to give us decades later this ‘it wasn’t rape’ blah blah blah.
Free Polanski now you LA bastards! Or rather the ‘subservient’ Swiss… so much for justice. NONE!
Novalis Lore
Posted March 22, 2010 at 4:12 PM
That’s about the short of it, BigBadWolf – and you’re right, it IS very quite in her camp. Why is open to speculation, but before the appeals have run out by the end of March to give us more details, all we can do is wait anyhow. How did Vahan say, after he already said had they removed Rittenband long before they finally had and Dalton could have helped Polanski better, ‘that the newly revealed misconducts really add a lot of twists and turns to this case more than I ever imagined’. Correct. Reporter Brenneman was right; Polanski was and still is even more today the victim of deplorable injustice.
It’s getting interesting now – and Cooley looks more and more the idiot each month. Or that name-caller Walgren. Good. Maybe they really should have a proper trial, but it will be virtually impossible to get unbiased jurors in. But I bet you, as soon as Espinoza would withdraw his plea to force a trial, she’d come clean to avoid that and they’d needed to dismiss the case altogether, which she has asked for several times now anyhow. I’m sure another handy plea bargain can be arranged for them all to avoid perjury charges. And then they all got away with it too. So much for justice indeed.
PedoKiller
Posted March 23, 2010 at 4:17 AM
When did her mother ever say she’s very promiscuous and when does promiscuous mean bright? In what culture or definition?
Novalis Lore
Posted March 23, 2010 at 5:12 AM
Well, ‘PedoKiller/EndGame/Enforcer/screen/gdsf’, let me answer that – As long as you’re too dense to actually read comments properly, I’d say you’re banned from now on. You’ve spammed me long enough. Lewis said ‘precocious’, not promiscuous. Bye.
Lewis
Posted March 23, 2010 at 5:23 AM
I’d say that was very “dense”. Only shows how ingrained certain words are to certain people, reading what’s not even there. Bye “spammy”.
Anyway, but hello? She WAS 15 after all? Now that figures, and voila, one count of [double] sodomy gone in a jiffy! I in fact did a records search myself after reading that, it’s unbelievable. And yes, I too found several showing her age as being 48 right now. What a lying little whatsit. And the rest of them. Mommy dearest most of all. Disgraceful. I wonder why no one ever noticed that. Let’s see what comes up next, after Gunson messed up big time already. The case needs to be dismissed for several reasons since ages now, as simple as that. Oi, Cooley, take a hike, douchebag! And Espinoza, pull out your finger and close the damned case alright! And Swiss dudes, let the old man go! You disgusting underlings of the US of bloody A[-holes]! I live here, so I may say that.
Novalis Lore
Posted March 23, 2010 at 5:57 AM
Right you are, Lewis. It’s so easy to find people out at one point – good old Internet. I’m sure she never thought the case to resurface the way it had on and off. Or her old Grand Jury testimony and inconsistent interviews. Every little critical detail possible is right there to be compared, scrutinised, analysed, disproved. That’s why she was so adamant to see the case dismissed every time he came too close to be arrested and have a possible trial for her to testify finally. Now she’s very quiet suddenly after Gunson came clean – I wonder why.
DeMoy
Posted March 23, 2010 at 10:38 PM
I did my own people searches, five different ones, and they all came up with the same. That she’s either 47 or 48, according to the day/month reading. I’d say she was born Jan 9, 1962, not Sept 1, 1962, since the majority comes up as 9.1.62, not 1.9.62. And don’t tell me she never knew her real age. Or her conniving mother and family. That the courts accepted a birth certificate ‘copy’ is criminal.
So you were right, she was fifteen at that time – and a bloody liar after having lied about the rape and sodomy already. Disgusting. No wonder she later declared, ‘I wouldn’t call it rape’, ‘he wasn’t forceful or mean’. Right – the only meanies were her and her complicit lot. Polanski obviously never knew about that, to this day, and it’s vital that someone tells him – to get this case dismissed on more than these misconduct allegations, but perjury charges. Maybe you should tell him, Novalis. Or I will. I can find Hummel’s or Dalton’s contact addresses online just as easily. This is too serious not to be pursued.
Novalis Lore
Posted March 23, 2010 at 10:59 PM
You’re right, it is much too serious, and we’re already in the course of contacting Hummel. So he can pursue that himself – or not.
Vahan
Posted March 25, 2010 at 4:24 AM
Although, it would be quite a shock if it’s actually true that Samantha lied about her age, I’m still not so sure about this (and please forgive me if I’m not).
For one thing, The National Archives only has birth records for people in the U.K. and Whales. Also, according to ancestry.com, the largest family history website, Geimer was born in 1963.
I’ve been to several people finder sites, and although some of them say 48 or 47, there were at least one or two that said 46. They did mention her current location being Kilauea, Hawaii though. They also mentioned Browardgeimer as one of her last names. I’m not sure if that’s the full way of saying the name Geimer. It also mentions David C. Geimer (who I’m guessing is her husband) being 66, though I’m not sure if he is 66.
And while I said earlier about her being a 9th grader in March 1977 is true, there’s also the possibility that she started kindergarten at age 4, even though most kindengarteners start at age 5, and most students start at pre-school at age 4. Wasn’t her mother originally from Virginia, and isn’t it true that her or Samantha was either illegitimate or her dad walked out on her mom right after she was born?
I can only assume that the reason why you were able to find out her exact actual birthdate online was because you were able to get in contact with someone who was able to do such a thing.
If I’m being too worried right now, that’s because at this very moment, I care about your safety here. This has been the best analysis on this infamous celebrity case, a case that is perhaps the most infamous of them all, a case that is more infamous than even the Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson cases combined, and a case that would have ended, if it hadn’t been for a media-obsessed judge, who cared more about being a “hero”, than about doing what is both right and fair, and an attorney who was too late in dismissing the judge. All I’m trying to say is that one wrong move with this analysis, and we could be back to square one here, something that I do not want to see happen.
And I don’t see why some people say that Polanski’s time in Europe for three decades wasn’t an “exile”. It seems to me that what those people don’t seem to realize is that even if Polanski hadn’t fled, the Judge was going to deport him anyways. So technically, it is an “exile” (though rather a “self-imposed exile”). And just the fact that even the alleged “victim” herself was against the thought of him facing more jail time back in the 1970’s is all the proof I need that Polanski couldn’t have been anymore correct when he said that the reason he ran away was because he was very unfortunate to have a judge who misused justice.
Novalis Lore
Posted March 25, 2010 at 11:56 AM
(Reamended) Vahan – there’s no need to be concerned for my safety. I can present whatever I have researched online – true or not, proven or not – like everyone else does with more lies and vile defamation rather than not in their personal crusades of blind hatred. I at least tried to find out and cover both sides and if it doesn’t suit people’s one-track-minded preconception of his guilt that’s their problem. While my analyses are undoubtedly the most comprehensive, the details are all corrects and taken from reliable sources. I’m not doing anything illegal and anyone can access any of these files legally, even the publicly released court records, to come to the same results as I have. Except no one bothered. Obviously.
If the US sites tell me her birthday is either 1.9.62, or 9.1.62, that’s good enough for me. Public records don’t lie, unless they haven’t been updated, or were issued with incorrect data. One country has no obligation to cross-check against another (or place of birth of a person) to see if they’re correct. Depending on the sites, it will give you three different birhtdate possibilities, correct. But the UK sites are either out of date, or were never given the right details and are not relevant anyhow – only the US sites are pertinent her being American – where I got the dates from. Broward was her previous married name, and David C Geimer, 66, is her current husband, yes. She dropped out of school with 16, became pregnant first with 18 married with 19 and divorced a year later before settling in Hawaii, to her own words. Then she became pregnant again in 1988 and married a second time in 1989. Either way, if it were the September date she’d be 47 now or before March 31st ‘77, 14 already, or if it’s the January date, she’d be 48 now making her a full 15 years old at the time of the events, which took place March 10th. So, if any of the sites say she is either 47 or 48 right now before the end of March, her birthday cannot be on the 31st either way. Besides, we have noticed that discrepancy already way back on January 22nd, and then the majority sites said already she was/is 48, not 47 or 46. In interviews her age is given in varying dates too.
Even if someone were to start kindergarten with 4 or 5, the more relevant part is when they started school, and a 9th grader is more likely 15 – not 13. She was born in Pennsylvania, and rather than ‘skip’ a grade or two, which is highly unlikely no matter how bright one is, one could require to repeat them to end up in a 7th grade school again rather than 9th, with different states having different curricula one might need to repeat. But if her mother said she was very bright, I doubt that she repeated any grade. Besides, she did look much older with Huston thinking her 20 and if I remember correctly and a picture of her concerning, some paper recalling the car commercial asked, what happened to the 15 year old stunner they had in it, made up and all to look even older, not realising that’s Geimer, since her name then was Gailey. And yes, her father was divorced from her mother, and her mother’s then boyfriend was the one who was never called as a witness and picked her up in Gunson’s office within a very compromising situation. Geimer stayed with her father (who was a lawyer himself) during the proceedings, who had brought in Silver, and told her not to stand for a trial.
It’s for Hummel to pursue this matter further now and handle this new information as he sees fit – he’s been contacted already. My job is done in that respect. If we’re back to square one after over three decades, I highly doubt, that’s their problem, not mine. But if the details are proven correct, the case has to be dismissed at once and can be closed – after enough misconducts revealed already, they finally would need to litigate moreover. It’s up to them. And as I said before, as long it wasn’t forcible rape/sodomy the medical evidence alone disproves, I’m happy with that – regardless of her age.
As for your last paragraph, I can only wholeheartedly agree on it. Though there were several remedies available for Polanski then and even later to see the case concluded with other judges taking over, no one could be sure if any of them had acted any more honourably than Rittenband had, since the law is blind to personal reasons why someone finds himself in desperate need to flee or stay away from an overbearing judge’s arbitrary and unlawful mis/use of justice, otherwise Rittenband hadn’t ‘stepped down’, and others fiddling with it on and off later didn’t help either. I read the last case dismissal petition refusal report, and it’s all too obvious that no one cares about Polanski’s fears of further abuse of justice as proven by now again and again to have been applied to him down to ‘ambitious’ Mr Cooley. The Swiss judges who blocked extradition obviously share his concerns.
Master Vim
Posted March 29, 2010 at 8:58 PM
This seemingly interminable story reminds me of a big old ugly yarn ball some less than honourable people had spun decades ago, before it suddenly got unravelled by another unwise nosy Parker (Cooley) thinking he could exploit it in exchange for his next election, only to find more ugly revelations at the very core. Sooner or later the truth will always win out, and so it will be in this wholly contaminated case, and then people will have to face their own blind eagerness to condemn someone over a girl’s uncontested accusations. I don’t see why Polanski should feel guilty or be punished over something that was general practice (and still is), while others were/are given exemption to this day, except him.
I was there, I know the Seventies, I saw how the law messed with him from day one. It’s a crying shame, and more so these senseless detractors clamouring for his head, who all should look in the mirror first before going on a rampage of pathetic name calling. Get the facts first! And you “Walgren”! One thing I’ve noticed is that those who were there don’t have a problem to see it how it really was, while today’s ignorant generation has no clues about any of it, or willingness to at least get the wider picture and details before judging. One of the latest headlines reads, “Polanski is still fighting extradition and justice”. Pfff! I’d say that should be “injustice”, as that is was from the moment “the hammer” Rittenband took over. Had he been removed when Gunson wanted to, Judge Breckinridge surely would have done a better job and that had been it with a correct plea and short probation sentence. No such luck for already traumatized Polanski. Now it’s all way too late and impossible to get this mess cleaned up anymore.
I never believed the ‘victim’s’ allegations from the first day I read them, or any sordid smear that followed, and only wondered why she came out to give us more inconsistent accounts so much later. I don’t give any grand jury testimony any credit anyhow as long as it wasn’t proven in an open court; hers never was, while he stated the same he had given in evidence in his own biography I gave way more credit. Now I’ve finally been proven right with your comprehensive research into the more than corrupted case (I tried to confirm wherever possible and you’re absolutely spot on with your findings), and came to the (again same) conclusion that she lied in the most crucial areas, as I had already suspected.
Especially ever since that Kiernan started off his disgusting smear campaign “biography” with: “The 13-year old’s head was spinning…” and I went like, what!? How the hell would he know? So I read on, and on, and thought, what a degenerate attempt to destroy Polanski’s already tainted reputation completely, and as you said, Novalis, he totally succeeded, with Polanski unable to sue the basket case. It made me feel sick to read his shit and binned the book years ago. Recently I read that Polanski’s wife is unhappy about the fact that their children cannot spend more time with their father, shuttling to and fro between Paris and Gstaad, and someone seriously commented, “Yeah ‘child molesting time’.” How sick are these people to say that? How can anyone come from the fact that he slept with a minor, to becoming a rapist/sodomite, and/or pedophile, to abusing his own kids? These people are seriously disturbed. But no wonder, they said worse things about him already after Tate’s murder, and ever since. It’s sickening.
People call his act a “heinous crime”, while condemning no one else like that. I’m sorry, but sleeping with a minor is far from being that, it might be unlawful, but only a brutal murder like that of his wife is heinous. Any murder, violent torture or rape, but casual sex? Gimme a f***g break alright. And another thing that pisses me off is to say, “What if that were your child.” Well, first up, she wasn’t a “child” at any rate in the eyes of the law or they’d banged him up with much more serious counts, and it’s been like three decades and the woman in question is almost fifty by now. I’d counter, “What if that were your grand/father who was f***d over by the lot, then the corrupt law multiple times now, and after 33 years of enough contemptible public abuse already is hounded down by a shady DA through shady means with more pathetic witch hunters on his heels, like Polanski’s the greatest fiend on Earth suddenly,” completely losing sight of what really happened or is still going on. It’s a disgrace! But, you’ve chronicled that with your great job on the deep analyses front already, Novalis.
Oh and btw, I found out what he did in Israel in 2007; I read an article by Robert Harris (the writer of The Ghost); he went there to research his father’s time in Nazi captivity. Over lunch with Harris he describes how, when he went there for the premiere of The Pianist, he was shown his father’s official file from Mauthausen concentration camp, which records in meticulous detail his punishment beatings, and Polanski said: “Everything he told me about his time in the camp turned out to be true; it was all written down and I was holding it in my hands.” Poor bastards. So much for the more conscientious Israelis not selling him out with that kind of tragic history to “douchebag” Cooley, (just like the Germans didn’t bother for the same reasons) unlike the contemptible Swiss authorities, before the duped judges put a hold on the extradition. Good! But now what? He’s stuck in house arrest limbo. I call it Human Rights violation when others can go free on bail!
And, to conclude, if Geimer really was/is older, what else can I do than shake my head in more disbelief, and even if not, your own words say it perfectly: “As long it wasn’t forcible rape/sodomy the medical evidence alone disproves, I’m content in the knowledge – regardless of her age.” Same here.
Novalis Lore
Posted March 30, 2010 at 12.57 PM
Very good analogy on the ugly old yarn ball, Master Vim, it’s rotten to the core indeed. Thanks for clarifying what Polanski did in Israel; I read in fact the same article by Harris the other day. Otherwise, I have nothing to add – thank you for your own valuable thoughts having been there.
Find THE COMMENTS continued in Part Two here.
Hi again.
I have just found something so beautiful can’t help but share it.
http://www.obsessedwithfilm.com/features/the-defining-moments-of-roman-polanski.php
A bittersweet article, then comments – as expected, on the 1977 case only; I had to intrude, as usual, and posted my own comment; the lynch mob turned against the author of the article for trying to find at least something positive to say about the unspeakable criminal who had committed the crime of the century; the author started justifying himself and finally blurted out this gem:
“As I wrote in this article Polanski’s actions regardless of the circumstances were inexcusable.”
Regardless of the circumstances! I loved this one to pieces. I commented, of course… but what a wonderful way to put it, indeed! That sums up everything the media have already said, or will say about the case.
I read that already and in fact similar articles since his rearrest, or even before that, since the debate is raging since decades, which didn’t stoop to this mindless. ‘he drugged and raped and sodomised a ‘child” rhetoric as if it were fact, and if the doctor’s reports who examined her said she was an ‘adult female’ not ‘child’, so be it. He was a specialist of sodomy rape victims, and if he didn’t find anything consistent with it, there was no rape/sodomy, end of. People obviously still don’t realise that a grand jury testimony has ZERO veracity until proven in a trial – there never was trial, since they had enough hard evidence to the contrary of her claims, and that’s why the mother pressed for that plea deal to end it. If only. It always comes down to the one-dimensional, short-sighted and dehumanising condemnation of people who think the breakdown of the law is irrelevant, but would be the first to cry for justice had it been them in the hands of an egomaniac judge who abused his powers and did not cut it short.
As for your comments, they’re spot on, but will do little unless they see the court transcripts and evidence that discredit her version entirely and why they went for the plea deal; because they had NOTHING TO SUPPORT HER, not because they wanted to ‘spare’ her the ‘ordeal’ she embellished on of being cross-examined before a more scrutinising jury, sure, but not to be shredded by the defence and unravel her claims. And even if people don’t believe her, they still have that little moral hook to hang their hypocrisy on, making an ugly example of Polanski, while utterly forgetting that millions sleep with underaged teenagers, and as you said, our own ancestors slept with young fertile females throughout the cultures, before the insidious feminist revolution declared them all rapists and the female implicitly a victim in order to shed all responsibilities when it comes to sex. No one went to prison in years in 1977 in LA or Hollywood ‘stars’ ever since for the same oh so heinous offence of sleeping with a teenager, except Polanski, NO one in fact wanted, simply for WHO he was. Let’s hope these diatribe mongers will end up in prison for a number of sex acts with their underaged girlfriend for decades, while the ‘little helpless female’ gets away with it. Or better still, be accused of rape after some one-night stand to face ZERO chances of proving it was consensual and end up in prison to get raped there for some lying whatsit. Liars like that self-confessed ex-prostitute and drug addict Lewis who said the exact opposite about Polanski only years back, or that 15-minute famewhore Vogelhut who turned it into a sleazy BDSM attack suddenly to sell her kiss-and-tell-all book. Good most didn’t believe them.
Thanks for linking my blog on that site, mishem, and true, to say at the end: “As I wrote in this article Polanski’s actions regardless of the circumstances were inexcusable,” is a slap in the face of justice, since it implies that the author, like so many, doesn’t give a shit about the mounting misconducts and Cooley and & Co’s vindictive witch hunt to further his name and corrupt career with smear campaigns and name-calling DAs, while only concentrating on the ‘sordid ['child'] sex acts’ of which only ONE is fact, and it’s not the rape or sodomy, too stupid to realise what she said later. No genuine rape victim would ever campaign for her attacker’s freedom, let alone demands to have the charges dismissed; they would call for prison time – she never has. Maybe these people should try anal sex for a change to see that it’s all fantasyland she came up with as teenager the attorneys recognised – and stop thinking teen sex is a ‘heinous crime’; only the perverted anti-sex laws making it a crime is, and to cry rape. Of course, the article forgets to mention that Polanski was released on the fact that he had served his time already in 1977/8, that the judge had reneged on their deal that had been his entire punishment, which ultimately forced Polanski to return to Europe, and that the entire rearrest/extradition was nothing but a political show of force. Good the Swiss put an end to it.
Oh f… I mean, oh good Lord, did you see the news? Another one. Now they will pop up like mushrooms after a rain. The USA will never forgive him for their Swiss fiasco. What else should we expect? God, is there anything we can do? I know he is strong, but there are some limits to what a man can take.
I included her claims already in the ‘Lewis’ blog, mishem – gonna combine them now. I usually deconstruct any claims on a more scientific/medical basis to debunk such allegations, and she made a few mistakes like Geimer had with her ‘dry double sodomy’ claim that has long been discredited by the medical/witness evidence right then, hence the peal deal because she was underage. Lewis obviously lied since she contradicted herself over the years through her own interviews, and Vogelhut only parroted the sodomy on that base. She didn’t do her homework well enough anyhow; anal sex requires a lot of preparations, and even with amyl, she cleverly brought in, to relax the sphincter, it STILL needs a lot of lubrication – she forgot to mention. Anyone, who engages in anal sex on regular base, as these women want us to believe Polanski had, would know what to do, or infections loom, pain for both and serious injuries, even for the active partner. It’s all BS. She only brought the handcuffs in to make it sound more shocking – she escalated the encounter into BDSM basically.
I’m sure they had sex, but nothing anal related. According to insiders, Polanski was in fact known to shy from that, it wasn’t his ‘thing’ at all because it was too ‘homosexual’, and most importantly, if he’s not using a condom, which she didn’t mention either, (or Geimer) it causes HIV and whatnot else. If he really had anal intercourse all the time without any precautions/preparations as they proclaim, he’d long contracted or died on AIDS – AND his partners. But even if he had anal intercourse, as I said, it needs a lot of planning and hygiene is vital, she would have needed to have a dump, or an enema, then comes the condom and a lot of lube throughout, and even if no condom is used, the danger of injury to the receptive partner would still cause infections for both. She said he repeatedly sodomised her? Not without using amyl again and again, which causes major headaches (and in fact doesn’t work on everyone), AND vital lube. And, ‘lying on her stomach’? Wrong angle, she needs to be butt up in the air or in fact on her back legs high up for him to actually get it inside her, like with vaginal intercourse – and if she struggles, we might assume unwilling partners do, scream in pain, not a chance, unless he pins her down she didn’t say that he had either and holds her into position. Ergo, no ‘sodomy’ let alone ‘repeatedly’ occurred.
The booze and drugs aren’t sufficient to sedate her to be an easy prey, the struggling alone would make it impossible, and amyl has no sedative effect. On the contrary, it makes you more hyper and euphoric. And what did she do ‘afterwards’? She said he ‘released’ her, and then what? Said thanks and let her go? NOT if someone just ‘raped’ someone. He probably drove her home, like Geimer. These people are too thick to realise any of it, and others, who never had anal sex, simply don’t know that and believe it. Think ‘shit’, just to be blunt. These accusers are full of it. Besides, the man bedded a few thousand women in his life and only ‘three’ cried rape/sodomy? I don’t think so. Geimer was discredited outright, Lewis is a clear liar, and Vogelhut wants to sell her book.
As for Polanski, he’s strong alright, with his family and friends/fans standing by him, has his work – who know perfectly well they tried to destroy his reputation on every level ever since Geimer’s case – and how better than by calling a man a (now ‘child’) rapist, paedophile, you name it. His lawyers haven’t even reacted to that obvious fraud, perfectly aware of the fact that she’s just another Cooley bait (now that the Swiss put a spanner in his smear campaign). Most people don’t believe Vogelhut for several (other) reasons, which are just as correct. She’s just another shameless opportunist who wants to cash in no his scandalous name, since he has zero chances of refuting her claims, and no legal means of lodging any lawsuits.
The fact that neither Lewis nor Vogelhut want/ed to sue him, not only because the statute of limitations has run out, true, (which makes it even less believable since she could have done that right after his 1977 arrest, and Lewis too, who rather gave us all these conflicting interviews instead, even having an affair with him AFTER her ‘abuse’ claims) only shows it’s Cooley’s show. That’s why Polanski could never ever fight any open slander, (and the one suit against Vanity Fair was conducted from France through the UK courts) and therefore scum like Kiernan, Reisman, Lewis or Vogelhut and plenty others could and can defame him to the limit. He’s able to fight a lawsuit by law, (another reason why they don’t wanna sue him, and could take many years anyhow, see Geimer = 10 years) but not file any, unless he’s in the right jurisdiction – i.e. the US – in person. That’s why they all flock there, and to Cooley’s corrupt court to mess with the already highly exploited case some more. ‘We’ cannot do anything for him, except believe in him and his innocence, and support his work.
Love your comment to ‘DeMoy’ > “But then again, to be the ONLY ever ‘rape victim of Roman Polanski’ in history, seems to be the zenith of ‘stardom’ anyone can ever achieve already.” < How very true, only to promptly have this ‘Lewis’ whatsit appear the next day, oh so diligently avoiding the word ‘rape’ too, and I for one don’t believe one word. Not a chance! Or Geimer to be precise.
To me, my own résumé goes:
A, Geimer was a sexually experienced teenage girl – nothing wrong with that at all (unless it turns into low prostitution as in Lewis’ case).
B, this was the very permissive and promiscuous Seventies – I in fact remember myself.
C, she had spent several days posing nude for him without any obvious ‘reluctance’ no matter she claimed so later – teenage nude pics were allowed then – only to make her appear more ‘coy’ than she was.
D, she took the Quaaludes and champagne on her free volition with a very dubious drug and alcohol infused family background obviously having been a temptation too far he had no idea of – I took Quaalude many times to get someone into bed, much more fun that way and NO one cried rape afterwards! No, they wanted more sex!
E, there was no evidence of violence or threat of violence and all she said was that Polanski ‘ignored her pleas’ or tears – what ‘pleas’ or ‘tears’?
F, the medical evidence discredits rape and sodomy outright, and trust me, anal sex ain’t painless even if you use lots of lube and practice every day, it’s a matter of ‘physiology’ no one can alter, and what she described most definitely had left visible marks and caused her excruciating pain.
G, she never tried to leave at plenty opportunities, call home or call out for help when Huston apparently came to inquire if everything was ok – but then again, she wasn’t interrupting them at all, was she.
Next, this wasn't ‘abuse’ in the sense that there was violence or the threat of violence involved, not even brash words, and whatever she ‘claimed’, that not even being the necessary ‘violence’ or ‘threat of violence’ needed to make her do things, go through the house to the to the TV room, etc., and was a hollow albeit very ‘convincing’ grand jury show.
It was consensual sex, although she was not legally old enough to have sex, true, but did it anyway, see her boyfriend and others getting away with it in contrast. (Or that ‘Lewis’.) The mother gave her daughter permission to go with Polanski to have photos taken to advance the girl's career. This was ‘Hollywood’, where such things were the rule or you’d not get anywhere. Though I doubt this was a ‘casting couch’ game; she knew this would come – and then did it, either to get what he had offered, or just for fun, which is my take on this entire mess.
Finally, this was such a long time ago, and Polanski is now an old man, no one ever credibly had ‘cried rape’ again other than this Lewis I discredit any day as a dirty liar. I don’t believe in this ‘onetime’ or now ‘two time rapist’ bullshit either; rapists escalate their attacks and become more violent, and the way Polanski was exposed and dealing with to so many people, they’d noticed any such shit going on believe me. Besides, as soon as he was rearrested any ‘victim’ (he might have ‘silenced’) had their best chance to come forward. None did – since we all know Lewis is a disgusting fraud. It’s a ludicrous waste of time and money when infinitely more serious criminals and relevant cases deserve attention.
Curious thing how Geimer said in that documentary that no one believed her, and I went, ‘what’ exactly? The ‘rape’, or the sex? Odd how the boyfriend didn’t believe her either, the sex that is, so it’s quite logical that she made up something they WILL believe, like the sodomy, or the drugs and booze he ‘gave’ her. And then, oops, the ‘evidence’ also didn’t make her believable, let’s have a plea deal. And then, oops, the judge has other ideas besides. Punk.
The other day I read about someone wondering, why in all the world Polanski had to seek out this particular girl with a ploy of advancing her career, (and in fact was one of those repeating this idiot ‘party’ and hot tub crap) drugging, and then orally, vaginally and anally raping her when he could have had anyone – and I went, you’re full of shit, mate – THAT’S EXACTLY THE POINT, IDIOT! He did NOT ‘have’ to do this because he HAD enough girls at hand, and you have fuck all facts to know better! Sometimes I think these people love to repeat these ‘dirty words’ because they’re all secret perverts!
Anyway, this highly exploited case is a good explanation or example of why LA courts are such a PIT! Rittenband decided at the last minute to get his five minutes of fame by rejecting the plea deal that had already been negotiated and sling Polanski back into jail. WRONG! The judge may have ‘technically’ been ‘authorized’ to do that, but to punish someone TWICE, and to do so against all counsel and all parties’ interests is vindictive. Polanski should have been allowed to withdraw his plea to go for a trial, force Geimer to stand cross-examination, rather than force him into self-deportation/flight. But as we know, hardly any judge will ever withdraw a plea. Plea deals ARE ‘death traps’!
Besides, Polanski’s detention in Switzerland is first of all the kidnapping of a French citizen and a citizen of the European Union and is legally unsound, since for one, neither France nor Poland or Geimer were informed of his impending arrest, which is law, and the extradition requires more than six months of any ‘sentence’ to allow for extradition. Furthermore, these ‘sex laws’ of the US violate the Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union and cannot be enforced in any form, including extradition from any part of the EU by any member of the European Union neither by the country seeking the accession of Switzerland, i.e., the US. These ‘plea deals’ and ‘statutory rape’ laws violate European Charters and laws in addition, since they don’t exist there, they violate several articles of the Charter on Human Rights and human dignity defining the voluntary albeit forbidden sexual activities of adults with minors, or vice versa. None of these laws are compatible with US laws. But I guess the US doesn’t give a shit.
And why is punkass Cooley so hot to get him ‘now’? Because Polanski made public criticisms of the corrupt LA justice system years ago already and weeks back more than prominently, after he was sold out by the ‘assuming’ Swiss for ‘money’, and THEN Polanski dare spoke out to declare he HAD done his time and accused Cooley of wanting his head to become Attorney General. All TRUE! And NOW Cooley’s engaging in a malevolent show of pure vendetta to punish this old man with this Lewis slag! Polanski’s a human being who didn’t rape anyone; not any outstanding ‘artist’ who had sex with an ‘aspiring actress’, or even that lying has-been Lewis later after she had her role already, like they all did it in Hollywood or ‘abroad’ and NONE were done for ‘rape’.
Geimer was a nobody like her two-bit-part mother, like that ‘Grange Hill’ loser. They tried to get into the big biz through him, he has sex with them, ‘starstruck’ Geimer tells boyfriend about it, someone turns it into ‘drugged rape and sodomy’ 2x for fun. But then the law decides, it’s not that funny and Polanski is called a rapist the next day after mom most likely fell for her ‘fantasies’ at first, unless she helped out a bit and then it was too freaking late while the girl remained anonymous in contrast. No wonder Polanski took a hike. I would have! Like they don't have enough home-grown current crime in LA to keep them busy. No, they dig up ugly ‘Lewis’, ex-teen prostitute and drug addict! It's ABSURD!
Let Polanski GO!!
Btw, great job on the research, Novalis; outstanding examination of the facts!
Thanks, ‘Ghostwriter’ – I was already wondering how long it would take for someone to adopt his last film title as pseudonym, good idea. And, I’m with you all the way otherwise; it is indeed more than absurd by now.
Having gone through all your blogs, taking me a about a week at my spare time, the comments alone are amazing, Novalis – looks like good and thorough research attracts all the right responses. You deserve them too. As my own small contribution, I conclude the following:
1. A grand jury is not a real trial since there is no defence, no cross-examination is allowed and is held only to establish indictment counts to arrest someone on – which makes all allegations by the accuser just that, NOT fact to this day.
2. If you wanted to punish Polanski for any more serious ‘crime/s’ they’d needed to charge him with that and then prove it in a real trial – that was never done, and not to ‘spare’ the ‘victim’, but not to expose her as a liar in a proper trial, and the attorneys knew that. The fact that there was NO alcohol ‘plying’ charge says it all; they didn’t believe her.
3. He pled guilty to ‘unlawful sex with a minor’, not ‘drugged rape’ and not ‘statutory rape’ although commonly called that, which is so confusing to most, not realising it means NOT ‘rape’.
4. A plea deal is a death warrant – many pled ‘guilty’ to something they haven’t even done, in fear a trial might find them a very biased jury resulting in a harsher and entirely undeserved penalty, and are often sent into hell. Or, they pled to the only count they are in fact guilty of and are sentenced on that usually lower charge, or put on probation if they’re lucky. That Rittenband wanted to sentence Polanski twice is outrageous.
5. I’d say, ‘drunken consent’ is STILL ‘consent’. No matter the ‘age’ of the one drunk. In ‘real life’ that is, not according to any ‘laws’. How is someone do learn about responsibility in all areas of life, i.e., also in having sex, if the law takes ‘consent’ away in the first place, and then doesn’t even punish the minor when s/he broke the laws, but the adult only? That’s NOT right. ‘Laws’ don’t cater for real life situations, and BOTH should be held responsible, or in fact neither, if no real harm was done.
Here’s why; my friend has a 14-year old niece, still underage in the UK, and btw. looks like 20, fully developed, and acts very maturely in general, who came by the other day for her little niece’s birthday do, got plastered on 4 average glasses of Lambrini, 2 rum, one glass of red, then had a spliff, and took a 60/500 mg co-codamol (heavy codeine based painkiller with paracetamol for her wrist sprain from the previous day). Over several hours mind you, not all in one go, and she was still perfectly compos mentis, and most of all, physically able to dance and run around, walk in a straight line, talk without too obvious signs of being ‘intoxicated’, or ‘drugged’. Though she ‘technically’ was very drunk.
Now, if Geimer claims she was ‘pretty drunk’ or drugged from hardly one glass, or even if she had two glasses of champagne, hers and Polanski’s as she claims, and that tiny bit of Quaalude, my mother tells me, it doesn’t make you in any form unable to ‘fight’ someone off if wanted, or run away, cry for help, or anything Geimer claims she ‘didn’t do’, but ‘needed’ to do to get away had she ‘wanted’ to. She said it makes you relaxed and chilled, or aroused depending on the amount, not ‘sleepy’ as people keep saying. Alcohol does that, NOT a bit of a Quaalude. To sedate someone, beyond physical or mental ability to move or think straight, requires heavy barbiturates and/or lots of alcohol, acting as the main suppressant, NOT what she took.
I’ve been ‘pretty drunk’ a few times, and I STILL could have fought someone off, if I ‘wanted’ or needed to. If that had stopped any attacker is anther question. But many women were in fact spared when they started making a real fuss and noise, kicked and shouted like hell if possible, and it at least had shown they tried to get way, and not simply ‘acquiesced’ to ‘endure’ the ordeal they might have been able to avert altogether. If no force or threat was used, don’t call it ‘rape’, and to claim she ‘pleaded’ him to stop or said ‘no’, but he did it anyway and that without any signs of force or trauma, and Polanski in fact wasn’t ‘deaf’ and she conveniently can say he ‘ignored’ her, it’s NOT rape. It’s a lie.
If this niece would have slept with someone much older than her own age, outside her boyfriend that is as an example, that would also have been illegal here in the UK, sure, but, if she had, she’d been perfectly able to have the sex even actively, not only passively, and consent to it without regrets. The fact that so may sleep with minors as it happens very day in every country on this planet, and hardly anyone gets their knickers in a twist over that, or call on the law, why they make such a terrible example of Polanski is beyond me. It’s a spiteful game of double standards.
See Michael Douglas, the sex obsessed oldster whose wife is so much younger, and who’s got a son inside for serious drugs offences that no doubt caused more harm to many others, unlike some dude from Paris who slept with an ‘aspiring actress’ decades earlier. Or look at Arnold and the rest, who got away with the exact same and much more. Disgusting double standards.
I asked that niece in regards to this case, and she said she easily could have done the same at no physical and mental impairment, since she in fact had done it before, but wouldn’t engage in anal sex for the pesky preparations and discomfort it can cause, having tried it once out of curiosity with her boyfriend.
I really wonder where people’s common sense went in regards to anal and underage sex they engage in on a daily base, but believe in Geimer’s repeat sodomy claims that caused no pain or damage. So in that respect, she must be the only person on this planet who could endure twice unwanted ‘dry’ sodomy without any pain just lying there, without the vital use of heavy-duty lubrication, and without the definite reaction of wanting to get away, run to that door, scream and writhe in agony being fully conscious.
That to say, that niece hardly ever drinks to be ‘used’ to it, or smokes pot on a regular base, but has sex every now and then with her 22-year old boyfriend, like I believe it was the case with Geimer, who was exposed to sex and drugs and pot and whatnot from very early on in contrast and had a boyfriend around 18. So that’s Geimer’s parents’ fault, not Polanski’s. She knew what she was doing, plain and simple, and clearly shows that she couldn’t say ‘no’ to the champagne and Quaalude, because she was used to it all.
Polanski sure fell in with the wrong crowd with her, and then the law, and in this case, I bet the girl simply lied about the rape because no one ‘believed’ her the sex with him. I would guess that shame, revenge, or other negative feelings would cause a woman to lie about being raped, has ‘mental issues’, peer issues, or exhibits ‘fantasies’ like I believe Geimer came up with and her mother fell for it at first perhaps. Though she should have gathered her daughter was ‘acting up’, knowing of her sex and drugs history, or maybe even of her own boyfriend’s ‘affair’ with her. That one was new to me, but no surprise to be honesty.
Now, if it is found that a woman has lied about something so serious as rape, she should be held accountable no matter her age, she should be charged with something that deters other ‘cry rape’ women to even consider lying about sexual assault and think twice before filing a false report. Like this sickening Lewis has-been, a typical 15-minutes famewhore and no doubt Cooley’s creation to force the extradition. But seeing that the Swiss authorities didn’t even acknowledge her, they’d probably keep waiting for that sentencing plan and Gunson’s proof Polanski had done his time, and not indulge her lies in any form.
At least Geimer sort of amended her claims later in these conflicting interpretations I too came across. I found a few interviews with her that makes it clear it wasn’t ‘rape’, and I don’t believe in the ‘double’ sodomy either. Never. But I find it wrong that she got away with it and only Polanski paid for it all dearly simply for being the adult, or ‘man’. I tried anal intercourse with my husband, and as much has he likes it, ‘obviously’, for the deeper stroke actions, I’m not overly keen on it, but with enough preparation and lots of KY jelly it’s ok. But only THEN. So, if you regret having sex with a guy, anal or otherwise, then ‘suck’ it up and be choosier next time no matter your or his age, but don’t lie, and make damn sure you are not being recorded for others to view your ‘technique’ later! Although, if they had, we’d know exactly what happened. Lying about rape truly pisses me off, as a woman!
I think there are also confused sexual encounters, where the woman genuinely feels her wishes were not respected, and that she found herself in a position where she was having sex with a man she did not want, but she was not assertive enough, or too confused, or embarrassed to react, or simply not practiced enough to enjoy it. The man would walk away thinking she was just a bit frigid, or ‘passive’, not knowing better. It happened often enough, and this ‘Lewis’ used that as ‘excuse’ to cement her claims. Though I highly doubt a prostitute is ‘frigid’, or needs ‘practice’ and ‘clams up’. What bullshit.
I had friends who ended up in this kind of ‘Geimer’ experience. It’s very commonplace, and many girls couldn’t ‘take it’, but is this rape? No, I don’t think so. You’re drunk, or drugged by your own hands, you sleep with someone, that’s your problem, or if you didn’t want it once you’ve sobered up again. YOUR fault. In fact, I find it pathetic to cry rape afterwards and is a crime, plain and simple. Take responsibility and stop blaming men for unwanted sex.
Isn’t the whole point of charging someone to determine the extent of liability? If the woman deliberately lied about who raped her, or about being raped at all, then she is liable and should be punished. The point being missed is that false accusations of rape waste taxpayers resources and most of all sympathy that should be reserved for real rape survivors and to punish their attackers in a trial. There is a reasonable public interest in discouraging malicious accusations, not least in the interest of genuine rape victims themselves.
Geimer was and is no real rape victim or ‘survivor’; she’s a pathetic liar without any guts to admit it, and I’m sure they could strike another handy plea deal to avoid perjury charges. And this ‘Lewis’ is an even bigger phony and a shameless whore/junkie I still wouldn’t believe if Polanski said she speaks true. If I once thought Geimer makes me wanna punch her face in, this new cry rape liar makes me wanna vomit only looking at her. How people can believe her is beyond me. But then again, the majority doesn’t. Good.
I fully agree with you, Jemma, and on the fact that no one so far has been punished for crying rape. Once found out, the case is closed and the woman gets away with it, unless she was found out during a trial and done for perjury, but since a potential rape victim’s name is never revealed in contrast to the alleged assailant’s, a man’s reputation is destroyed no matter found innocent, while the woman remains anonymous. Unlike in Geimer’s case, who made herself known, and in fact should equally be held responsible for her teenage fabrications, especially now as an adult. As for Lewis, she’s a pathetic liar, plain and simple, and should be punished for it BIG time.
After hearing about the woman claiming that she was assaulted by Polanski, all I gotta say is that I’m absolutely disgusted in her. I bet even Geimer would hate her guts. I hope this gets resolved as soon as possible.
You know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of the time when Vanity Fair accused Polanski of having sex with different women on the way to Sharon’s funeral. How anyone could believe such nonsense when Polanski clearly stated in his book that he started having sex again about a month after her death is way beyond me.
A while back, I mentioned an interview that he did with Rolling Stone Magazine in 1974. In that same interview, he talked about the time the media printed disgusting interviews that they claimed to have given to him and Sharon, but never actually did. He said that if any of it was actually true, he would have admitted it by now. And I think the same exact thing can be said about the “new victim” and the allegations made by VF as well.
You’re right, Vahan, and the problem is he cannot sue any of them, while unable to make his case. I rather believe Geimer one or two things than this oh so conveniently conjured up individual to appear right ‘now’. She’s clearly a US style famewhore, in dire straits of money and need of her 15 minutes of attention. This was staged by Cooley, no doubt about it. He’s desperately trying to gain ground again, after the Swiss asked for Gunson’s testimony finally and he doesn’t want to release it, to end this case. He’s even worse than Rittenband, who at least had the ‘decency’ to ‘misuse’ the diagnostic study to send Polanski down for a few weeks and that had been it. But the press got to him, and Cooley is misusing the media to his own ends now in the worst possible way.
Though the vast majority don’t believe her, if they want Polanski back in LA or not, some haven’t got the full facts when vital details are omitted/false and obviously rejoice/d to have found ‘another victim’. She’s a fake, as fake as they come. Geimer at least made good on her teenage fantasies over the last years and I shake her hand for it any day, but this woman is pure venom, pure show, pure gold digger poison. And her slimeball attorney is an infamous ‘celeb muckraker’ without any ethics. All, they see is dirty $ signs.
I’m sure it did a bit more needless damage, or in fact can be in his favour, people seeing it as this shabby travesty, but if they really thought we’d believed her, having gone off with him to make Pirates AFTER he ‘abused her in the worst possible way’ a whole year earlier, these people need a serious lobotomy. It’s a pathetic attempt to influence the Swiss, which will never happen. This has zero impact on the case, and even if he were to be extradited, her utterly uncorroborated claims cannot be used to judge this old case, which they so desperately hope it would. It’s folly. They think we’re idiots.
What bothers me, is that the public has no real clues about the case, but obsess over it with perverse and obscene relish anyway, delighting in repeating the phrase, ‘he drugged, raped and sodomised a ‘child’’, as if that’s an indisputable fact – NOT. I know a ‘thirteen year old girl’ who looks like twenty, my older sister’s daughter in fact, and I’m sure they’re many more out there, and Geimer was one of them.
I personally think it’s outrageous to first accuse him of all these terrible things, and then say things like you quoted, or, “I think he’s sorry.” ‘Sorry’? The only thing ‘he’ was sorry about was what happened after actress mom had called the cops, and the only one in need to feel sorry is her for having lied. Or to say, “I think he knows it was wrong.” ‘Wrong’? What? To sleep with her? Or her lies that he had raped and sodomised her? The only thing that was ‘wrong’ was her crying rape, making it dirty and twisted, since nothing would have happened had she not, other than her having undoubtedly become a very ‘convincing’ ‘actress’, like her ‘ambitious mother’. Very bad apples I call them, Polanski had a very nasty taste of.
Now he’s not only fighting this unjust extradition, the indifferent Swiss authorities, he’s fighting a corrupt court with a corrupt DA, right-wing politics, today’s changed times in regards to moral standards concerning sex with minors in general of no concern in the 70s, misappropriated issues of child abuse utterly irrelevant for her age bracket of being an adolescent, a fully developed young lady, or they in fact had brought in other counts.
He’s also fighting criminal ignorance in regards to the misconduct of lawmen, staggering hypocrisy of corrupt DAs, blind hatred of the ill-informed public, overt injustice after three decades to call for his head suddenly, and sanctimonious public morality worse than in Jackson’s case. Or rather, he was sold out by the Swiss for money, end of.
If Geimer had conceded to what really happened, only the count of statutory rape had stuck, once the oh so glorious US ‘people’s’ law was dragged in. Stupid mother fell for her little girl’s ‘fantasies’, or maybe coached her to lie to, that’s the only part still not quite clear.
Fine, call it a moral issue on his part then he’s guilty of to have touched her, but she let him, let others, which isn’t mine to argue either way or any laws, since it ends in exactly this kind of hell for both sides if it cannot be aborted. But two women allowed to drag a man into court over sex, and then want it all ‘go away’ once found out they had lied, that’s immoral.
It’s exactly these sex laws I denounce that allow for that, condemn men into prison for having sex, enabling minors to cry rape under these ‘shield laws’ even more now than ever before. Unlike in the UK I might add. Fortunately. US style plea bargains are death traps, they force many innocent people into accepting one count of whatever, in exchange of dropping the other charges, simply because the accuser refuses to stand cross-examination to give the defendant a chance to be exonerated in a trial. Or rather avoid perjury.
Sometimes these people are not even guilty, but in fear of a higher sentence they don’t deserve if they get a biased jury. Polanski would have had a better deal had they gone to trial and found her claims all but two fabrications, (the kissing/caressing and intercourse he admitted to.) The judge went back on his word, the girl in the case wanted it dismissed, I wonder why, she was having sex at the time with other men, took Quaalude before, liked champagne, these are all very relevant factors that must be considered, not ‘shield laws’ type ignorance to condemn Polanski.
I guarantee you, had it been one of their own, they’d found every available loophole to bail him out even if it had been actual rape, as seen so often with influential people who have real power. See Cooley. God forbid he’ll ever make AG, let alone judge. But I’m not really convinced that a poor unknown, or black man for that matter, on a ‘first-offence’ charge would necessarily have received a harsher treatment on the same count, under similar circumstances, at the same point in time. Unlike today of course, where they condemn innocent men to suffer the greatest hell on Earth: daily brutal rape in an institution-ordained form they cannot escape.
I read Polanski’s autobiography too, and it strikes me as oddly familiar, that Geimer’s girlfriend present at the time of both their getting ready for the Nicholson shoot and on their return, Geimer had displayed what Polanski called, ‘a tone that betrayed a mixture of envy and admiration’, when she explained her friend had done a few TV commercials, unlike Geimer only one at that point – jealousy anyone? And then his intimate encounter with Geimer was suddenly rape the next evening. Not a chance he forced himself on her. They had two whole weeks to come up with a good show.
I too heard of the rumours that she was older, and looking at her full length pictures, no wonder the doctor described her as an ‘adult female’ by physical appearance, boobs and all. She was, and judging by others’ perception who had met her in the flesh, saying she could pass for up to twenty, it would confirm that she was very mature if not even really older. Polanski isn’t a paedophile, he liked very mature young women at one point in life after Sharon’s death, and if one goes by what another commentator said, he indeed was an occasional borderline ephebophile at most, since he had many sexual encounters with older lady friends too.
Since this isn’t a clinically recognised mentally disordered sexual deviance unlike paedophilia, it only becomes a ‘sex crime’ when someone whistled on their sexual activities. That’s not right, teenagers should have a right to sex without the law making it illegal and dirty, cause men to end up in jail. Well, only in the sexually repressed USA that is for their lovely ‘shield laws’.
The fact that the former prosecutor is helping the defence is more than telling, since Gunson could have remained silent like the others who in effect had played him the same. But it seems his testimony as to his failure to remove Rittenband before Polanski had pleaded, or what the judge’s intent of sentence was, or his breach to uphold their plea deal, came not only too late, but is of no interest to the nice rich alpine folks it seems. To work on ‘assumption’ in matters of international judicial correctness and people’s lives being affected, is always unwise.
There’s no way they seriously want him inside, after decades of flawless conduct, a very successful working life unlike most people can show, a new family who cares for him, his advanced age, his vulnerability to fall victim to attacks, after his traumatising childhood history, deprived ghetto years, escape from communism, and Sharon’s terrible loss already followed by decades of public demonisation.
The law must be merciful to such an individual, and if he’s lucky, once on safe remand after not too much delay to tackle his case and finally stands before Espinoza, he might say, there you go Roman, here’s your commuted sentence, you’re free to go. Which he could have done in absentia, the bastard. Or, I give you a year as the minimum sentence on probation applicable today on the retroactive rule (not ‘two’ as asshole Cooley wants it) minus the time spent inside, now go home. Which he too could have done in absentia. And don’t come back.
As if he ever would, not even to have the case cleaned up and finally closed, after what glorious California has done to him from the day he arrived, as the little Polish director with the thick accent. A cinematic genius in my eyes and rare human being to have survived so many tragedies and nasty abuse. A human being who deserves all the justice to find that peace and earn some money for his children’s future.
I couldn’t agree with you more, ‘Major Tom’, he indeed deserves his peace finally. So let’s see what happens tomorrow, when they decide on allowing to unseal Gunson’s testimony I highly doubt they will, since it can prove Polanski had done his time and must let him go. If they refuse extradition nonetheless, I seriously doubt at this point at no evidence therefore rendering the extradition request as unsound, Geimer will be in the clear, people will still believe he did all that to her, and his career is over. So much for ‘justice’. So one should almost ‘hope’ they in fact will extradite him, so the world can finally hear his side, and ‘deconstruct’ her claims down to nothing but casual sex. THAT would be justice.
Having worked with many rape victims, several paedophiles and a few rapists as a clinical psychiatrist in the UK, let me explain further to your own correct explanations, Novalis, that paedophiles ALWAYS and only engage in sexual abuse with children, i.e., those who have not yet reached puberty and are far below any adolescent level of physical and psychological development, on a long-term base.
Paedophilia describes several typologies of offender, dividing them into psychological and non-psychopathological origins, and hypothesises several apparent causal factors that may lead to the sexual abuse of children.
After listing several typologies of sexual offender, Krafft-Ebing then mentioned one final typology, which he refers to as a ‘psycho-sexual perversion’: paedophilia erotica. He noted that he had only encountered it four times in his career and gave brief descriptions of each case, as well as noting they all have three traits in common: Their attraction is persistent. The subject’s primary attraction is to children, rather than adults. The acts committed by the subject are typically not intercourse, but rather involve inappropriate touching or manipulating the child into performing an act on the subject.
So in that context Polanski is out the picture entirely, especially since he had many older casual sexual partners outside someone like Ms Kinski, who in contrast is classified as an adolescent for her age just like Ms Geimer. ‘Clinical paedophilia’ is defined as recurrent, intense sexually arousing ‘fantasies’ marked by distress or interpersonal difficulty, i.e., ‘sexual dysfunction’ as in premature ejaculation, or impotence, which Polanski obviously did not suffer from either way, or the psychiatrists had spotted that marker while he was inside and he most likely had no sex during his time at Chino, or any ‘urge’ to have sex.
Their behaviours is diagnosed solely involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children over a period of at least 6 months, which does NOT include an individual in late adolescence involved in an ongoing sexual relationship with a 12-year-old or older. That’s the cut-off age. As it was in the case Ms Kinski he had a long-term affair with, and does not involve criminal sexual acts with children.
Paedophilia is not a legal category or term in contrast to popular belief, and although the acts ‘paedophiles’ desire to carry out are ‘crimes’, these crimes are not legally referred to as ‘paedophilia’. Paedophilia in itself is not a crime, since the original term was a literal ‘love’ for them psychologically, or harmless physical attraction towards children, only ‘acting upon’ such urges is when it includes physical or mental damage inflected upon the child. Hence the term ‘love/r of children’, in the benign sense of the meaning.
Sometimes a clinical distinction is made between ‘paedophiles’ and ‘situational offenders’. A paedophile, according to this distinction, is a person whose primary sexual attraction is to very young children, while a ‘situational offender’ is someone who engages in sexual activity with adolescents not as their primary sexual preference but due to a particular situation they are faced with, and would not otherwise engage in such activity except for that situation.
Which was the distinction one of the probation officers had made in Polanski’s case when he said, “I feel he [Polanski] is a criminal only by accident; and that there are many complex social and psychological factors that were involved in this ‘situational event’ which otherwise was a complete departure from his normal mode of conduct.” He obviously knew his job.
Since the age of consent is often higher than the upper age limit in the definition of clinical paedophilia, which is legally eleven years, underage sex, i.e. sexual activity with underage adolescents, is not, in general, clinical paedophilia. While such activity may be illegal in a particular jurisdiction, it frequently exemplifies only borderline paedophilia, or far more commonly, no paedophilia at all, because the person’s attraction is not specifically to persons that young, as seen in Polanski’s case.
The terms ‘hebephilia’ and ‘ephebophilia’ are sometimes used to describe attraction to much more mature adolescents, distinct from attraction to prepubescent children not fully developed. In that sense paedophilia as we classify it today, not the original meaning is an obsession with prepubescent children as sex objects only. Overt acts, including taking sexual explicit photographs, molesting children, and exposing one’s genitalia to children are all known markers, which usually escalates any activity to the level of severe violence at one point, or even murder. That obviously cannot be applied to Polanski’s occasional preference of grown younger women in any form.
In research environments, specific terms are used for chronophilias, (age related philia/love): for instance, ephebophilia refers to the sexual preference for mid-to-late adolescents, fifteen to nineteen year-olds, hebephilia to refer to the sexual preference for earlier pubescent individual, twelve to fifteen, and paedophilia to refer to the sexual preference for prepubescent children, any age below twelve. However, the term paedophilia is commonly used to refer to any sexual interest in minors below the legal age of consent, regardless of their level of physical, mental, or psychological development, which is of course the problem for people to see the crucial difference not knowing better.
Mr Polanski might have known Ms Geimer’s ‘age’, but her body appealed to him on a more adult development level therefore only. If one wants to label Mr Polanski with a ‘phile’, ephebophile is more applicable for his occasional attraction to much more mature teenagers who have completed puberty. Hence, Dr Larson‘s description of Ms Geimer as ‘adult female’, who was physically fully developed like a young adult.
That’s why Ms Huston thought her to be up to twenty years of age. Though Ms Geimer might have been only thirteen years as per her ‘chorological age’, her body was that of a fully developed adolescent, or young adult. On the other hand, if one considers the possibility that she was in fact two years older, that would accredit to her highly developed physical appearance, since Ms Kinski was also fifteen and equally fully mature physically and no doubt mentally.
Neither hebephilia nor ephebophilia is listed by name as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Hence, the ‘Mentally Disordered Sex Offender’ diagnostic study Mr Polanski underwent, came back negative for paedophilia, while they in fact could have found him to belong into the category of ephebophilia as per ‘physical age’ of Ms Geimer, or as per hebephilia her ‘chronological age’.
This is as opposed to paedophilia, which is categorised as a specific disorder in those systems with its own diagnostic criteria below these age groups Mr Polanski had no interest in. But the prison psychiatrists obviously weren’t quite that informed then to realise the distinction, though still noticed him not to belong to the paedophilia category. The fact that he had also dated older women closer to his own age like Sharon Tate was, or his first wife of his own age, therefore does not make him belong to either group in fact exclusively either.
He could be considered an occasional borderline ephebophile by age group, or otherwise hebephile by female gender group, and mainly teleiophile (adult) with a tendency to ephebophilia by age group. More apt is the use of the term ‘adolescentophilia’, for a sexual preference of pubescent and/or very mature adolescent youths, i.e., either hebe- or ephebo-oriented teleiophile. Whereas these two are not a recognised psychological disorder, paedophilia is, since most suffer their ‘preference’, which can culminate in the typical sexual abuse caused by factors of severe mental and sexual dysfunction.
In this context, the adolescentophilia focused on boys is called ephebophilia, and the adolescentophilia focused on girls is called hebephilia, no matter the gender of the teleiophile. So in that sense, hebephile would be more correct, and in terms of age. It is used by professional sexologists when comparing (for example) paedophiles with teleiophiles, and peripubescent teleiophilia in reference to the ‘crush’ phenomenon. Although this term is used to refer to any person attracted to adults (including adults attracted to adults), it can also refer to minors, adolescents, and young adults attracted to mature adults rather than their own peers. Which is the case with Ms Kinski who was attracted to older men in general.
Researchers state that hebephilia, has not come into widespread use, even among professionals who work with sex offenders, and may have been confused with the term ephebophilia, which denotes men who prefer adolescents around fifteen to nineteen years of age. Which is was in the case of Mr Polanski, who was not interested in anyone not fully developed no matter their chronological age, though very young, and Ms Geimer technically per her ‘age’ group belongs into the hebephilia category.
Acting upon ephebophilic preference can be illegal, as seen in his case and many others not quite so virulently attacked by the ignorant media and ill-informed public, when the adolescent is below the legal age of consent. Which is of course the problem with celebrities, who are purely hounded for their status, or unjustly made an example of, as seen in his case, while others in contrast are sent home with a slap to their wrists, if that.
The causes or reasons for some men to prefer much younger women, unless they ‘prefer’ them exclusively which was not applicable in Mr Polanski’s case, is unknown, while sexual abuse of either age group can always be attributed to certain known factors, like abuse they had suffered as children, raised in a very unhealthy and deprived family environment. It is a fact, that offenders are ‘bred’, created from early on.
Significant age disparity in non-abusive sexual relationships has been and remains a feature of couples in many cultures and societies. Although the more common pattern in heterosexual couples is an older man with a younger woman, the proportion of the converse (older woman/younger man) has risen significantly in many countries. There’s no big difference in that pattern in same gender couples.
Reasons for seeking a much younger or older individual with whom to relate intimately can vary wildly. A common perception is that younger mates serve the purpose of a trophy or object of status, while older mates are perceived to have greater resources, wisdom, and/or sexual knowledge. Biologically, a young female is desirable for her reproductive potential and beauty.
While others never saw such disproportionate moral outrage in regards to Mr Polanski’s younger partners, culture may also play a part. As seen in the venerable wider age disparity between partners in France in contrast to the damagingly sexually repressed US.
As for the rape allegations, ‘rape’ is a complex matter that means different things to different people, so let me define actual rape as the criminal law sees it; ‘rape’ is the offence of forcing or ‘compelling’ a woman to ‘submit’ to ‘sexual intercourse’ against her will (with actual penetration of a woman’s vagina with the man’s penis only) without consent and accomplished through levels of physical force, threat of violence, duress or intimidation, which can be verbal, visual, or anything that ‘forces’ a person to join in unwanted sexual contact or attention.
Rape is a sub-set of the rather confusing umbrella term ‘sexual assault’. Casual intercourse without any mental or physical force albeit with a minor is not classified as ‘rape’, unless forcible vaginal penetration took place with a penis. That’s why it is legally called ‘unlawful sex’ in the law books, or ‘statutory rape’ in the US, since the minor by statue is not allowed to consent, which is of course a very misleading misnomer since it exactly means NOT rape.
Though ‘assault’ might sound more violent, and most people mistake it for always including a degree of ‘violence’, it can be the act of merely touching someone indecently in an innocent form even through clothes, or unclothed genitally, i.e., ‘molestation’ with or no intent to rape, non-forcible sexual intercourse the woman said ‘no’ to, proven or not, or attempted rape which then both comes within the definition of ‘sexual offence’. Only ‘violent offence’ classifies any sexual act that involves any degree of physical violence or force.
So in that sense, sexual assault might sound nastier, but is in fact the only applicable charge for what Mr Polanski did outside the unlawful sex he admitted to, hence Ms Geimer’s later lawsuit against him stating ‘sexual assault’, not ‘rape’, or drugged rape he hadn’t pleaded to nor could be proven. Not even the ‘lewd act’ of kissing or caressing her was applicable, since he didn’t plead to that count.
That her lawsuit included ‘battery’ is highly doubtful, since any civil suit based on a criminal case that could not be concluded or was closed, cannot be based on something the defendant had not been indicted for, or pleaded to. But then again this was in the States, where lawsuits are an epidemical way of ‘legally extorting’ money.
The term ‘rape’ to indicate ‘force’ however can also be applied to anal rape, i.e., forcible penetration with an erect penis and/or inanimate object, while ‘sodomy’ is the act of anal intercourse without force. ‘Anal sex’ is anything outside penile anal penetration. Oral rape is forceful penetration with the penis to mouth, while cunnilingus, mouth/tongue in/to vagina, can hardly be ‘forceful’ unless bites are involved.
Fellatio, mouth to penis, is oral sex without any force unless bites are applied, and then these both counts are considered sexual assault or sexual abuse when forced on someone, though ‘sexual abuse’ again to people means long-term abuse, which is not the case in these classifications, and sounds equally more violent than it is unless duress or force is used to perform or suffer them.
Long-term sexual abuse of a minor, or even adult, then comes into classifications of any of these ‘acts’ as classified performed against their will, or forced to perform, and is accordingly punished with each charge at specified prison terms and/or penalties.
Unlawful sexual intercourse, carried out forcibly and/or under threat of and actual injury and against the will of the victim, is rape, none other. Though traditionally limited to attacks on women by men, the definition of rape has been broadened to cover same-sex attacks and attacks against those who, because of mental illness, intoxication, or other reasons, are incapable of valid consent. Statutory rape, or intercourse with a person younger than the adult, generally from 12 to 18 years, is not rape, unless it was forcible intercourse.
Anyone of age below that is considered a child or prepubescent, not mature adolescent and the act therefore is punished harsher even if it was ‘consensual’ and the minor did not object or suffer. Many genuine rape victims fail to report their attacks, deterred by the prospect of a distressing cross-examination in court and the difficulty of proving a crime for which there usually are no witnesses, unless physical evidence is found, which in cases of forcible intercourse is always present. Hence, if no ‘force’ was applied, physically and/or psychologically as in threatening the minor/adult, it is not considered ‘rape’. The word ‘rape’ can also to applied to other non-sexual turn of phrasing, like they ‘raped the landscape’, etcetera.
To explain the ‘dynamics’ behind rapists’ behaviour, penetrative rape is always about power and humiliation, not simply ‘desiring’ and/or ‘having sex’, which is always used as tool to inflict mental and physical pain and injuries for various reasons (based on the attacker’s mental state and so forth), general hatred of women acquired for various reasons, (usually based on family circumstances and/or upbringing) and is not ‘casual sex’.
Mr Polanski most certainly did not hate women nor had he any need to exert any power over them or to hurt them, ‘force’ the sex, with enough women at his disposal. Since Ms Geimer had said years later, and I quote from another source other than your own: “He had sex with me. He wasn’t hurting me and he wasn’t forceful or mean or anything like that, and really I just tried to let him get it over with,” this does not qualify as ‘rape’, or ‘actual’ rape, since ‘letting him get on with it’, does not sound like she suffered his activity as rather seemed more ‘bored’, or she had said, he hurt me, raped me.
NO rape victim would ever say, ‘he had sex with me’, they would say he violated me, caused me pain, physically, mentally, ‘he raped me’. Her later statements therefore lie in direct contrast to her original accusations, or any genuine rape, let alone forcible. The fact alone that no one else ever had accused him of something similar, proves that it was not rape. There truly is no ‘onetime rapist’.
When she before had told the grand jury that she was ‘afraid’ of him, ‘gave some resistance’ and then ‘gave up’ on his apparent ignoring her, she however in contrast to such mental state of ‘fear’ did not act on the logical attempt to remove herself from his advances throughout several hours, and cannot be seen as genuine ‘cause’ to stay with him, since for one, Mr Polanski had not laid a hand on her or threatened her in any form that makes it plausible for her to say that she was afraid of him, or her saying not to know what he could do if she resisted, when she had plenty of options to abort the sex at his not hindering her to.
That is a typical excuse if the sex was consensual and then was regretted for some reason, blaming the man for the sex. It becomes only believable when she had been threatened by him, or was physically hurt not to dare resist or fight him AGAIN not to risk MORE distress. To ‘think’ he ‘might’ have is not based on facts, let alone when he said he gave her no such cause to be ‘afraid of him’.
I worked with genuine rape victims, and what Ms Geimer describes might sound logical, but if groundless accusations are not based on logical ‘cause and effect’ re/actions on both parties to make sense, they are most likely fabrication. Why women cry rape depends on their reason, and indeed involves mostly younger females. In her case I speculate it was for her age, and someone told her to make it more complicated than it was.
There was no logical reason or cause for her to claim any of this ‘fear’, and that later declared ‘reluctance’ of hers to engage in the sex does not qualify as ‘fear’. At no physical impairment or restraint, verbal commands or threats to subjugate her on Mr Polanski’s part, nothing she claimed therefore took place for her to ‘be’ afraid. Apart from the fact that she simply could have walked out the door at no impairment, especially since Ms Huston, to Ms Geimer’s own words however only indeed, had interrupted them, yet took no advantage of her to call on her help.
No rape victim would let slip a woman at hand to help her at no signs of his restraining her verbally or physically. It is utterly illogical. I too highly doubt Ms Huston had interrupted them, and Ms Geimer’s claims, of ‘not knowing what to say to her’, in order to seek her help at no interference from him, is more than nonsensical. No rape victim in dreaded prospect of getting violated again when that person leaves, after having been assaulted already, would ever let that chance pass.
If Ms Huston had not interrupted them as Mr Polanski had described it, the same applies, since Ms Geimer could still have simply walked away at any stage of the sexual encounter at no physical impairment. Even severely battered victims try to get away from their attacker at one point to avoid more violence if the chance arises, like someone interrupting them, cry for help. Hence, her credibility of claiming ‘fear’, and that they were interrupted, is severely and rightly undermined. It in fact insults all those who had encountered real fear while being attacked.
It is also highly doubtful she was ‘reluctant’ to the extent she had claimed, all through these hours with him, or even over days, and no one had noticed it? I’m sure she would have said something to someone by then. If she really did not want to go with him, had told her mother or sister, if she really did not want to drink champagne with him, had told him or the caretaker off, and asked for something else. If she really did not want to take the Quaalude, simply could have refused it even if he had offered it to her. And if she really did not want to or sleep with him, had not done so.
To say she told him ‘no’ is also highly doubtful, since Mr Polanski without a doubt would have engaged her in some form, other than proceed without reacting to her. It’s not Polanski’s nature to ‘ignore’ people who tell him off. There’s too much awry in this case, and I studied it nearly as in-depth as you have, but more on a scientific/psychological level for my profession, and having worked with exactly these people addressed here, I can categorically state that Ms Geimer is not a genuine rape victim, and Mr Polanski neither a rapist nor paedophile.
The fact that M Geimer sued him so much later over ‘false imprisonment’, based on her claim that she wanted to go home and he said, later, which he of course did not confirm to have heard her say or to have said, is also an insult to all truly held captive rape victims I alone have counselled, unable to just walk out the door like she had plenty chances of. Hence, all her protestations of reluctance and fear are hollow claims, typical excuses I heard often before to cover up a consensual sexual encounter they didn’t want to acknowledge anymore. Make it ‘illegal’.
The saying of ‘no’, being drunk or drug-influenced for the woman rendered incapable to either resist or consent does not implicitly statute rape, unless it can be proven by toxicology tests that she was attacked while impaired, as in any other case of no drug or alcohol use when it was forcible.
In Mr Polanski’s case a toxicology report was most surprisingly not ordered as part of the criminal procedures, routinely performed on either party to dis/prove her allegations of having been ‘pretty drunk’, or overly drugged. Even in 1977. Just like the rape kit examination was a routine procedure. That was serious neglect of a due process, and in fact criminal neglect as far as I’m concerned. Or perhaps ‘deliberate oversight’.
When intoxication or drug use cannot be proven, as seen in Mr Polanski’s case, there is the concern of law enforcement and prosecutors that women who did not reject advances by a man, or who have been caught in the act of consensual sexual intercourse and then changed their mind, may falsely ‘cry rape’. I doubt I need to repeat that this was the case here, though purely based on her age.
Typically, such women have been found suing for civil damages for ‘physical and emotional damage’, especially in the States, the land of lawsuits, because too often the accuser could not prove ‘rape’, or rather gave false accusations for various reasons. As seen in Mr Polanski’s case, where they resorted to ‘redirect’ his legally earned film proceeds in a roundabout way, and was not officially ‘awarded’, since the suit was based on never impugned allegations.
What constitutes lack of consent to sexual intercourse in her case was her being underage, nothing more, and what’s worse, there was no need to lie about it, since other than her age amounting to ‘statutory rape’, Mr Polanski could have been spared all these other questionable counts she had claimed. Had she said she took the champagne and Quaalude on her own volition, had sex with him willingly, or even anal intercourse, though not possible without any preparation to avoid mess or pain as my counselled rape victims can confirm, and at no medical findings to confirm anal in intercourse let alone rape simply never took place, the result would have been the same.
Given that the judge would have kept to their plea deal, Polanski would have pleaded to one count of unlawful sex at no rape trial needed, had received a minimum sentence on probation and that had been it. Maybe a fine, for ‘moral turpitude’. Polanski therefore had not needed to flee an arbitrary judge threatening him with unlawful self-deportation, and subsequent decades of unwarranted court persecution, public vilification and appalling media abuse had never have happened.
Even though a minor is naturally capable to decide to have sex with someone older, for being very mature, knowledgeable and/or experienced, the law working on the basis that the female, or minor in general, is unable to give consent even if verbally given, and is therefore simply disallowed to consent, which is of course highly controversial to many teenagers and adults, rightly decrying such ‘legalised oppression’ to have sex with whom they choose.
Most US states have so-called rape ‘Shield Laws’, which won support from mostly conservative lawmakers and radical feminist groups. Not surprisingly. Although conservatives are not generally known for embracing either the sexual revolution or in contrast rigid feminist legal theory who strongly advocated for the law, these lawmakers backed the laws in state legislatures because they apparently represented an apparent solid ‘law-and-order’ position.
The idea that criminals sometimes improperly escape prosecution through the legal manoeuvring of defence attorneys, and that the law should close such loopholes, had become a centrepiece of the conservative legal reform agenda by the 1970s in the US. Shield Laws sought to revolutionise rape trials. Two decades after their adoption by most states and the federal government, however, they have given rise to a debate in which neither side was satisfied with them. Mr Polanski clearly fell victim to this law.
Advocates say they have not worked as well as desired, while opponents argue that their effect has been to deny defendants a fair trial. As seen in Mr Polanski’s ‘classical’ case. The legal future of these revolutionary laws hinges on a difficult question: how can courts protect (genuine) victims without curtailing the rights of (genuinely innocent) defendants? These laws restrict or prohibit the use of evidence respecting the sexual history of rape victims and the victims of other sexual offences. (Or to allow prior history of drug and alcohol ab/use and/or habits submitted into the records.)
Before the enactment of rape Shield Laws trials often focused on the ‘chastity’ of the victim to determine whether the victim was actually raped, unless physical evidence had been presented to prove forcible rape. Rarely is physical resistance formally required anymore to show non-consent these days. Furthermore, requirements that the victim’s testimony be corroborated and that jurors be cautioned to give this testimony special scrutiny have largely disappeared. Which even to any laymen appears as highly unfair to the defendant to prove his innocence, since because neither side usually has any witnesses, she can lie, and he cannot ever prove otherwise. Hence, more men being convicted of ‘rape’, which never was actual rape.
Hence, Mr Dalton’s inability to present his crucial findings of Ms Geimer’s prior sexual encounters/habits outside those she had admitted to, although for Ms Geimer not to declare her true sexual history Judge Rittenband simply rendered inadmissible, he should have held her in contempt of court, or to allow the clerk’s eye witness report of Ms Geimer’s ‘unchaste’ behaviour in Mr Gunson’s office, anything related to her drug and alcohol history clearly her family’s fault.
Or anything related to her family’s own background of drug habits as a direct influence on her in general, to find a correlation between her non/refusal to take the Quaalude, or the champagne she ‘liked’. I.e., the drug distribution and drug use of her mother’s boyfriend, that of the mother, and her sister’s institutionalisation for Quaalude abuse, to demonstrate drug abuse and habit in an environment of using drugs freely, i.e., give Mr Polanski more grounds that Ms Geimer willingly took the Quaalude and champagne herself without his direct request or forcing her to swallow either, just as he had claimed.
Therefore, Mr Gunson knowing of their very lax approach to drugs and sex pervading her family background, he obviously had a hard time to prove otherwise, or Ms Geimer ‘innocence’, not being a virgin anymore, not being unused to alcohol and drugs, or he had gone for the drugged rape count as plea deal, not simple underage sex.
Though there was no count for the plying of alcohol, this of course was attributable to the sequence of events from obtaining the alcohol (from Jack Nicholson’s fridge) to her voluntary taking it in the company of Mr Polanski and the caretaker, and the fact that the bottle was still half filled the grand jury seems to have understood. Hence, no intoxication to the level she had claimed, or credible accusation that he ‘gave’ her the champagne she could have refused at any rate.
But, since Ms Geimer had admitted to Mr Polanski that she liked champagne, HE was in fact subtly being ‘directed’ by HER to go for the champagne rather than anything else, not vice versa. She could have chosen any other drink available she even mentioned in her testimony, ‘juices and stuff’. The fact that despite her being a minor, her family obviously freely allowed her access to these legal or even illegal substances, they clearly were in breach of several laws long before Mr Polanski had met her.
So in that respect Mr Polanski most certainly had no part in her drug and alcohol history or preference for champagne and knowledge of Quaalude, or for her to consume both with her own hands. Or having had sex before. Not a moral question for me at all. It’s a natural and healthy process, and some do start early. Whereas taking drugs to the point of institutionalisation and consuming alcohol at even younger age she had claimed, is not.
Many US states also have also redefined lack of consent. Before the 1970s many courts viewed the element of force from the standpoint of the victim only. A man would not be convicted of rape of a competent woman of age unless she had demonstrated some physical resistance however minimal. In the absence of physical resistance, courts usually held that the sex was consensual. Today, in many states, the prosecution can simply ‘prove’ lack of consent by presenting evidence that the victim objected verbally to the sexual penetration or sexual intrusion.
That to say, all the woman needs to do is ‘claim’ she said ‘no’ or resisted even once however vaguely, while, if the man states she did not say no or otherwise indicated any resistance or unwillingness, the defendant has basically zero chances of proving that it was consensual. The woman will simply be ‘believed’ that she uttered a word of non-consent or maybe pushed him away once halfheartedly even if she had not. That’s why so many more innocent men were and will be incarcerated for women ‘crying rape’, or of course underage sex.
Lack of consent is a necessary ‘element’ in every rape. Lack of consent results from either forcible compulsion by the perpetrator or incapacity to consent on the part of the victim. This does not mean that a person may make sexual contact with a minor or incapacitated person who had actually consented. That only the adult is punished is rightly seen by many as highly unjust, since the minor just as well could have refrained from engaging into an unlawful act.
When no two adolescents would react or behave in the same way and someone ‘really’ had informed /consent, acts maturely, knowledgeable of what she was doing, this kind of ‘informed consent’ element is a very generalising view and blanket exercise of the law many find unconstitutional, since it takes away the constitutional freedom of choice to have sex with whomever one chooses, unless it involves prepubescent children who undoubtedly have no ‘informed knowledge’ of their situation, no matter they might ‘like’ it, ‘persuaded’ into it or not, other than showing clear signs of distress/injuries and unwillingness to participate if it was forced on them.
Therefore the statutory rape sections punish the perpetrator without regard for the implicitly non-consensual status of the adolescent minor, even if they had initiated the sex, though is not as harshly punished as forcible rape, and depends on the age of the minor. Hence, if she had been 14 already, the count of sodomy had been disallowed unless found as forcible, since it was only unlawful to engage in anal sex with someone below that age when the adult was more than ten years her senior.
But vaginal sex was or is unlawful in the US unless of varying state age – simply to avoid underage pregnancies as they put it – which is indeed a rather imbecilic and impractical approach, since teens will always have sex and simple education and protection is a more intelligent way, than punishing people for having underage sex. Or becoming pregnant.
That makes no sense to me at all, and I for one am glad to live in the UK, where young women are handed the Pill on our free health care system, even without consent from their parents, and not men of all ages being sent into prison hell for sleeping with them. The US sex laws are very damaging, needlessly punitive rather than supportive.
Issues surrounding rape and the law have been fiercely debated for years in the States, and one important reform, which has been in effect in most states in recent years, has been the removal of statutes requiring that rape victims physically resist the attack. Prior to this reform, victims of rape were required to display clear signs of the slightest injury, i.e., vaginal and or anal trauma etc., or other physical injuries, in order to prove that they did not consent to sexual relations.
Rape Shield Laws solely keep the focus of a rape prosecution on the actions of the defendant rather than (also) the (prior and/or relevant) actions of the alleged victim, which was unconditionally in favour of the ‘victim’ to ‘spare’ her cross-examination and in genuine rape cases, relive her ordeal. But by the 1990s however a very serious backlash against the laws had developed.
Defence attorneys, law professors, and civil liberties advocates maintained that the laws were unfair to criminal defendants. Or men in general. Their main arguments: restrictions on the admission of all relevant evidence undermined the defence attorney’s goal of providing their best defence, and more significantly, such restrictions deprived the defendant of his Sixth Amendment right to a full defence, including confronting his accuser and presenting witnesses in his favour.
As seen in Mr Polanski’s case, who had been forced to plead to the ultimately only applicable count of unlawful sex, simply for Ms Geimer having been a minor, after her refusal to face him in court to prove her claims, a jury to hear his side in any form, or take physical evidence into account. Though the overall ‘evidence’ had already discredited her main claims down to all counts but two: 2 and 3, and that purely for Mr Polanski’s in fact having admitting to them himself, and not for having been ‘proven as fact’.
If he in fact had not admitted to them, no evidence the prosecution had could have proven otherwise. Hence, no trial at no evidence of oral copulation, rape or sodomy, no proof of impairing drugs or alcohol consumption involved that rendered Ms Geimer incapable to resist sexual relations with Mr Polanski, physically or verbally, regardless of her claims that she had told him to stop, or ‘given [him] some resistance’ he had refuted.
It indeed is truly a frustrating ‘he said she said’ word against word scenario, as seen so soften, these Shield Laws have exploited to the point of doing real harm by now to innocent men, when faced with sexual assault in prison as a result of rigid laws.
While defence attorneys continued to introduce evidence that the Shield Laws were designed to bar efforts to establish the wider course of events to establish the truth, they could succeed if the evidence was introduced ‘creatively’, chiefly because state laws left judges wide discretion and unclear direction on what to consider admissible evidence or not. As seen in Judge Rittenband’s case, not allowing any mentioned crucial evidence, intent on ‘spinning out’ the case to satisfy his own [public] ego.
Opponents of Shield Laws fully acknowledge/d that women face traditional obstacles in rape prosecutions, but saw the laws as a very inadequate and ultimately even damaging ‘remedy’ if they denied defendants due process and sent the innocent to jail, merely providing ‘protection’ to ‘victims’, while defendants suddenly found themselves in serious danger of being sexually assaulted themselves while inside.
Which in itself is a very disturbing daily occurrence in US jails and prisons, and hardly any of the staff member perpetrator will ever end up in their own cells, with inmate assailants already incarcerated at any rate. That many people deny or don’t care about these facts, or freely apply double standards in Mr Polanski’s case and that he should face such disproportionate punishment and dangers, is legally unfair and simply unacceptable in general. To anyone.
Among leading opponents of Shield Laws was Mr Dershowitz, the celebrated Harvard law professor and criminal appellate lawyer. Mr Dershowitz unsuccessfully appealed the 1991 rape conviction of former boxing champion Mike Tyson to the U.S. Supreme Court, which simply refused to hear the case. Which in itself is already not very fair and directly violated their own laws for the defendant to receive a fair defence. (Just as it happened in Mr Polanski’s case, when the court simply refused to unseal Mr Gunson’s crucial evidence.)
Dershowitz argued that the trial court had unconstitutionally barred admission of evidence that would in fact have acquitted Tyson: allegations that his accuser, a nineteen-year-old woman, had previously falsely accused another man of rape to avoid angering her father about her sexual activities. Because such evidence related to the victim’s past sexual history, it was ruled inadmissible. In the view of Dershowitz and other opponents, even women, or genuine rape victims foremost, such evidence should unequivocally be allowed because it can reveal an accuser’s ‘motives’ to lie about consensual sex with a defendant.
Since we had another example of a very young woman to cry rape in Tweed’s case, it is indeed striking that mainly adolescents and those into their very early twenties cry rape for dubious reasons. Statistics have proven that in many cases, while older women hardly end up crying rape, one could argue that the law in that respect is actually protecting the man, warning him not to engage with a certain age group of females that is prone to cry rape after consensual sex.
Frustrating critics of these changes in the law is the fact that appellate courts have consistently upheld Shield Laws, despite finding that some trial courts have applied the laws unconstitutionally, and from early enthusiasm to increasing scepticism, rape Shield Laws have endured a difficult quarter century since their passage in practical application. Many men were unjustly punished, and more civil suits were lodged to milk the system.
Their initial intention was to remove barriers that prevented women from reporting rape and winning more convictions. By now both proponents and opponents believe reform is needed, yet they disagree on what form it should take.
Proponents want to strengthen Shield Laws to increase protections for women, while opponents counter that the laws are already strongly biased against defendants, depriving them of fundamental liberties, and ultimately sending more innocent men to jail on a mere word called, ‘no’, the ‘victim’ might never have uttered. And of course for the blanket condemnation of those who engage in consensual albeit unlawful underage sex, where only the adult is punished for it without regard. Which does not only sound unfair, but is most certainly unjust.
Having read Mr Polanski’s autobiography myself which goes into great detail about the event, it is clear why so many rather believe his side of the story, compared to her very convoluted and ultimately unproven claims, especially in view of her later declarations of, “He had sex with me,” not ‘raped’ me. That most certainly is not rape.
That said, let me highlight what is happening right now in US prisons, most people are unaware of, or simply ignore. Though some wish it on Mr Polanski in a sad show of ignorant hypocrisy, thinking what he did was a crime not knowing better, but wish worse horrors on him he doesn’t deserves, or anyone else for that matter.
Young first-time offenders are at increased risk of sexual victimisation in prisons on all levels, thought older inmates are not exempt from attacks. If in a forcible form or ‘sold’ as ‘sex slave’ not necessarily involving brute force, depends on the prison and/or inmates/guards. Juveniles however are five times more likely to be sexually assaulted in adult rather than juvenile facilities, often within the first 48 hours of incarceration.
Prison rape often goes unreported, and inmate victims often receive inadequate treatment for the severe physical and psychological effects of sexual assault, if they receive treatment at all, causing only more physical and mental problems, at the increased risk of contracting fatal diseases in the course.
Prison rape endangers the public safety as well, by making brutalised inmates more likely to commit crimes when they are released, as 600,000 inmates are each year, or infect the next victim. Thus self-perpetuating a vicious cycle of violent abuse and brutal crimes. Hence, the US sporting the highest incarnation rates the world. Victims of prison rape suffer severe physical and psychological trauma that hinder their ability to re/integrate into the community and maintain stable employment and/or relationships upon their release from prison.
They are thus more likely to become homeless and/or require government assistance, might end up rapists themselves or criminals otherwise, if they don’t kill themselves, mentally destroyed, and/or physically damaged for life. Members of the public and government officials are largely unaware of the epidemic character of prison rape and the day-to-day horrors experienced by victimised inmates. Since they cannot escape this systematic abuse, their life is infinitely more traumatising than that of a rape victim who suffered a single attack, however violent.
One tragic story like so many goes; in 1973 a harmless young student protester didn’t pay the $10 bail after being arrested at a pray-in at the White House. In the Washington DC lockup, he was almost immediately attacked by fellow prisoners, sodomised and forced to perform fellatio while being nearly beaten to death for three solid days. He was raped all day and all night till he was a bleeding piece of pulp, held down and unable to even scream in agony. No guard came to his rescue, the doctors patched him up half-heartedly, he never recovered and killed himself soon after, too traumatised and injured.
Men beaten and dragged into the ‘covered wagon’ (a ‘blanket tent’ set up to deflect view) are set upon by dozens of men. They have all their teeth knocked out, are forced to perform fellatio for hours and hours in agony while being savagely sodomised until they literally gush/ed blood from both ends, gagged and passed out. Even if the guards were able to detect what’s going on (and they most certainly know what’s happening) they would not do a thing. Many died that way, and no one cared.
Where is the outrage for these savagely mistreated victims systematically being abused over days or years, worse than even a non-incarcerated onetime rape victim, when more rapes occur in US prisons than outside. These violated men are wrecks for life. If they ever survive, or sanely. There are fewer rape attacks on women in prison, yet the numbers of male and female rape victims combined outside these walls, are less than attacks on men committed in all US penitentiaries combined.
That is truly shocking. Not a young girl having sex with an older man.
And mind you, I’m a woman, in my late fifties, and in opposition of Shield Laws despite counselling genuine rape victims, or rather because, knowing what true rape is. I yet have to counsel a male rape victim since most won’t come forward, but I also advocate for the abolishment of statutory rape as state-pursuable law, where the ‘victim’ has no rights to see any charges dropped once the state took over, in case it wasn’t ‘actual rape’. As seen in Mr Polanski’s case, now gone completely out of merciful hands, for both of them. Feel free to use any party of my comment, I’d be honoured.
Thank you for your truly informative contribution in regards to the ‘philes’, Marcella, that was highly interesting, and to highlight the indeed shocking practice of prison rape having reached epidemic proportions by now, I long have argued about myself. Or these US ‘anti-sex laws’, causing only more harm to innocent men ending up in exactly that inescapable danger of genuine sex attacks. It’s horrifying, state-legislated rape. I will include the ‘shield laws’, to demonstrate just how detrimental they have become. Thanks.
As for what else you touched on, I can only agree on your every valid point; it indeed never was ‘rape’, let alone ‘double sodomy’.
Here’s a good analogy, of a case of ‘rape’ similar to Polanski’s. Jack Tweed, (English cancer victim Jade Goodie’s widower) who was accused of raping a young girl last year, she had claimed she ‘froze’ and didn’t fight him, which is what Geimer had originally claimed (and then said years later that she ‘just let it happen’ before she eventually said, “He [Polanski] had sex with me…”) Absurd that.
This girl also had no scratches on her, no signs of forcible rape (or sodomy either) and in Tweed’s statement he said, “I’m relieved that the jury have taken a matter of minutes to see through these scurrilous and completely groundless allegations.”
So, how come, this young troublemaker I in fact wouldn’t put it past him to rape someone in contrast to Polanski, gets acquitted, while Polanski gets inundated with sordid counts, has to plead to unlawful sex, then gets f***d over by ‘Rittenbandit’ and the lot to this day, and no one acquits him within minutes, but take a mere 23 minutes to indict him on equally ‘scurrilous and completely groundless allegations’ brought forward by Geimer?
Easy, that happened in the UK this year, not the US that incarcerates innocent men while real criminals are running around free. No wonder their incarceration and crime rate is higher than anywhere else in the western world on fabricated charges. Insane.
The woman who had accused Tweed’s friend ‘joining in’ of orally raping her at the same time in the bedroom later, she allegedly initially tried to laugh it off when Tweed began kissing her neck but he soon became ‘more heavy-handed’, the court heard. Prosecutors have previously said the other guy told Tweed while a girlfriend of hers apparently tried to break into the bathroom to help her, “Don’t worry Jack, I’ve got the door, do what you’ve got to do.”
So, what does sound more like actual rape, Geimer’s or that woman’s who appears to be locked inside the bathroom first to allegedly get raped by Tweed, and then attacked in the bedroom by both later, and allegedly emerged like a ‘ghost’? Pretty much like Geimer looked ‘sullen’ (grumpy) in (only) Huston’s company and her mother later claimed she had looked ‘odd’ when brought home. Polanski ‘oddly’ must have missed. Bloody nonsense either way. Geimer was pissed off they had to leave.
In fact, neither story is credible – since neither of them had any signs of forcible rape on them and did it willingly. The girl made it up, her girlfriend tried to turn the friend’s words into a rape situation, while the guy was only holding the door shut for no one to interrupt them before he joined in.
The girl when asked through the door by her if she was ok, she said yes, and with others outside the door, (like in Geimer’s case, claiming Huston had interrupted them) his lawyer put it to her, “I suggest to you that you gave no indication at all that you weren’t a willing participant in this.” The woman denied the suggestions and said: “I think by saying ‘no’ more than once should have told them.” Just like Geimer had first protested it and Polanski never confirmed that she in fact had ‘protested’.
The woman then said she went into ‘lockdown’ as the alleged attack took place and did not shout out although her friends were outside the door. And then they oddly all moved from there into the bedroom without forcing her. Again, like in Geimer’s case, where she made the grand jury believe she didn’t want to ‘go in there’, (the TV room, when Polanski surely didn’t drag her there either) or when Huston was later there to interrupt them, or rather did not.
Tweed’s lawyer asked, “Whilst sex was taking place by the window [in the bathroom] at no stage did you say anything.” The woman said: “No.” She said she was scared of what would have happened if she did not go along with what the two men wanted. Again what Geimer had claimed happened with her, (despite people being there who could have helped immediately in both cases) while Polanski had no such impressing and Geimer in contrast could just have walked away, out that unlocked door with no one holding it close and Huston wasn‘t there at all anyway. (To sue him over ‘false imprisonment’ was such an insult.)
Though this woman was just over age and Tweed a only few years older, it’s the same rape scenario, of someone who denied she was ‘ashamed’ (or rather willing in both cases) of having sex with Tweed and his friend, prompting her to accuse them of rape. I’m sure many women and idiot feminists with no brain will disagree on that summary (taken from news articles in fact), but it’s just another legally proven case of a young girl to cry rape after having had sex and then ‘regretted’ it. Serves her right; you do not EVER cry rape!
Or, as in Geimer’s case could accuse him of rape, because she was underage and the adult was the only one to pay for it. That’s just plain wrong in both cases. Sex should NEVER be punished. But crying rape in fact.
And, the girl was sober too, so no chance of intoxication, ‘coercion’ and whatnot else, and Geimer was certainly not drugged or sloshed out of her skull either.
Had Polanski been in the UK with Geimer, he would have not only been acquitted on all counts, bar the unlawful sex part had there been a trial for her age, but as soon as the girl would have been spotted in the prosecutor’s office making lovey-dovey with her mother’s boyfriend, that had been it and he had walked without any probation sentence. Case dismissed.
Looks like the UK laws are much more defendant friendly, since there have been just too many rape cases that never were, and it’s always very young girls who accused the adult of rape afterwards. Bit***es. And I’m a young girl myself btw.
That said, it’s clear that I don’t think Polanski forced the drink and drugs on her, nor raped or sodomised Geimer in any form. She could have said no to the stuff, I say no to drugs and booze, so can she. But obviously not. And mind you, I have a much older lover. Nothing wrong with that. Ever.
As for the ongoing judicial situation, that’s just downright nastiness by now. Unacceptable. Cooley is an evil douchebag who uses his corrupt court to con Polanski three decades after the events into submission and against the advice of the original prosecution, and today the willing participant, NOT ‘victim’. Polanski is the victim in this nasty game, not her.
Why they twice refused to sentence him in absentia is beyond me, when he can easily be sentenced in Switzerland. But of course, they’re hoping they can tweak more records so that it appears he was up for more than the three months, and send him down for a year, since two years Cooley wants cannot be applied as per retroactive law demanding the lower penalty. So much I know is fact without reading your great summary of the events, Novalis, since I’m studying law. So that a***holes like Cooley won’t f***k over people like Polanski in the future. That to say, human beings.
Especially since Polanski was never accused of anything like it again or ever, and is certainly not a rapist let alone paedophile. That’s all buggershite. For all we know this woman took Geimer’s case as a template. It happened before just to get into the news. The man is more than innocent than most people – let him go to make more great films. Vive la Polanski!
Thanks ChiLing, your example is indeed a very good one, I know of the case too, and in fact thought the same. I wish you all the best in your law studies, to indeed prevent scum like Cooley to mess with innocent people like, yeah, people.
Novalis, didn’t Nastassja Kinski, at one point call Polanski a “lousy lover”, even saying that he was “10 times more wonderful as a director than as a lover”? Also, while the age of consent in Germany is indeed 14, there is a clause that includes ‘coercion’ as making it statutory rape. Didn’t Nastassja later say that since her breakthrough performance in “Tess”, she felt “exploited” because of him?
It’s also worth noting that for a while, the actual year she was born in has been the subject of debate. Some sources say either 1959, 1960, or 1961. However Polanski indicated in his book that she was born in 1961, and that her German birth records confirm exactly that.
Still, regardless, there’s absolutely nothing disgusting about an older man marrying a younger woman, as long as the age of consent requirements are met, and it isn’t like the time Jerry Lee Lewis married his cousin. I should also mention that American actor John Derek also liked young women as well; he was 46 when he had a relationship with 16-year-old Bo Derek in Germany, and would move back to America with her from the moment she turned 18, and would marry her 2 years after she turned 18. As far as I know, no one found Derek’s preferences disgusting, yet they find Polanski’s preferences disgusting. Gee, I wonder why? Maybe because Derek was American, and Polanski isn’t? Vested Interest is correct, that it’s not uncommon in Europe, especially in France, to see an older man with a younger woman, and vice versa, even Debra Tate said something like that as well, from the time she was interviewed by Larry King earlier this year (by the way, Larry King is an idiot for suspecting Polanski of murdering her sister).
Also, you mentioned Polanski’s swinging tendencies at the time being a difference between the European and American sexual cultures. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were alluding to that Thomas Thompson article that was published in Life magazine weeks after the Tate murders. In it was a quote from a friend of Polanski’s, who said that he had a “European attitude towards sex”, but despite that fact “there was never any doubt that he loved Sharon and only Sharon”.
And regarding Samantha, I just remembered something: Didn’t Polanski said in his book that Samantha (then known by the pseudonym “Sandra”) would often hang out with a bad crowd of kids at her school?
I think that after this case ends, it would be a good idea for both Polanski and Geimer to apologize to each other, Polanski for getting involved with her, and Geimer for making up her “rape and sodomy” story.
Actually, there is no ‘statutory rape’ law in Germany – if ‘coercion’ was used it falls under what count was used to achieve sex with a minor, unless the minor consented, or forcible sex which falls under rape in general no matter the age of the victim.
Kinski said that, yeah, but unless it was joke, which is more likely, it’s still a compliment since Polanski is a much better director in general in comparison to others and could still be a good lover. No one ‘else’ ever complained. She said she felt exploited in general, not because of him, but the times, the sexual demands and such.
I know of that age discrepancy, which made her 15 when they started their affair in 1976, and after Tess they parted. She did that to get into the UK and later US to find work without a legal chaperone, since the age of consent in the UK then was or still is 16, and in California 18.
I have covered already that the exceptions they made in regards to Polanski’s occasional preference of younger women when they couldn’t care less about others’, is no doubt because he wasn’t one of their own. In Europe it’s a time-honoured tradition with no sexual repression laws. True. As for Derek, yeah, another one they didn’t care about like all those I mentioned already. It’s all pathetic double standards Polanski didn’t suffer in France, or Europe. His move back to France was his saviour on many levels. As for King, he’s indeed an idiot, or senile by now, and never even apoligised to either of them.
I’m not sure if I ever read that article, might have, but I was there in the swinging Sixties and Seventies, and his American friends obviously knew of the vast cultural differences I touched on too at great length, and it was clear to them that he truly loved Sharon, to this day. But ugly fate had other plans for them both.
Geimer indeed said that she first hung out with the ‘good people’ at her school, before she joined the ‘bad people’, who were a fun crowd, drank, popped pills and defied authority as she put it. Taking that from her own lips, she of course never mentioned it to the grand jury, or that she went to bed with her boyfriend ‘right away’. Which obviously wasn’t Polanski’s influence at that time in any form. Or that Geimer went back to the ‘wild boys’ after the furor till she dropped out of school, got pregnant and moved in with her mother suddenly with an illegitimate child. So she sure as hell was versed enough in sex and drugs and her favourite champagne, and none of that was Polanski’s fault when they first met. She put on a good show of innocence for the jury panel, made up her story, and it all went wrong with Larson’s evidence. Had Rittenband or even Gunson played by the rules of law, the plea bargain would have been upheld and Polanski had been freed months before he eventually fled the corrupt LA courts or was sent to Chino on that ‘diagnostic study catch’.
As for ‘apologising’, Polanski had done that dozens of times already then, to her, to the public again and again over the years – he doesn’t owe them anything anymore, let alone today with most of his new detractors not even alive then. On the contrary, it’s Geimer’s turn now to apologise directly for having lied – though she sort of did already with her later interviews by saying what really happened, and that Polanski never hurt her in any form, wasn’t forceful or mean. It was just sex. No drugged rape, no ‘double’ sodomy. A far cry from her original allegations that set the nasty ball of personal and legal lies into motion no one can stop anymore, with crooked Cooley playing with it in his corrupt court intent on spinning it out as long as Polanski is alive.
What gets me is not only that ‘I was afraid of him’ nonsense, or that Polanski never reacted to her ‘I don’t wanna do this’ theatre, but that he never asked ‘why’ she didn’t, and only proves she obviously never said anything to that effect he had to ‘react’ to. Since she explored the place she didn’t tell the grand jury about before they even started to have a drink, she of course knew where they went, and to protest she didn’t want to go ‘in there’, ‘the bedroom’ which was the TV room, was more than dumb, or Polanski HAD needed to ‘force’ her there he never had.
She also forgot to mention that Huston’s dogs were in fact on her heels that caretaker had with her while the girl inspected their pad. Her entire testimony is one big lie to be blunt, the implausible timeline of her own actions versus her show of reluctance she later displayed at the grand jury, her entire ‘against her will’ sex and impossible sodomy accusations, the whole intimate encounter between.
Every time I read her testimony I’m in wonder how they took her words for fact, when the medical evidence already said no to any forced sex let alone that ‘double’ sodomy crap. Anyone who ever had anal intercourse can testify that what she told them is utter bullshit. It DOES hurt and would damage your sphincter sans any lube even if wanted. Let alone twice. What imagination! And how easily that accusation most of all can be discredited outright!
His version is so much simpler and logical, and it fits in with the timeline and places more logically each of them had visited. When I read here the fist time that the Jacuzzi was too hot ‘as usual’, as Polanski put it to Huston after she had asked him, I finally realised why the girl wanted to get out of it, and not for any fake asthma attack; she was too hot, and that’s why HE didn’t go in there in the first place.
So all her protestations of his wanting to grab her while in the hot tub is more than a trumped-up story besides. Of course she never told that to the jury, amongst other crucial things, while inventing more nonsense in contrast. Why really beats the crap out of me. Two words: ‘mom’s influence’. Or ‘neglect’, or the girl lied from the moment the boyfriend didn’t believe her, to MAKE them all believe her. Only to make it a sobbing rape and sodomy story.
I too think her entire family background was not very good to start with to lie like that, not having the slightest ideas what would become of it when lying to the law to keep up her lie. No wonder mom grabbed Gunson’s plea offer once she noticed.
Shame they had to get ‘the hammer’, to hammer Polanski into eternal exile and underserved shame. What a disgrace, or that bent Cooley and his sidekick Walgren. Sickening what’s going on behind the LA court doors. Truly.
Reading your findings was a revelation, Novalis, I never thought possible after having very little details of the wider circumstances, and finally explained it all down to a very big ‘aha’ effect. I went from oh my god to the next oh my god, shaking my head in disbelief of what they all had done to him to this day.
You could be an investigator with that kind of meticulous research. Kudos my man, kudos. I didn’t know of the case let alone any particulars before he was rearrested, but didn’t believe in any of the counts other than what he pleaded to, since the case never went to trial to prove any of them. I knew that much. And the nasty comments? Sad people.
To me it’s innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around, no matter who they are, since by all logic first of all, if it HAD been drugged forcible rape and sodomy, they would have had that important trial at all costs, not spared the ‘victim’, but set out to find Polanski guilty of the crime/s, not let him off. Hence, NOTHING she accused him of in front of that oh so ‘‘impartial’ jury panel of ordinary citizens’ is fact to this day.
I’m sure half of them were racist and prejudiced against him with all the bad news coverage polluting their objectivity, if they ever had any, only seeing their poor little ‘all-American’ girl being brutalized by that rich little old Pole taking advantage of her. Don’t make me gag. Geimer and ‘innocence’ are mutual exclusives and she certainly wasn’t a ‘little girl’ anymore long before she even met Polanski.
What a waste of efforts, money, reputation, opportunities, the entire escalating drama – all because of her and no doubt mom’s own shameful lies. And then her lawyers even stole his money. Wow, that was heavy, what an insult. How only could the grand jury fall for her ‘little girl act’ is beyond me. But emotional blackmail is always a well-oiled and working tactic, hit that nerve of an adult juror and a girl vs an adult seducer scenario and the adult will always lose out.
Don’t get me wrong, I personally don’t care about either’s age, or that they had sex, or her experience, or his predilection, only her crying rape afterwards was immoral and what the law did to them both in effect ever since then. But then again, she pretty much said the opposite later at any rate and played it all down. Too late though.
In case of interest: in common law, a grand jury determines whether there is enough evidence for a trial, and why they never went to trial then, is obvious; there never was enough evidence. Grand juries carry out this duty by examining evidence presented to them by a prosecutor and issuing indictments, or by investigating alleged crimes and issuing presentments.
How they in fact still indicted Polanski on all of these counts despite evidence shown pointing to the opposite of most of the charges is beyond me. So much for ‘impartial’. Grand juries are virtually unknown outside the United States. Figures.
Today even only half of the states in the US employ them and most jurisdictions have abolished grand juries, replacing them with the preliminary hearing at which a judge hears evidence concerning the alleged offenses and makes a decision on whether the prosecution can proceed. A grand jury is meant to be part of the system of checks and balances, preventing a case from going to trial on a prosecutor’s bare word. As we noticed.
A prosecutor must convince the grand jury, that there exists reasonable suspicion, probable cause, or a prima facie case that a crime has been committed. How Gunson managed that despite that doctor’s medical evidence presented to them already is a mystery. Teenagers can be so convincing. Especially with an actress mother as perfect model.
The grand jury can compel witnesses to testify before them, and unlike the trial itself, the grand jury’s proceedings are secret, and the defendant and their counsel are generally not present for other witnesses’ testimony. Not in Polanski’s case; in his autobiography he heard her testify, and her mother, that’s why he wrote that she suddenly told them something completely different than what they had done or even said.
Witnesses compelled by subpoena to appear before a grand jury are entitled to receive immunity in exchange for their testimony. The grant of immunity vitiates the witness’ right to invoke the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination as a legal basis for refusing to testify. Great. So, they can tell of their own self-incriminating tales to testify against someone in turn even if ‘incorrect’ (or a lie) and no one can get them for any it. As we saw.
If a witness who has been granted immunity nevertheless refuses to offer testimony, they may be held in contempt of the court that issued the subpoena. Which means absolutely nothing.
Besides, a plea bargain to me is unconstitutional, because it takes away a person’s right to a proper trial by jury. Polanski was forced into that plea on several levels for several reasons. Absolutely correct. I read more in regards to the legal side of it all from other articles to fully agree on that.
In America the defendant has an absolute, unqualified right to compel the State to investigate its own case, find its own witnesses, prove its own facts, and convince the jury through its own resources. Not in Polanski’s case, or he’d seen that trial. Throughout the process the defendant has a fundamental right to remain silent, in effect challenging the State at every point to ‘prove his guilt’, not the defendant his own innocence ‘only’.
By limiting the powers of the police and prosecutors, the Bill of Rights safeguards that freedom, which guarantees a speedy, public trial with an impartial jury composed of members of the state or judicial district in which the crime occurred, (so much for contaminating their objectivity) and prohibits double jeopardy.
In addition, the Bill of Rights states that the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, and safeguards freedom from fines and forfeitures without trial. But her civil suit against him saw to his money being simply taken through the legal loophole backdoor because he couldn’t fight the suit.
Plea bargaining is particularly criticised outside the States on the grounds that its close relationship with ‘rewards’, ‘threats’ and coercion potentially endangers the correct legal outcome, as we saw in Polanski’s case all too well, or they’d found her out in nil time first of all. Coercive plea bargaining has been criticised on the grounds that it infringes an individual’s rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Looks like Polanski never had any rights from the very start, since the States have their own ‘rights’ and crooked ‘laws’ to bend some more on top with Cooley at the helm, and now Polanski’s finally bankrupt – all for sleeping with a lying teenager – and that bastard Rittenband and even Gunson and his lot making their own law.
I call it an appalling miscarriage of justice on a grand scale beyond of what she and her mother did to him, since in the UK no ‘state’ can force a trial if the ‘victim’ doesn’t want to testify just as she had refused to, to no avail, and therefore compels a defendant into pleading to any charge he didn’t even have any chance of proving himself innocent of by challenging her allegations.
In the US it’s state vs defendant, not name vs name, true, and neither the accuser let alone accused have any powers to prevent any proceedings other than the accuser being enabled to accuse anyone in that grand jury with anything, refuse to actually stand in the dock to accuse the accused directly, thus denying the accused demanding a trial to force the accuser to actually answer their accusations, or allowing the accused to refuse a plea bargain which is the only alternative. Nice justice.
The States are so ‘unconstitutional’ when it comes to their ‘constitutional rights’. Here’s the list.
First Amendment: addresses the rights of freedom of religion (prohibiting Congress from establishing a religion and protecting the right to free exercise of religion), freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of petition.
Second Amendment: guarantees the right of individuals to possess firearms. Great, and so bloody important.
Third Amendment: prohibits the government from using private homes as quarters for soldiers during peacetime without the consent of the owners.
Fourth Amendment: guards against searches, arrests, and seizures of property without a specific warrant or a probable cause to believe a crime has been committed. Some rights to privacy have been inferred from this amendment and others by the Supreme Court.
Fifth Amendment: forbids trial for a major crime except after indictment by a grand jury; prohibits double jeopardy (repeated trials), except in certain very limited circumstances; forbids punishment without due process of law; but in Polanski’s case they could make an exception. And it provides that an accused person may not be compelled to testify against himself (this is also known as Taking the Fifth or Pleading the Fifth). This is regarded as the ‘rights of the accused’ amendment, otherwise known as the Miranda rights after the Supreme Court case. (It also prohibits government from taking private property for public use without just compensation, the basis of eminent domain in the United States.)
Sixth Amendment: guarantees a speedy public trial for criminal offenses. It requires trial by a jury, guarantees the right to legal counsel for the accused, and guarantees that the accused may require witnesses to attend the trial and testify in the presence of the accused. Oh yeah? So why was Geimer allowed to cop out on that not to testify? Because she was the ‘victim’ they wanted to ‘spare’? No, because she was the fraud they wanted to shield not to self-incriminate herself after they had no evidence to back her up. It also guarantees the accused a right to know the charges against him. In 1966, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fifth Amendment prohibition on forced self-incrimination and the sixth amendment clause on right to counsel were to be made known to all persons placed under arrest, and these clauses have become known as the Miranda rights.
Seventh Amendment: assures trial by jury in civil cases.
Eighth Amendment: forbids excessive bail or fines, and cruel and unusual punishment. But Polanski had to cough up nearly $5 million and is under house arrest like a terrorist. No wonder he’s bankrupt.
Ninth Amendment: declares that the listing of individual rights in the Constitution and Bill of Rights is not meant to be comprehensive; and that the other rights not specifically mentioned are retained by the people.
Tenth Amendment: reserves to the states respectively, or to the people, any powers the Constitution did not delegate to the United States, nor prohibit the states from exercising.
But, it also doesn’t mean that they are pledged to be upheld. As we saw often enough. Especially with someone like corrupt Cooley and the entire LAPD in his pocket causing unbelievable damage to so many innocent people. Including Polanski.
Thank you Oliver for your own contribution of the ‘bill of rights’ and other ‘bendable rules’ and ‘constitutions’ California (or Cooley) style. As for your personal thoughts on the case, I have nothing to add, and am glad that I could present you with all the details required to judge it more factually on several levels.
I’m glad you could save your comments, Novalis. Whoever did that had obviously no idea about the WordPress comments backup feature, or your own foresight to save them to Word at any rate. They’re indeed too precious to be lost. Good job.
Thanks DeMoy, I’m happy to oblige my good commentators, and to keep the truth about the case ‘out there’.
As far as I’m concerned, Geimer never had a solid father figure with her mother changing husbands and boyfriends all the time, being busy finding a new agent or audition, having her older sister with 17, setting up her youngest in the biz at all costs later. That unbalanced home atmosphere usually results in women preferring older men as a sort of substitute. Growing up with recreational drugs and the occasional visit to her father isn’t good enough.
Like in Kinski’s case with her very aggressive and estranged father, who married much older men after Polanski. Just like Geimer. Nothing wrong with that, it’s rather more common practice in a relationship and in Europe especially. That she rebelled against her mother and dropped out of school with 16 is not surprising either, or to get pregnant with 18 after the company of ‘wild boys’ as she put it herself.
But that certainly wasn’t Polanski’s fault either. On the contrary, had she simply admitted to her sleeping with him, nothing had come of this never-ending rape madness they instigated and the corrupt law perpetuated to this day.
I was in my mid twenties in ’77 and did my own ‘research’ into the case, and much of what you came up with in your well documented analysis, Novalis, I can remember directly. Other very crucial findings were new to me and ring more than true, finally stuffing a few important loopholes and it all makes much better sense now. And you’re right; it certainly wasn’t rape as in forcible, and that ‘double’ sodomy is more than implausible, for the ‘practiced’.
And her ‘age’? You know, I couldn’t care less if she was 13, 15, 17, 20, or is 47 or 49 now…no rape is no rape at any age. And the ‘morality’ of it all to sleep with a teen? Get a life alright. Sex is sex, at any age. Only the authoritarian law thinks it’s immoral. Sad.
Her original testimony is as half-baked sob story with massive holes, and when I read, ‘I was afraid of him’, I only shook my head and thought, nice try girl. People have no logic or reason left when it comes to this case, or they’d noticed she told fat porkies.
Shame Gunson never asked her ‘why’ she was afraid, (amongst other important questions, actually) and that all through these hours with him, hm? HM!? Yeah right. Go home then is all I can say. She certainly wasn’t drugged out of her skull either not to leave, but rude to Huston. Why only is the question.
I too know Quaalude; the stuff makes you horny alright, or calm, not at all ‘dizzy’. True. It’s like Prozac with a libido twist in small doses. Had she said, I was bored, or tired, or too hot (most likely anyway) or whatever, wanting to go home, yeah fine, but ‘afraid’? Funny how Polanski never noticed that, blind with lust! After all his women? Give me a break for Pete’s sake.
It sounds more like a neatly staged courtroom drama scene with Geimer as the ‘star witness’, batting her lashes innocently at the ‘shocked’ grand jury folks, putting on a perfect show they all fell for. The most devastating act of her life. Had I been on that jury, had I read Larson’s report discrediting her outright, I’d said, pull the other one for bloody’s sake.
You only need to look at her mother’s appearance in that Starsky & Hutch episode as a, oh how coincidental, courtroom ‘witness’; it’s a bad case of cheap acting the daughter simply reenacted. But call him an ‘actor’! Not in real life he’s not.
No wonder Moussa didn’t want her but classy beauty Nastassja, or that Geimer later said it was mere sex, (how come suddenly, hm?) ‘he wasn’t forceful or mean’; of course he wasn’t. Finally waking up to what she’d done after living in her pretty, isolated Hawaiian suburban life for two decades, while he had to deal with the nasty fallout of her fantasies for thirty-three years. All after Rittenband’s own courthouse ‘limelight’ games, or of course only now uncovered Gunson’s own failed tries to get rid of him and more criminal lies of his superiors who didn’t allow him to.
And her civil suit a whole ten years later? ‘Ten years’!? A money grabbing insult that. I saw these interviews with her and many with Polanski, that ‘can of worms opener’ documentary from 2008 and read a lot about the case from all sorts of sources and countries, his career and utterly devastated life after Tate’s and their son’s horrible losses.
I came across so many highly incorrect articles (and spiteful comments) since his arrest, let alone all that inflammatory garbage thrown at us since his rearrest, thinking we’re that dumb to buy it all. The best are those who keep repeating that Polanski never denied or even admitted to her claims; not likely. Keep on dreaming folks! Even Brenneman did that, and other ‘reputable biographers’.
At no time did I ever hear Polanski admitting to the drugging, raping or sodomizing her, all he said that he slept with her and the evidence proves that and only that. He had apologized dozens of times already, and no wonder he’s fed up with it all and doesn’t owe the stupid public moral a bloody thing. Right on Roman! Funny how Geimer once said, no, in an interview when asked if she would call on the law if her daughter, or rather one of her sons, would be caught sleeping with a minor or would ‘cry rape’, unless it was forcible rape obviously, and I’m sure she knows exactly why; it destroys lives. She must have learned the hard way not to cry rape for no good reason.
To say he had ‘sexual relations’ with her is more to the point, rather than all this ‘child sex case’ or ‘heinous rape’ bullshit. Geimer, a ‘child’? Not the way she looked she ain’t. I’m so tired of reading all that crap apart from that really absurd name calling practice, or that he flaunted the law, or, ‘what if he raped your daughter’. As if he ever had or will. They’re all sad idiots who know nothing, out to get their piece of flesh. And the worst is, they don’t wanna know better. What if that was YOUR grand-father under house arrest, while violent criminals run loose, hm? HM!? Pathetic.
Statutory rape is not forcible rape and consensual sex with a minor should never be prosecuted. I saw similar comments popping up more and more over the last months in fact, increasingly doubting voices to rethink if this was ‘rape’ or not, and if they’re only raised in connection with all that scandalous misconduct drama unfolding more and more. Nasty shambles that one. Only those with a well balanced sense of justice and objective information to form a better opinion, and those who were there in the Seventies know better about what happened that day, like you and I and many others, which is so significant.
The ‘bad guy’ in this current ‘legal’ hunt for Polanski’s head isn’t crooked Cooley alone, but that Walgren, his no-scruples deputy in the case. These DAs don’t care about any real justice, only the next flashy car they can buy off their clients’ backs and to be reelected to cause some more damage to people’s lives, sending innocent people into hell, those who slept with their own bloody (underage) girlfriends! Fuelled by the immoral paparazzi crowd feeding the greedy populace more garbage celebrity food. How only can these people sleep at night, I ask. Disgusting. ‘Samskara’ and you have left a few good links to other blogs to prove that LA DAs are very bad apples. I’m all for dumping Cooley.
Thank you, ‘Vested Interest’ – you’re right of course with your own thoughts, and that the majority prefers the evil pervert image of Polanski. And the more he didn’t oblige them with it, the more they’re going to believe in their uninformed fallacies their small minds want to stick to regardless of the wider facts that could rattle them into reality.
As for Cooley & Co, I think we all know what pieces of excrement they all are.
End LAPD Brutality: Remove LA Prosecutor Steve Cooley & Fire Bratton
by Kelly McSwain Friday, May. 04, 2007 at 8:24 AM
DumpCooley@AOL.COM
With substantial support from George W. Bush and the local forces of the extreme right, the LAPD and its financed-DA (Steve Cooley – Republican) have succeeded in transforming Los Angeles County to a well-engineered police state.
Los Angeles, May 4, 2007 — The brutal rampage by LAPD in McArthur Park on May 1, 2007 was culmination of a 6-year old secret but intricate policy by the Bush administration and local forces of the extreme right in reversing attempts to reform LAPD after Rodney King Beating and Rampart Corruption Scandal.
In early 1999, the US Department of Justice under then-US Attorney General Janet Reno began an aggressive plan to impose reform upon LAPD. By the time the LAPD’s Rampart Corruption Scandal became public in 1998, the Clinton Administration knew that previous attempts to reform one of the largest police departments in the World had largely failed.
In June 1999, rumors began to circulate within the ranks of the LAPD and its powerful union (Police Protective League – PPL) that President Bill Clinton and Janet Reno were about to implement drastic anti-corruption measures against LAPD. At the time, the LAPD and PPL alleged that these acts represented the federal government’s attempt to “violate the LAPD’s 10th amendment rights” and interfere in LAPD’s “internal affairs.” These rumors, however, were not baseless. During 1999, Janet Reno’s US Attorneys in Washington, D.C. were busy drafting a historical federal civil rights lawsuit against LAPD in which the Clinton administration was charging LAPD with “endemic corruption and systematic violation of constitutional rights of residents of Los Angeles.” Additionally, at US DOJ headquarters at 950 Pennsylvania Avenue serious discussions were taking place about using the federal funding of the LAPD as leverage in imposing anti-corruption reform on LAPD.
Sensing the warning of the incoming tsunami from Washington in their direction, the LAPD and its PPL began to brace for a defensive position. In 1999, the LAPD and PPL began their work to secure the local front. To secure the local front meant getting rid of Gil Garcetti, the Los Angeles County District Attorney who in the post-Rampart LA politics had begun to prosecute LAPD officers for corruption. Garcetti’s public statements at the time, such as, “I can’t tell you whether we will wind up with three, four or five dirty cops or 25 or more,” was making LAPD and PPL gravely nervous. In a desperate attempt to shield LAPD from Garcetti, LAPD and PPL funded and fielded Steven Cooley, a Republican and an LAPD Reserve Officer, as their own candidate for the LA District Attorney position. Public court records from the United States District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles and the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco show that at the same time PPL-sponsored Cooley was campaigning to unseat Garcetti, PPL, through its high-powered lawyers, was filing multiple motions and appeals against Attorney General Janet Reno’s attempts to impose a federal-mandated reform upon LAPD. The above multiple attempts by PPL to prevent the Clinton administration from initiating its anti-corruption program proved to be legally frivolous since the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied all of them.
In September 1999, the Republican Cooley began his PPL-funded campaign to unseat DA Garcetti. PPL was against Garcetti’s criminal prosecution of LAPD officers. In his 1999-2000 campaign against Garcetti, Cooley received more than $1 million from PPL while publicly speaking against LAPD’s Rampart Corruption Scandal and criticizing Garcetti for not being forceful and efficient enough in his criminal prosecution of corrupt officers. Of course, Cooley was engaging in blatant public deception since he knew that he had received the $1 million from PPL to try to unseat Garcetti and shield LAPD officers from any further criminal prosecution. History would show that Cooley’s 1999-2000 campaign against Garcetti for the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office was one of the biggest frauds against the voters of Los Angeles since at the same time PPL was waging federal court battles against President Clinton’s attempts to fight corruption in LAPD, PPL was paying for Cooley’s campaign commercials which depicted Garcetti as not forceful enough in fighting corruption.
On the federal level, significant developments were taking place. Attorney general Reno was putting her final touches on the draft of the federal civil rights lawsuit against LAPD. About three weeks before the document was filed in the federal court, on October 11, 2000, then-governor Bush made the following statement in his televised debate with Al Gore in North Carolina: “One of my concerns, though, is I don’t want to federalize the local police forces. I want to — obviously in the egregious cases we need to enforce civil rights law, but we need to make sure that internal affairs decisions at the local level do their job and be given a chance to do their job. I believe in local control of governments, and obviously if they don’t there needs to be a consequence at the federal level.” Bush, however, knew that the LAPD’s “Internal Affairs” was a source of corruption in itself.
On November 2, 2000, Janet Reno filed her historical anti-corruption lawsuit against LAPD in federal court in Los Angeles. LAPD was charged with systemic violations of civil rights, including, “having a pattern of arresting residents of Los Angeles Without probable cause.” SEE page 2 of the Complaint at:
http://www.freemarje.com/US%20Fed%20Lawsuit%20v%20LAPD%2011-03-00.pdf
Nevertheless, two critical historical events followed which reversed the course of anti-corruption attempts at LAPD for the following six years. In fact, these two events resulted in emboldening, empowering, and expanding the forces of corruption in the LAPD on a gigantic and unprecedented scale. On November 7, 2000, Reserve LAPD Officer and Republican Cooley, with substantial backing from PPL, defeated Gil Garcetti. On December 12, 2000, George Bush was declared as the new President of the United States. On January 1, 2001, Cooley took office as the new District Attorney of Los Angeles. According to the recorded statement made by one of the senior Deputy District Attorneys of Los Angeles and reviewed by this researcher, within two weeks after taking office, Cooley walked into the six-man office of Rampart Task Force which Garcetti had set up within the Special Investigations Division of the DA Office and simply said: “wrap it up!” Shortly thereafter the office was closed and all Rampart Corruption Scandal investigations in DA office ended.
The above two historical events had drastic and severely detrimental consequences for the people of Los Angeles. On the federal front, the Bush administration brought the federal litigation against LAPD to a screeching halt. The management of the Federal Consent Decree by John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales became a practice in public deception. All federal efforts to reform LAPD were abandoned and the Bush administration became LAPD’s “partner in war on terror.” Having realized it was now a major force in Los Angeles politics and having successfully rolled back attempts to “interfere in its internal affairs” by both Reno and Garcetti, LAPD and PPL’s tentacles began to rapidly grow into the only remaining component of the Los Angeles County Criminal Justice System, the Criminal Division of Los Angeles County Superior Court system. With full support from the Bush administration, police brutality, misconduct, deception, fraud, perjury, criminal conspiracy, fabrication of evidence, and criminal activities by police officers achieved new high marks in the history of Los Angeles.
On local level, Cooley shielded corrupt LAPD officers from any and all criminal prosecution. No more LAPD officers were prosecuted. Even when an LAPD officer fired multiple shots at a black 13-year-old boy (Devin Brown) backing a car at 2 miles-per-hour, the prosecutor Cooley refused to prosecute the liable LAPD officer for the boy’s killing. When a disabled black teenager (Donovan Jackson) was beaten up by white LAPD officers on national TV, Cooley and LAPD conspired to prevent a Rodney King type of reaction from the public by deceptively putting the officers on a bogus circus-style criminal trial while at the same time undermined the chances of their conviction by removing a seasoned prosecutor and assigning a young lawyer with no experience in such prosecutions. Cooley further allowed the officer’s seasoned defense lawyer to put up evidence before the jury that the “beating” was a “training issue” and not a criminal act. By botching the trial, Cooley guaranteed that LAPD officers Jeremy Morse and Bijan Darvish would not be convicted. Cooley proved to be a loyal puppet of LAPD. He was also aggressively bringing criminal charges against victims of police misconduct, knowing that winning criminal convictions against victims of LAPD misconduct prevented them from filing future civil rights lawsuits and forever closed chances of investigation for these cases. In his reelection campaign in March 2004, Cooley received more than $1.5 million in campaign contribution, mostly from the LAPD’s PPL. Thomas Higgins, his most serious challenger, had collected $25,000 in campaign contributions. With enough PPL money to send colorful brochures to every LA voter and substantial TV commercials, Cooley easily won his reelection to a second-term as the LA’s District Attorney.
During the 2001-2007 Bush-Cooley’s reign of terror in Los Angeles, hundreds of victims of police brutality and police misconduct cases were charged with baseless and fabricated criminal charges. Cooley and LAPD worked together on fabrication and manufacturing of false evidence against victims. At the same time, LAPD’s PPL, having flexed its political muscles and having realized the extent of its power, began to more actively finance the reelection of those Superior Court judges whom Cooley and LAPD viewed as valuable assets in the complex political empire they had engineered. With federal protection evaporated under George W. Bush, hundreds of innocent victims were convicted and sent to prison. State convictions guaranteed that LAPD was shielded from future civil rights lawsuits. During the above period, no LAPD officers were ever charged with any crime arising from fabrication and false manufacturing of evidence.
An example of this policy of terror and criminal conspiracy is in the case of a Swedish woman and mother who was held in pretrial detention for more than four years (2002-2006) based on evidence fabricated by Cooley’s DA office and LAPD. Despite four years of incarceration, the woman refused to plea guilty to the charges fabricated by LAPD and Cooley. The case had begun as a police misconduct case when LAPD officers had entered the woman’s home without a warrant and by mistake had arrested her while she had fallen unconscious from a wrongly prescribed medication. The officers had wrongly assumed the woman was suffering from an illegal drug overdose. Cooley filed criminal charges against the woman in order to cover up the LAPD’s misconduct. Further information on this case and the inner working of Cooley-LAPD’s empire can be viewed at:
http://www.freemarje.com.
What happened in McArthur Park on May 1, 2007 was the culmination of LAPD’s reign of terror under Bush-Cooley policy during 2001-2007. During the above period, the residents of Los Angeles were left defenseless against forces of the extreme right which implemented a policy built on deception, fraud, perjury, and criminal conspiracy.
The events of May 1, 2007 showed that LAPD with the help of its DA Cooley and under the protection of the Bush administration has succeeded in establishing a police state in the most populous county of the United States. Presently, LAPD officers engage in overt misconduct and serious criminal acts with full impunity while exerting undue influence over the largest metropolis of the United States with an iron fist.
In fact, with substantial support from George W. Bush and the local forces of the extreme right, the LAPD, PPL, and Cooley have succeeded in transforming the 4,000-square-mile Los Angeles County to be ruled under a sophisticated and well-engineered police junta composed of the LAPD, Cooley, and an army of 600 mostly corrupt judges who owe their reelections to financial contributions from LAPD’s PPL. Without PPL’s money, these judges would not be reelected. For further information on how various intricate components of this police junta operate in tandem, SEE pages 19-26 at:
http://www.freemarje.com/Federal%20Complaint%20Filed%20Against%20Defendants.pdf
An interesting article on Cooley
County prosecutors union files class-action suit against Cooley
By Troy Anderson Staff Writer
Posted: 04/06/2010 06:38:53 PM PDT
Updated: 04/06/2010 06:46:12 PM PDT
The union representing Los Angeles County prosecutors has filed a class-action lawsuit against District Attorney Steve Cooley, alleging his office committed “what amounts to identity theft” by obtaining a list of 650 prosecutors who supported the union, officials said Tuesday.
The lawsuit alleges Cooley’s office obtained a confidential list of the prosecutors who supported the Association of Deputy District Attorneys and subsequently used the list to intimidate and harass them, damaging prosecutor’s careers and prospects for advancement.
“This is an uprising of principled prosecutors who are seeking damages for the anti-union retaliation that has been inflicted upon them by the Cooley administration,” said Matthew Monforton, a Boseman, Mont. attorney representing the ADDA.
District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons declined to comment, referring the matter to Jones Day law firm partner Elwood Lui.
“We dispute the allegations and believe the evidence will show that the allegations are untrue and we look forward to presenting that evidence to the court,” Lui said.
The filing of the amended complaint comes as a federal judge last month issued a preliminary injunction ordering Cooley to stop discriminating and retaliating against employees on the basis of their union membership.
The injunction was issued in response to the initial lawsuit the 300-member ADDA filed against Cooley, alleging he retaliated against
veteran prosecutors by transferring them to remote parts of the county, increased their health insurance payments, demoted them and downgraded their performance evaluations.
“Despite the judge’s finding that the actions by the DA are `rampant,’ rather than remedying the situation, the county has increased its legal team by bringing in Jones Day, one of the nation’s largest law firms,” ADDA President Steve Ipsen said.
In the amended complaint, Monforton wrote the list revealed one of the most personal and sensitive decisions employees ever make in their careers – whether to unionize.
“As explained by the head of Los Angeles County’s independent labor agency, this disclosure may subject any union supporter to `retaliation by management, which may include discipline up to and including termination under a pretense,”‘ Monforton wrote.
“Plaintiffs therefore seek damages on behalf of all prosecutors who are victims of what amounts to identity theft committed against them by Cooley and his agents.”
http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_14831229
Want to contact Steve Cooley and tell him what you think of his continued persecution of Roman Polanski? Here’s your chance:
Contact us:
10153 1/2 Riverside Drive, Suite #155
Toluca Lake, CA 91602
Phone: (213) 598-5058
Fax: (213) 622-4818
info@stevecooley.com
Here is his bid for California Attorney General Website: http://www.stevecooley.com/ Let’s all tell him, kindly, what we think of his continued harrassment of Roman.
I’m typing up my email to send to him. Let’s bombard him with as much as we can.
Nothing new there, Samskara – we know Cooley is crooked to the last bone, and that Walgren of his is no better. I read a few things about or against him already, and this is no surprise. Here’s the man as seen by himself most likely. A lovely whitewash.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hEc5ag0sLr3zkN1r9fsStPl2KHswD9ESCS000
Polanski has the continued misfortune to be hunted down by a really nasty piece of work, and his defence team are fully aware of it, always said he wouldn’t stand a chance if they would ever get their dirty hands on him. Walgren wants to try him on all counts, despite the fact that the extradition was signed for only the one count he pleaded to and cannot touch him otherwise, unless Espinoza withdraws his plea to have that trial at which Geimer would need to testify finally, she of course doesn’t want to either. He didn’t sentence him in absentia because they still hope to fiddle Gunson’s and Dalton’s original demands for no further jail time, and Rittenband’s original probation sentence they had agreed on.
I wouldn’t put it past Cooley & Co if they forged certain documentation to find Rittenband wanted to send him down for decades, no matter he had threatened Polanski with it as we know, but most likely intended to send him back inside to sit out the rest 48 days on that unlawful self-deportation catch, to make up the three months. But of course after that no one knew what he would have come up with next, to play Polanski some more, and was removed, too late.
The most Polanski could get is two years probation anyway unless they keep to that plea agreement and no further time inside, since the law changed in mid ’77 from the 1-15/20 or 50 yrs a Attorney General could demand, to the 2 yrs flat maximum for unlawful sex, which already then no one had told him about either to be applicable and is insane in itself, while most unlawful sex cases were signed off as plea bargains in those days anyway.
They’re all crooked to the bone, and Gunson came clean too late. Let’s hope Hummel & Co do their utmost to prevent the Swiss from surrendering to the corrupt LA courts, or Polanski is a dead man before he even hits a remand prison. He’s safer where he is at any rate.
I came across your site only today, Novalis, and all my previous commentators are right, it is the most extensive and valuable research into the complex case, and it opened my eyes even wider than before, with all my misgivings into the girl’s allegations already.
I read some old article from 2003 resurfacing the other day, where it says, Polanski was “convicted” of “rape” and then fled, when he in fact pleaded to “unlawful sex with a minor” and was never “sentenced” (or he’d in fact been “convicted” already and there wasn’t any need to flee) since the judge reneged on their plea bargain and then he only fled. All true.
No wonder people still believe all that baloney, or her unlikely original testimony. When the case was on proceedings no one knew her identity as per policies not to reveal the minor’s name, or her home and school. True too. Except, think about it, if Polanski’s alleged “victim” was thirteen – not (“really”) “fifteen” – she was in the clear either way to keep her anonymity and (possible) real age (fifteen) secret and hidden from others.
That would make perfect sense, before the Euro press got hold of her name later and took photos of her at her school, (in which she looks very tall and developed, more than even fifteen in fact, true, no wonder Huston was thrown) and no one seems to have bothered to verify her age. It’s fairly logical that she dropped out of school with sixteen a mere year later rather than three years, after all the furor blew up in their lying faces and they needed to hide, moved to Hawaii. If it’s not correct, nothing is lost.
But the fact remains that her birth date varies, true, I checked on that too, and her recollections differ, true again, all manipulated by highly biased media coverage, more than true. It’s not the same as empirical substantiation of her till to this day untried claims, true too, and proof is required in all cases to be sure through a proper trial that sadly never was. True, true, true.
I too find it preposterous to concentrate on statutory rape cases at any rate, let alone when it’s like three decades old and the woman in question never wanted Polanski “punished”. That alone should prove that she slept with him, not that he raped or sodomized her. The US judicial system is a bloody joke, out of control, intent on destroying lives willy-nilly for having (underage) sex worse than then and even punish each sex “act” differently, it’s absurd and frightening. It makes people paranoid and repressed. They should focus on real and most of all current sex offenders rather than an old man’s casting couch fling. And I fully concur with “YM’s” analogy as to how we “breed” them ourselves through that.
I hate the terminologies statutory “rape” and “sex offender” to start with; they’re highly misleading and give the wrong impression of what they really stand for. A “sex offender” to me is someone who abuses children or a violent rapist, not anyone who sleeps with teens. They should not be confused, and as you explained, forcible rape can be proven otherwise. Or look at the term “sexual assault”; to me that involves a degree of force or violence, when it could be just touching someone rudely intentionally or nor, or genitally in a harmless or abusive form, or forcible rape, or just sleeping with a minor. It’s all too ambiguous.
Polanski’s Wikipedia page says “sexual abuse case”; that’s highly incorrect too, he didn’t “abuse” her like a pedophile or rapist would. Though I’m sure some would beg to differ. Sod them. And as you said, it’s all to make it sound so much more perverted and misleading. She even sued him for “sexual assault”, when she later said there was no “force” involved, but not even rape or sodomy or any of the other counts she accused him of since they were never proven in a trial. That’s why they simply stole his money through the corrupt and “abusive” legal system, correct. They battered him wherever possible. Disgraceful.
These indeed unconstitutional sex laws need to be overhauled big time to stop punishing people who sleep with minors and label these “acts” as repulsively worded as possible to make them feel like perverts, banging them up with violent criminals who did real harm. I believe you and others have highlighted all that already, but it cannot be said often enough.
I’m really glad you could save your devoted comments; your exhaustive findings and good supporters’ voices are much too precious to be lost.
Thank you, Barlow – I fully agree with your own comment, you only need to look at the Red Interpol Notice, where it says ‘crimes against children’, which is equally plural and incorrect. It’s nothing but a concerted attempt to paint him as depraved as possible. It’s disgusting.
I believe people only think evil of Polanski because they’ve got warped minds, not any righteous motives driven by noble and just sentiments. Kiernan and Reisman come to mind. These people think as they’d do and expect others to do the same. It’s as logical as her accusations were illogical. When the accused doesn’t fit into their sordid world, they reshape him to fit in, not vice versa.
They cannot accept that others aren’t like them, and Polanski most of all doesn’t fit in any ‘box’ let alone criminal profile, otherwise he’d in fact become like them long ago and really done some harm. Or at least become a hater, bitter and twisted, incapable to make more great films with everyone he worked with praising him highly.
Funny how people’s brains are offline when it comes to casual sex and anal intercourse in the first place, or they’d in fact remember that a woman needs to be for one, willing, and two, well self-lubricated to have effortless sex, and those who never engaged in anal sex obviously have no clues how painful and injurious it is even if willing since it requires a lot of extra lube – you’re absolutely right, Novalis. And since the medical evidence didn’t show any signs of force, it sure as hell was consensual.
You explained perfectly that statutory rape and forcible rape are two different things and that’s what he pleaded to: unlawful sex, not ‘rape’. People hardly plead to something they haven’t done, it’s just not court practice or otherwise they’d gone for a trial. If only they had, and they’d been found out right then and the case dismissed outright.
To me, Polanski had casual sex with the girl no matter underage at that time. This entire ‘immorality’ label tagged to the issue of underage sex is insane. Her mother started the hasty rape charge and they turned it into a nasty drugged rape and sodomy story. THAT’s immoral. Since then the woman has sort of ‘apologized’ through her later interviews for the trouble she had caused with her lies as a teenager, as that they were no doubt. That she took his money is another minus point against them.
Maybe Polanski wasn’t making the wisest choice that day to sleep with her, but he wasn’t causing any real harm and calling him a rapist afterwards let alone pedophile by the dumb public is more than idiotic, and then she evades a trial to prove her claims, which is simply put criminal. But of course, they weren’t keen on Polanski exonerating himself while perjuring themselves in the go. What I really hate is that people keep repeating the same falsehood without any brains.
Reading shit like, that he forced her to take nude pictures before drugging and raping her, when it wasn’t any child porn in those days or illegal to take photos for fashion magazines featuring minors and she surely wasn’t forced to pose or forcible rape, or to have admitted and pleaded guilty to all the counts, when he pled only to one before he had enough of Rittenband’s antics, these hostile and highly misinformed voices are beyond help or sane reason and bluntly put constitutes race hate crime to spread such contemptuous slander. They infuriate me to no end.
He paid for it all big time after wanting to promote her, helped her mother (no matter Moussa didn’t want her), and had they not cried rape nothing would have come of it, they might have seen each other again, Geimer would have ended up in Vogue Hommes up for more modeling features, today could be a well regarded actress, (after her very convincing ‘courtroom appearance’ already) and her mother may still be in the biz besides. Too bad to lie about something as serious as rape. Serves them both right.
I fully agree with you, TTT, to cry rape is never wise.
Hello Novalis. I personally believe the girl initiated a lot of the things that people love to pin on Polanski, herself, and then turned it all around to appear the innocent little victim, in an utterly transparent move with all that illogical ‘reluctance’ and ‘fear’ and whatnot claims. I really wonder how the grand jury panel fell for all that despite the physician already having discredited half of what she said. I in fact heard through the Hollywood grapevine back then that she had lied to Polanski about her age weeks after the incident occurred, as did her ‘ambitious’ mother. We know she was the one who pushed the girl into Polanski’s literal lap, and I believe she only told her boyfriend about the sex with Polanski because the mother found out about her having sex with someone else. Most likely her own boyfriend, after cavorting with him in Gunson’s office of all places. More suppressed evidence that could have helped Polanski throw the case out right there. Correct. But at least Gunson told Dalton about that incident or Polanski had never known of it. I believe the sordid story of rape and that ‘sodomy interuptus’ nonsense was invented in order to get money out of him, rather than take the fame he offered and she could have garnered through that photo shoot. I heard the mother demanding money from Polanski before she pressed charges for rape after that failed, which points to that ‘blackmail rumor’ again, since they knew each other for a year, after Moussa had declined her outright, unlike classy Kinski. Sounds more like revenge to me. And then it all went wrong with that disgusting Rittenband having his own crooked ideas. That’s why she filed that civil suit against Polanski later and her lawyers could extort a considerable sum from him, no matter it took two more decades. She doesn’t deserve a bloody cent. Between that and the all too fabricated statement for the grand jury, there’s not much semblance to what she told us later many aren’t aware of. Unless they read your highly important analyses. Bottom line is, the amount of ‘damage’ Polanski could or did cause (to her or anyone else in his life) is basically non existent in comparison to what others did to him all through his life, and most of all the abuse of state power created under the ‘statute of sex laws’, only creating more endangered prisoners and possibly real rapists once inside, getting abused by hardcore criminals or empowered guards, which then enables officials to control people’s civil rights regardless of gender, age or race, to have consensual sex. It’s a Human Rights violation on a grand scale, and Polanski paid for it as the most ‘in-famous’ case. Like so many others we in contrast never hear of. They all took the man for a mega ride, and the journey isn’t over yet.
You’re right, Leonda – the journey took already decades, and at the end of the day it’s all down to Gunson’s secret and Rittenband’s all the more visible misconduct amongst others’. Otherwise I have nothing to add to your own train of thoughts. Thanks for your contribution.
How mean people can get to attack your site like that – but indeed it’s not unexpected and I can only concur with you all. It’s repulsive.
Just think of it, had Gunson told the tale of such an imperative move of his and the two DAs’ shameful cover up and everyone else’s afterwards, he could have avoided Polanski’s unlawful incarceration and his so fateful decision to take flight, followed by decades of more undeserved public abuse. I cannot ever imagine how he must have suffered after Tate’s horrid murder already only years earlier. How can people be so mean to others. Don’t answer that, Novalis, I know mankind is the biggest evil on this planet, I see it every day in the news. Or with the deletion of your comments, and I’m very happy that you could save them.
Ditto to all you said, Marshal, and thank you for your own support.
Your comments vanished!? Whoa, that sucks. What a nasty turn – but not surprising. So glad you could save them, Novalis, and since some sad and deluded idiot needed to resort attacking your very interesting “pro Polanski” comments, that can only mean you’re right in your findings, wanting to erase your and Polanski’s supporters. You most definitely are right!
Today I again read some article using plural forms of “he raped and sodomized underage girls”, suggesting there was more than one, which is so very incorrect at the telling fact alone that no one else ever came forward. A pathetic attempt at manipulation the hatemongers jumping on the bandwagon of Polanski bashers, for the sake of bashing the poor old guy by now. Most do so to make people look more evil than they really are for whatever reason, in order to make themselves feel so much better about themselves. One factor of their repetitive slander is they keep brining up Kinski, to “demonstrate” he was a pedophile, just because she was another teenager. But she was of legal age, not realizing that this was nothing special then let alone in Europe. Or even today. Only in the repressed States which by now has reached a terrible precedent with harmless people ending up in jail for having sex.
Had Gunson come forward already before Polanski pleaded, to remove that power-obsessed Rittenband bastard long before they did, none of this would ever have happened, he’d not been sent to Chino, and ultimately forced into flight let alone been rearrested last year by that slimy DA Cooley. Maybe the case had even been thrown out long before any of that. Disgusting what they did to him from day one.
Thanks, Lewis – of course you’re right, and that it was a deliberate attack, but ‘sadly’ it didn’t quite work out and nothing is lost!
And true too, had Gunson come forward right then, none of this would ever have taken place. Shame that he didn’t even do so right after Polanski’s rearrest, or when they tried to dismiss the case only recently. Seems some people have to face death to finally unburden their conscience. Far too late.
I am so happy for you Novalis that you were able to recover all: your ANALYSIS Blog and the comments. Your findings are too precious to lose them. Your Analysis Blog is unique. I admire you for your courage and dedication to this case.
Somebody has criticized you for being obsessed with this case, but guess what Novalis, you are not alone, I am obsessed too, for the only one reason – Injustice.
Who is Roman Polanski for me? He is a great artist but he is not my family member; we have only one thing in common; we are both Polish. But his case is affecting me deeply for the same reason – Injustice.
Sometimes I think he was lured and kidnapped by some guerrillas and is kept in some lawless country. I can’t believe this happened in this modern time and is hard to accept the fact that two modern countries are participating in this lynching.
This whole experience must be very traumatic for his innocent family and his innocent children.
The Judge in January and the DA on March 30 argued that “allowing Polanski to avoid extradition from Switzerland hurts the integrity of the judicial system more than revelations of alleged misconduct by Rittenband”.
Such an argument is only an insult to human intelligence, nothing else, so is entire case against him.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Lidia – it is indeed a very nasty charade by now, and Cooley thinks we’re too stupid not to notice. I read many comments on other sites, blogs or newspaper articles, and whatever they might think of the ‘case’ or Polanski, at the end of the day they too think the ‘integrity’ of the law was long corrupted before the current DAs got their dirty fingers on it. This is going on since years behind the scenes and on sites lynching him with relish, but only since his rearrest it’s being more highlighted to the wider public, and therefore of course the courts need to keep lying to us, and smear the man as much and best they can. No, more in fact.
As I said before, even reputable sites like Wikipedia treat his case highly biased with nothing to exonerate him in any form, and anything more relevant and revealing is mercilessly deleted. I know of several people who added relevant details, and the next moment they’re gone again. Like the medical findings, or what he said in his defence. It’s all only the girl’s side and her dodgy grand jury testimony in part, which even the woman by now doesn’t repeat herself any longer. Now it’s, “He had sex with me. He wasn’t hurting me and he wasn’t forceful or mean or anything like that…” a far cry from what she told the ‘shocked’ jury panel and had accused him of.
The deletion of my pro Polanski comments (and thus supporters) is a perfect example on how to maintain an atmosphere of total condemnation for the greater public – so they keep believing he’s a monster who skipped sentencing, unable or indeed unwilling to form a better opinion. But many see through that, despite not having the full picture as I presented it, only interested in what’s missing: ‘justice’ for the defendant.
I’m not at all ‘obsessed’ with the case or Polanski – all I’m interested in is just that, fairness for all, I never saw in his case – as with many others no one knows of – from the day he was first arrested, let alone again last year, now an imprisoned pawn in a nasty political standoff between two money states. Polanski was and is perfectly right not to trust the California courts.
For any court to say what you cited is indeed an insult not only to justice per se but to their own set of laws they have bent as hell – utterly uninterested in what’s fair, in fact contradicting their own ethics by saying what Rittenband did (and others of then and those after him) isn’t of any importance that needs punishing and finally correcting, but the final punishment of some old man and brilliant artist for some old case of sex with a not too truthful teen. It’s nothing but disgusting revenge by now. No, since years in fact.