...At least according to the New York Daily News:

Quote:

ZURICH - Director Roman Polanski was arrested by Swiss police as he flew in for the Zurich Film Festival and faces possible extradition to the United States for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl, authorities said Sunday. Polanski was scheduled to receive an honorary award at the festival when he was apprehended Saturday at the airport, the Swiss Justice Ministry said in a statement. It said U.S. authorities have sought the arrest of the 76-year-old director around the world since 2005. "There was a valid arrest request and we knew when he was coming," ministry spokesman Guido Balmer told The Associated Press. "That's why he was taken into custody." Balmer said the U.S. would now have to make a formal extradition request. He declined to explain why Polanski was never previously arrested in Switzerland, where he has often traveled or stayed. A 1996 interview with Canada's Menz magazine describes Polanski's visits to the luxury resort of Gstaad, where he regularly came to ski, attend festivals or escape from media pressure. Polanski fled the U.S. in 1978, a year after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with the underage girl. The director of such classic films as "Chinatown" and "Rosemary's Baby" has asked a U.S. appeals court in California to overturn a judges' refusal to throw out his case. He claims misconduct by the now-deceased judge who had arranged a plea bargain and then reneged on it. Read more: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Looks like he's not going to be making any return trips to Cannes anytime soon.

This is the best thing I've heard so far today.

Do you think for one second he'll actually end up in jail for this?

Are you kidding? He'll be lucky if he isn't given consecutive life sentences. No way is he going to get off the hook.

FINALLY. You know, I respect his work, but it always made me feel so disgusted that he got away with what he did.

And the rich part, you can't forget that. Even without the old and famous, that means he can do whatever he wants. He'll get a slap on the wrist, if that.

Well, some people are just absurdly naive. Afraid we can't help you with that.

What's absurdly naive is the notion that a guy who committed unlawful flight to avoid prosecution AND statutory rape(not to mention violated a plea bargain agreement) has a snowball's chance in hell of getting any mercy from the courts once he's back in the States. He should consider himself fortunate the death penalty's not on the table, because if it were they'd be prepping the lethal injection room for him right this minute.

I understand it well enough to know that violating a plea bargain is a great way to get the courts furious with you.

Polanski's only hope for staying out of jail at this point is to eat a bullet-- there's no way on earth any judge in their right mind will accept an insanity plea from him at this point, and if he's dumb enough to plead "not guilty" the prosecutors will most likely shred his alibi like it was wet paper.

It's a little late for him to try and cut any deals. No, I think the prosecutors will be pushing for the maximum sentence on this one.

And that's my last word on this topic until Polanski's trial starts.

Of course, you know what will happen if he gets any jail time. He'll get a shiv in the ribs before the first week is out and mysteriously, no one will know how it happened.
That's if he gets any jail time. I don't have a crystal ball to tell me if he will. We can always hope for the best.

There's gotta be a sitcom in Charles Manson and Roman Polanski ending up sharing a cell through clerical error.

I would watch it.

Knorg wrote:

There's gotta be a sitcom in Charles Manson and Roman Polanski ending up sharing a cell through clerical error.

They're gonna have to drag the first day of that arrangement out as long as they can, 'cuz someone ain't gonna survive the night (and I'm not entirely sure which one it's going to be).

That said... I'd watch it. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.][You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] border="0" alt="" />

The thing is, the rape thing may be thirty years past, but when somebody skips the country to get out of being sentanced, you can't just overlook it. If he'd killed somebody, they wouldn't even be considering it.

You can't let somebody go just because they're rich and famous and skipped the country for a while. That's not justice.

The statutory rape thing may have been overlooked somewhat, but the whole thing about finally catching him has been so publicised that people are going to go nuts if he gets away with evading justice. Judges aren't going to DARE to go easy on him.

The irony is, he would probably only have spent two or three years in prison for statutory rape, maybe less if he'd just taken it. Now he's fucked up and he's gonna spend at least triple that, maybe more depending on how much he can be charged with, probably with no parole.

If you kill somebody while dangerously driving, you don't get away with it no matter how sorry you are. Why should he get away with statutory rape? And I don't think he's sorry - if he was sorry he'd have done the time, not fled the country. And no, being sorry that you got caught does not count as being sorry.

Just so you know you don't have to say statutory. Everyone who is defending him is acting like all he did was sleep with an underaged girl. She was thirteen and he gave her alcohol and asked her to have sex with him. She said no. He drugged her and raped her vaginally and anally when she couldn't fight him off. He took a plea bargain where he was charged for statutory rape and was told he would only be serving 90 days. That's a very light sentence and if he wasn't rich and famous he might have gotten worse. Depending on who you believe he may have thought the judge would end up giving him more than 90 days or maybe he just didn't want to go to jail at all. Either way he ran before sentencing.

I really hope he goes to jail because even if you think it's too late or he doesn't deserve it him getting away would send the message to other rich people that if they get convicted of a crime they can flee the country and go to Europe and have a nice life.



This article has more information on what he did and why he needs to be punished.

And he has a nice list of defenders already:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

And who is that I see on the list? Why, it's none other than Woody Allen!

The jokes just write themselves.

So Polanski got nabbed. Good. I mean, he hasn't made a good movie in lord knows how long...

From an article at salon.com:

Quote:

Before we discuss how awesome his movies are or what the now-deceased judge did wrong at his trial, let's take a moment to recall that according to the victim's grand jury testimony, Roman Polanski instructed her to get into a jacuzzi naked, refused to take her home when she begged to go, began kissing her even though she said no and asked him to stop; performed cunnilingus on her as she said no and asked him to stop; put his penis in her vagina as she said no and asked him to stop; asked if he could penetrate her anally, to which she replied, "No," then went ahead and did it anyway, until he had an orgasm.

I'm at the point where I straight up refuse to give ANY of my money to a single celebrity speaking out in his defense. No skin off my nose. I'll gladly pay to see a film in theatres or purchase it on DVD, but nope. Fuck you guys. If I see your signature on a "Free Roman Polanski" petition, I'm torrenting your shit. I don't care how little of a difference it makes, it's worth it.

According to Whoopi Goldberg he didn't commit "rape rape" and as such shouldn't be punished.

How the hell do these people make money?!