The Los Angeles district attorney announced Tuesday that he will no longer oppose the disclosure of the testimony of one of his predecessors in the charges of rape of a minor against Roman Polanski, who according to the director would show that justice did not respect an agreement. concluded with him in this file.
Roman Polanski is accused of drugging and raping Samantha Gailey, then 13, in Los Angeles in 1977. According to a statement from Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, his services “determined that it was in the interest of the court to agree to lift the confidentiality of the transcripts”.
“This case is being described in court as ‘one of the longest sagas in California legal history,'” he wrote. “For years, our services have opposed the publication of information that the victim and the public have a right to know.”
We do not know the exact content of the transcripts of this testimony given behind closed doors by Roger Gunson, the prosecutor who led the trial against Roman Polanski at the time and who retired in 2002.
released for good behavior
But the director’s lawyers, who had requested its publication in vain on several occasions, affirmed that this testimony would show that justice did not respect the terms of an agreement reached with him.
To avoid a public trial for Samantha Gailey, the prosecutor had dropped the most serious charges in exchange for Roman Polanski admitting a sexual relationship with a minor. Under this agreement, the director had been sentenced to three months in prison, but in reality he only spent 42 days there, before being released for good behaviour.
When a judge seemed about to reverse the agreement to sentence him to several decades in prison, Roman Polanski flew to Paris in January 1978 and never set foot in the United States since. He remains the subject of an international arrest warrant and has been at risk of extradition on several occasions.
Polanski “remains a fugitive”
The current Los Angeles prosecutor points out in his press release that Roman Polanski was at the time the object of “exceptional” treatment by his predecessors and undertakes to defend the “transparency” of the judicial system so that everyone there can assert Your rights.
He insists, however, that the director, who will turn 89 next month, “is still at large” and “should face justice to be sentenced in Los Angeles County Superior Court.”
Samantha Gailey publicly forgave Roman Polanski in 1997. The director was accused by several other women of having raped them when they were minors, but the facts are prescribed and he has always denied them.
Source: BFM TV
