The Polish courts did “the right thing” in refusing to extradite film director Roman Polanski to the US, according to Samantha Geimer, the victim in the 1977 rape case that led to the film director fleeing the US before sentencing.
In an interview with NBC News, Geimer, now 52 but 13 at the time of the offence, said: “I believe they did the right thing and made the right decision given all the facts ... Since I’m well aware of how long this has been going on, I’m very pleased and happy.”
Geimer cited the effect on herself and her family of the repeated attempts by US officials to pursue Polanski, most recently after he entered Poland to film an adaptation of An Officer and a Spy, Robert Harris’s thriller based on the Dreyfus scandal. Geimer said: “Everyone wants to use the most sensational words they can ... It’s unpleasant to be talked about in those terms.”
She added: “I’m sure he’s a nice man and I know he has a family and I think he deserves closure and to be allowed to put this behind him. He said he did it, he pled [pleaded] guilty, he went to jail. I don’t know what people want from him.”
Polanski was charged with rape and underage sex, among other offences, after inviting Geimer to a photoshoot in 1977. After a bargain with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse. Shortly before the court was due to hand down its sentence, Polanski left the US for France in 1978, apparently believing that the plea bargain would not hold. With no extradition possible from France, US authorities have acted when Polanski travelled to other countries, most notably in 2009 when the film-maker was arrested in Switzerland while en route to the Zurich film festival.
Geimer said: “There’s absolutely no way to not call it rape because that’s what it was. But I recovered from what happened that night a long time ago … Bad stuff happens to people. Worse stuff happens to people. I feel a kinship with him having been through this. He has apologised to me, he has treated me kindly and with respect, and I’m unaware that he’s ever done anything untoward to anyone else.”
Geimer added: “We somehow ended up on the same side. Things have to go pretty wrong for them to end up this way ... It’s a joke. A travesty – Hollywood justice at its finest.”
Geimer’s lawyer Lawrence Silver told AP he had congratulated Polanski’s legal representatives. “I sent a letter of congratulations to Mr Polanski’s lawyers in Poland for being able to demonstrate to the judicial system of Poland that this case, which is 38 years old, should be ended ... Both the judicial systems of Poland and Switzerland are able to do what the judicial system of the United States seems unable to do, and that is to put the matter behind us.” Silver also suggested that any post-extradition proceedings against Polanski in the US would have little chance of success. “Given the improprieties of the district attorney’s office and the judge, this case will be dismissed if it is ever reopened.”
However, LA County district attorney Jackie Lacey said that the case will go on, as “justice has never been served”. She said: “It just isn’t fair to allow someone with resources to escape justice for so long.”
