Is Roman Polanski Rape Case Near An End? Here’s Why It Has Taken 45 Years – Guest Column
deadline.comEditor’s note: William C. Rempel, a longtime journalist who has covered the Roman Polanski case, and Sam Wasson, author of The Big Goodbye about the making of Polanski’s Chinatown, successfully petitioned the courts to open long-sealed testimony last year.
Continuing to monitor the case, here they describe the expected next steps. The real-life criminal case of Chinatown director Roman Polanski, a tale of dark secrets and perverted justice that has dragged on in Los Angeles Superior Court since the 1970s, will likely play its final scenes in a downtown courtroom soon – one way or another.
There are, however, a couple of plot lines still to be resolved in what began as a celebrity scandal in 1977 before turning into a legal morass that culminated in international embarrassment to the local judiciary.
Three factors are driving the case toward some sort of conclusion. First, attorneys for the filmmaker who pled guilty to statutory rape nearly a half-century ago, are drafting fresh motions to reschedule his sentencing – this time in absentia.
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