Current Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón on Wednesday ordered the lifting of the confidentiality that has so far weighed on the closed-door testimony of his predecessor, Roger Gunson, in the Roman Polanski case, accused in 1977 of having drugged and raped in a villa in Hollywood the very young Samantha Gailey, 13 years old at the time, after a photo shoot for a fashion magazine. Gunson retired in 2002. The unsealing of this testimony, two journalists, William Rempel and Sam Wasson, have been asking for it since 2010 without success. Roman Polanski’s lawyer in the United States, Harland Braun, had made the same request, which was rejected in 2017. According to a press release from George Gascon, “This case is being described in the courts as one of the longest running sagas in California judicial history. For years, our services have opposed the publication of information that the victim and the public have the right to know”.
Most serious charges dropped
The filmmaker’s defense intends to demonstrate that the judge at the time, Laurence Rittenband, made mistakes by not respecting the terms of an agreement concluded with him in this case. It should be remembered that at the time, to avoid a public trial for the victim, the prosecutor had dropped the most serious charges – the six counts initially retained were those of rape of a minor, sodomy, provision of prohibited substance to a minor, licentious acts and debauchery, illicit sexual relations and perversion – if he pleads guilty to “misappropriation of a minor”. The filmmaker, sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, was released after only forty-two days in Chino prison (California) for good behavior. But the judge changes his mind and instead of approving the agreement, he informs Roman Polanski that he must return to prison for an indefinite period. It was then that the filmmaker decided not to appear at the hearing and to flee, flying to Paris on January 31, 1978, then falling under an international arrest warrant.
The prosecutor invites Polanski to “surrender”
Prosecutor Georges Gascón, a Republican-turned-Democrat who has served as deputy police chief in Los Angeles in his career, said his decision was influenced by a letter sent in June by victim Samantha Geimer, who claims for years a dismissal and who in turn asked that the transcript be unsealed and that the office “take a fresh look” on the case. Nobody knows for the moment if the disclosure of this testimony will really bring a decisive element on what was played out judicially in the period 1977-1978. For the prosecutor, Polanski remains “a fugitive” for a long time that he invites “to go to court to be sentenced in Los Angeles County Superior Court.” Polanski, who turns 89 in August, has just shot a new feature film in Gstaadt, Switzerland, starring Mickey Rourke, John Cleese, and Fanny Ardant – a 13 million euro Italian and Polish co-production.