Polanski Victim Asks DA to Drop Charges
From The Guardian:
Samantha Geimer, who was 13 years old when Polanski gave her drugs and had sex with her, today asked a Los Angeles court to drop the charges against the Chinatown director. Polanski fled the US in 1978 after pleading guilty to illegal sex. He was arrested in Zurich last month and is fighting extradition to the US.
In a court filing today, Geimer said she has been besieged by nearly 500 calls from news media since Polanski's arrest. She lives in Hawaii and long ago publicly identified herself as the victim and forgave Polanski, but said she and her family have to contend with pressure when he is in the news. She said she is being stalked by journalists from international news organisations and has received interview requests from Oprah Winfrey and CNN's Larry King.
"The pursuit has caused her to have health-related issues," the filing states. "The pursuit has caused her performance at her job to be interfered with and has caused the understandable displeasure of her employer and the real possibility that Samantha could lose her job."
In the filing she asks the court to dismiss the case and ends with: "Leave her alone."
What now, Polanski haters? How can you still continue on this ridiculous crusade, in which there is no justice? If Geimer can move on and want the charges dropped, all the people who were not victimized should be able to as well. People are salivating to see Polanski in jail but they forget the most important part of this whole thing - the victim.
This farce needs to end now. Seriously.
Comments
The law is the law. He broke it. While he has suffered a life of tragedies the likes of which few on earth can imagine, that does not provide to him immunity from prosecution for visiting such tragedy on someone else's life. That the grown-up victim now no longer wishes pursue justice, has little to do with the fact that our society is based on collective laws that determine allowable behavior.
To permit Polanski to skate from this is just as bad of a mockery of justice as the trails of OJ and Robert Blake. That the current LA DA is probably trying to make his bones (and reclaim the damaged dignity of that office) on this case AND the fact that some elements of the media are having a field day with both (or rather "all") sides of this case is also separate from the true issue.
Our local columnist Steve Lopez wrote a column a while back that reviews the victim's statements and the police report of the time; what HAPPENED.
And what happened was a crime. Polanski having to live in Europe (as opposed to Los Angeles) is hardly punishment for that crime. That he is an extremely talented artist is hardly an excuse.