[7] However, upon learning that he was likely to face imprisonment and subsequent deportation,[8][9] Polanski became a fugitive from justice, fleeing to England and then France in February 1978, hours before he was due to be formally sentenced.

Geimer testified that she felt uncomfortable during the first session, in which she posed topless at Polanski's request, and initially did not wish to take part in a second but nevertheless agreed to another shoot.

Geimer was quoted in a later article as saying that Huston became suspicious of what was going on behind the closed bedroom door and began banging on it, but left when Polanski insisted they were finishing up the photoshoot.

"[19] Geimer testified that Polanski provided champagne that they shared as well as part of a Quaalude,[20] and despite her protests, he performed oral sex on her, and penetrated her both vaginally and anally,[21][22] each time after being told "no" and being asked to stop.

[29][failed verification] Under the terms of the plea agreement, the court ordered Polanski to report to a state prison for a 90-day psychiatric evaluation, but granted a stay to allow him to complete his current project.

[30] While in Europe for the filming of the upcoming 1979 remake of Hurricane, Polanski was photographed at Oktoberfest 1977 with his arms on multiple young girls and jars of beer around him.

[31] He was subsequently ordered to return to California and reported to Chino State Prison for the evaluation period beginning on December 19, 1977, and was released after 42 of the 90 scheduled days.

This would have constituted an ex parte communication, as although Wells was not an attorney of record in the case, he was technically a lawyer for one of the parties involved due to his work for the state of California.

I stated that there was absolutely no mention in the report of any discussions which the counsellors and psychiatrists at Chino had with Mr. Polanski relating to the serious and aggravated charges of rape by drugs and alcohol, sodomy, and oral copulation of the 13-year-old victim.

[50][51] On October 6, his initial request for bail was refused by the Federal Department of Justice and Police; a spokesperson commented, "we continue to be of the opinion that there is a high risk of flight.

[53] In it, he stated that on February 26, 2010, Roger Gunson (the deputy district attorney in charge of the case in 1977, retired by the time of the letter) testified under oath before Judge Mary Lou Villar in the presence of David Walgren (the present deputy district attorney in charge of the case, who was at liberty to contradict and question Gunson) that on September 16, 1977, Judge Rittenband stated to all the parties concerned that Polanski's term of imprisonment in Chino constituted the totality of the sentence he would have to serve.

Polanski also stated that Gunson added that it was false to claim (as the present district attorney's office does in their request for his extradition) that the time he spent in Chino was for the purpose of a diagnostic study.

[citation needed] Over 160[58] film directors, actors, screenwriters, and producers signed a petition, started by Bernard-Henri Lévy,[58] which urged Polanski's release.

The petition was signed by many prominent individuals in the film industry including Guillermo del Toro, Martin Scorsese, Sam Mendes, David Lynch, Wes Anderson, Michael Mann, Woody Allen, Darren Aronofsky, Harrison Ford, Jeremy Irons, and Wong Kar-wai.

Lévy's journal, La Règle du jeu, issued the following text for his petition:"Apprehended like a common terrorist Saturday evening, September 26, as he came to receive a prize for his entire body of work, Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison.

He risks extradition to the United States for an episode that happened years ago and whose principal plaintiff repeatedly and emphatically declares she has put it behind her and abandoned any wish for legal proceedings.

Seventy-six years old, a survivor of Nazism and of Stalinist persecutions in Poland, Roman Polanski risks spending the rest of his life in jail for deeds which would be beyond the statute-of-limitations in Europe.

We ask the Swiss courts to free him immediately and not to turn this ingenious filmmaker into a martyr of a politico-legal imbroglio that is unworthy of two democracies like Switzerland and the United States.

By their extraterritorial nature, film festivals the world over have always permitted works to be shown and for filmmakers to present them freely and safely, even when certain States opposed this.

The arrest of Roman Polanski in a neutral country, where he assumed he could travel without hindrance, undermines this tradition: it opens the way for actions of which no one can know the effects.

[65] "It is a tough call, since it is true that a 13-year-old girl was raped, that she said in her own words 'I complained [as it was happening]' and that she afterwards added 'I accepted a large sum of money' [to remain silent]".

Marine Le Pen, from the National Front, during a TV talk show on how to prevent sex crime recidivism, criticized Mitterrand for his support of Polanski.

[67] The SACD, a society that collects authorship fees for film and theater works and redistributes them to authors, hosted an international petition in favor of Polanski.

"[75] More than 100 people in the film industry, including Woody Allen, Monica Bellucci, Martin Scorsese, Darren Aronofsky, David Lynch, Wes Anderson, Harrison Ford, Harmony Korine, Michael Mann, and Jonathan Demme, among many others signed a petition in 2009 calling for Polanski's release.

[111] In December 2008, Polanski's lawyer filed a request to Judge David S. Wesley to have the case dismissed on the grounds of judicial and prosecutorial misconduct.

The filing claims that Judge Rittenband (deceased in 1993) violated the plea bargain by keeping in communication about the case with deputy district attorney David Wells, who was not involved.

[113][114][115] The same month, Samantha Geimer filed to have the charges against Polanski dismissed from court, saying that decades of publicity as well as the prosecutor's focus on lurid details continues to traumatize her and her family.

[118] While some legal experts interviewed in 2009 thought he might at that point face no jail time for unlawful sex with a minor, his failure to appear at sentencing is in itself a crime.

[125] On August 17, 2017, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon rejected a request from Samantha Geimer to dismiss the case against Polanski.

[131] In June 2023, Polanski was sued in the Los Angeles Superior Court by a woman who alleged that he raped her at his home in 1973 after supplying her with tequila shots.