Ex-prosecutor: US Judge Planned to Renege on Polanski Deal

Director Roman Polanski appears at an international film festival, where he promoted his film, "Based on a True Story," in Krakow, Poland, on May 2, 2018. (AP)
Director Roman Polanski appears at an international film festival, where he promoted his film, "Based on a True Story," in Krakow, Poland, on May 2, 2018. (AP)
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Ex-prosecutor: US Judge Planned to Renege on Polanski Deal

Director Roman Polanski appears at an international film festival, where he promoted his film, "Based on a True Story," in Krakow, Poland, on May 2, 2018. (AP)
Director Roman Polanski appears at an international film festival, where he promoted his film, "Based on a True Story," in Krakow, Poland, on May 2, 2018. (AP)

A Los Angeles judge privately told lawyers he would renege on a plea deal and imprison Roman Polanski for having sex with a teenage girl in 1977, a former prosecutor testified, setting the stage for the renowned director to flee the US as a fugitive.

A previously sealed transcript obtained late Sunday by The Associated Press late Sunday of testimony by retired Deputy District Attorney Roger Gunson supports Polanski’s claim that he fled on the eve of sentencing in 1978 because he didn’t think he was getting a fair deal.

Gunson said during closed-door testimony in 2010 that he wasn't surprised Polanski fled after the judge had broken several promises made to his defense lawyer.

"The judge had promised him on two occasions ... something that he reneged on," Gunson said. "So it wasn’t surprising to me that, when he was told he was going to be sent off to state prison ... that he could not or would not trust the judge."

Defense lawyer Harland Braun said Friday - in expectation of the transcript's release - that the development would renew his effort to have Polanski sentenced in absentia, which would end his status as a fugitive from justice.

Braun has unsuccessfully tried that before with prosecutors asserting and judges agreeing that Polanski needs to show up in Los Angeles Superior Court to resolve the matter.

Release of the transcript, which was ordered by a California appeals court Wednesday after Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón dropped longstanding objections his predecessors made to its release, may support Polanski's claims that he was going to be railroaded by a corrupt judge.

The legal saga has played on both sides of the Atlantic as a recurring scene over four decades of a life marred by tragedy and also triumph.

As a child, Polanski escaped the Krakow Ghetto during the Holocaust. His wife, Sharon Tate, was among the seven people murdered in 1969 by followers of Charles Manson.

Polanski, 88, who was nominated for Oscars for 1974′s "Chinatown" and 1979′s "Tess," won the best director statuette for "The Pianist" in 2003. But he wasn't able to accept it because he faces arrest in the US.

France, Switzerland and Poland rejected bids to extradite him back to the United States and he continues to be feted in Europe, winning praise and working with major actors. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, however, expelled him from its membership in 2018 after the "MeToo" movement spurred a reckoning about sexual misconduct.

Polanski’s 13-year-old victim testified before a grand jury that during a photo shoot at Jack Nicholson’s house in March 1977 when the actor wasn’t home, Polanski gave her champagne and part of a sedative, then forced her to have sex. The girl said she didn’t fight him because she was afraid of him but her mother later called the police.

When the girl refused to testify in court, Polanski pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor in exchange for prosecutors dropping drug, rape and sodomy charges.

Polanski has argued that there was judicial misconduct in his case. In 2010, a Los Angeles court took sealed testimony from Gunson about his recollections of promises made to the director by the judge in 1977.

Polanski’s lawyers, who were in the room during Gunson's testimony but couldn't use it in court, have long sought to unseal that transcript to help their case.

Judge Laurence Rittenband, now deceased, had been swayed by publicity in the case and changed his mind several times about the punishment Polanski should face, Braun said.

After a report by probation officials that Polanski should serve no time behind bars, Rittenband sent the director for a further 90-day evaluation in state prison.

After 42 days of evaluation in prison, Polanski was released with a recommendation he only serve probation, Braun said.

But the judge then privately told lawyers he had to be tougher because of criticism in the news media. He said he would send Polanski to prison for a longer term but would then get him released within 120 days, which was possible under sentencing rules.

"Roman says, ‘How can I trust the judge that’s lied twice?’ So he takes off to Europe," Braun said.

Gunson acknowledged during his testimony that the judge had discretion to sentence Polanski to any term because there had been no agreed-upon sentence. But he felt Rittenband had broken promises to Polanski.

The victim, Samantha Geimer, has long advocated that the case be dismissed or that Polanski be sentenced in absentia. She went so far as as to travel from her home in Hawaii to Los Angeles five years ago to urge a judge to end "a 40-year sentence which has been imposed on the victim of a crime as well as the perpetrator."

"I implore you to consider taking action to finally bring this matter to a close as an act of mercy to myself and my family," Geimer said.

The Associated Press does not typically name victims of sex abuse, but Geimer went public years ago and wrote a memoir titled "The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski." The cover features a photo shot by Polanski.

Polanski agreed to pay Geimer over $600,000 to settle a lawsuit in 1993.

Geimer, who has pressed for investigation of judicial misconduct, asked that the transcript be unsealed and in a letter last month and urged the DA’s office to take a fresh look at the case.

Prosecutors have consistently objected to releasing the material but relented earlier this week to honor Geimer’s wishes and be transparent with the public.

"This case has been described by the courts as ‘one of the longest-running sagas in California criminal justice history,’" Gascón said in a statement. "For years, this office has fought the release of information that the victim and public have a right to know."

However, the DA did not indicate that Polanski would be able to avoid a court appearance. The press release said Polanski remains a fugitive and should surrender to the court for sentencing.



Movie Review: A Weird ‘Superman’ Is Better than a Boring One

 Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
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Movie Review: A Weird ‘Superman’ Is Better than a Boring One

 Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a ... a purple and orange shape-shifting chemical compound?

Writer-director James Gunn’s “Superman” was always going to be a strange chemistry of filmmaker and material. Gunn, the mind behind “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “The Suicide Squad,” has reliably drifted toward a B-movie superhero realm populated (usually over-populated) with the lesser-known freaks, oddities and grotesquerie of back-issue comics.

But you don’t get more mainstream than Superman. And let’s face it, unless Christopher Reeve is in the suit, the rock-jawed Man of Steel can be a bit of a bore. Much of the fun and frustration of Gunn’s movie is seeing how he stretches and strains to make Superman, you know, interesting.

In the latest revamp for the archetypal superhero, Gunn does a lot to give Superman (played with an easy charm by David Corenswet) a lift. He scraps the origin story. He gives Superman a dog. And he ropes in not just expected regulars like Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) but some less conventional choices — none more so than that colorful jumble of elements, Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan).

Metamorpho, a melancholy, mutilated man whose powers were born out of tragedy, is just one of many side shows in “Superman.” But he’s the most representative of what Gunn is going for. Gunn might favor a traditional-looking hero at the center, like Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord in “Guardians of the Galaxy.” And Corenswet, complete with hair curl, looks the part, too. But Gunn’s heart is with the weirdos who soldier on.

The heavy lift of “Superman” is making the case that the perfect superhuman being with “S” on his chest is strange, too. He’s a do-gooder at a time when no one does good anymore.

Not everything works in “Superman.” For those who like their Superman classically drawn, Gunn’s film will probably seem too irreverent and messy. But for anyone who found Zack Snyder’s previous administration painfully ponderous, this “Superman,” at least, has a pulse.

It would be hard to find a more drastic 180 in franchise stewardship. Where Snyder’s films were super-serious mythical clashes of colossuses, Gunn’s “Superman” is lightly earthbound, quirky and sentimental. When this Superman flies, he even keeps his arms back, like an Olympic skeleton rider.

We begin not on Krypton or Kansas but in Antarctica, near the Fortress of Solitude. The opening titles set-up the medias res beginning. Three centuries ago, metahumans first appeared on Earth. Three minutes ago, Superman lost a battle for the first time. Lying bloodied in the snow, he whistles and his faithful super dog, Krypto, comes running.

Like some of Gunn’s other novelty gags (I’m looking at you Groot), Krypto is both a highlight and overused gag throughout. Superman is in the midst of a battle by proxy with Luthor. From atop his Luthor Corp. skyscraper headquarters, Luther gives instructions to a team sitting before computer screens while, on a headset, barking out coded battle directions to drone-assisted henchmen. “13-B!” he shouts, like a Bingo caller.

Whether this is an ideal localizing of main characters in conflict is a debate that recedes a bit when, back in Metropolis, Clark Kent returns to the Daily Planet. There’s Wendell Pierce as the editor-in-chief, Perry White, and Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen. But the character of real interest here is, of course, Lois.

She and Kent are already an item in “Superman.” When alone, Lois chides him over the journalistic ethics of interviewing himself after some daring do, and questions his flying into countries without their leaders’ approval. Brosnahan slides so comfortably into the role that I wonder if “Superman” ought to have been “Lois,” instead. Her scenes with Corenswet are the best in the film, and the movie loses its snap when she’s not around.

That’s unfortunately for a substantial amount of time. Luthor traps Superman in a pocket universe (enter Metamorpho, among others) and the eccentric members of the Justice Gang — Nathan Fillion’s Green Lantern, Edi Gathegi’s Mister Terrific and Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl — are called upon to lend a hand. They come begrudgingly. But if there’s anyone else that comes close to stealing the movie, it’s Gathegi, who meets increasingly absurd cataclysm with wry deadpan.

The fate of the world, naturally, again turns iffy. There’s a rift in the universe, not to mention some vaguely defined trouble in Boravia and Jarhanpur. In such scenes, Gunn's juggling act is especially uneasy and you can feel the movie lurching from one thing to another. Usually, that's Krypto's cue to fly back into the movie and run amok.

Gunn, who now presides over DC Studios with producer Peter Safran, is better with internal strife than he is international politics. Superman is often called “the Kryptonian” or “the alien" by humans, and Gunn leans into his outsider status. Not for the first time, Superman’s opponents try to paint him as an untrustworthy foreigner. With a modicum of timeliness, “Superman” is an immigrant story.

Mileage will inevitably vary when it comes to Gunn’s idiosyncratic touch. He can be outlandish and sweet, often at once. In a conversation between metahumans, he will insert a donut into the scene for no real reason, and cut from a body falling through the air to an Alka-Seltzer tablet dropping into a glass. Some might call such moments glib, a not-unfair label for Gunn. But I’d say they make this pleasantly imperfect “Superman” something quite rare in the assembly line-style of superhero moviemaking today: human.