Roman Polanski is the convicted rapist who was defended by Quentin Tarantino, which has become the source of a lot of the trouble he’s in right now. Polanski is the director of dark films like “Chinatown,” which has its own sordid sexual plot twist, and in 1977, he was arrested at Jack Nicholson’s house for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl named Samantha Gailey. Gailey had modelled for Polanski as part of a photo shoot for Vogue magazine and he had apparently drugged and raped her.
Polanski pleaded not guilty on all the charges against him, but he was still found guilty for six counts of criminal activity, including rape.
After some negotiation with Gailey’s lawyer, Polanski finally admitted to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and a judge ordered him to undergo 90 days of psychiatric evaluation. He was let out of jail after 42 days on probation and thought all his troubles would be over. But then he heard through his friends that the judge, Laurence J. Rittenband, had been going around telling people, “I’ll see this man never gets out of jail,” saying that he was going to ignore the plea bargain and sentence the director to half a century in prison, so he very quickly fled the country out of fear.
Polanski has lived in France ever since
Now, Polanski lives in France and he’s a French citizen, which means he won’t be extradited, and since he left America before the judge’s final verdict, his charges are still pending.
It’s been over 40 years. He frequently requests that he be let back into America, but every time, they refuse, obviously. The US court system is desperate to put him behind bars, but as long as he’s hiding overseas and won’t face up to the consequences of his actions, that’ll never happen.