On July 13, an American appeals court ordered the disclosure of statements concerning the charges of rape of a minor against Roman Polanski. The testimony of the former prosecutor in charge of the case at the time, Roger Gunson, who, according to the director, would attest to a breach of an agreement concluded with justice in this case.
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A California court has ordered the lifting of the confidentiality that has so far weighed on the testimony of a former prosecutor in the charges of rape of a minor against Roman Polanski, who according to the director would prove that justice did not respect an agreement concluded with him in this file. Roman Polanski is accused of drugging and raping Samantha Gailey, then 13, in Los Angeles in 1977.
Tuesday, July 12, the current Los Angeles County prosecutor, George Gascon, announced that his services would no longer oppose the lifting of the confidentiality of the testimony of his predecessor Roger Gunson, for the sake of transparency of justice. A court of appeal, the next day, in the process, ordered the disclosure of the minutes of this testimony, claimed since 2010 by two journalists working on this file involving the Franco-Polish director, who will be 89 years old next month. Prosecutor Gascon welcomed this decision, emphasizing in a press release that he did not know within what time frame the competent court would disclose the documents in question.
We do not know the exact content of the transcripts of this testimony given behind closed doors by Roger Gunson, the prosecutor who led the prosecution against Roman Polanski at the time and retired in 2002. But the director’s lawyers, who asked in vain its publication on several occasions, affirmed that this testimony would prove that justice did not respect the terms of an agreement concluded with him. To avoid a public trial for Samantha Gailey, the prosecutor had at the time dropped the most serious charges in exchange for Roman Polanski’s admission of a sexual relationship with a minor.
Roman Polanski “remains a fugitive”
Under this agreement, the director had been sentenced to three months in prison but had actually spent only 42 days there, before being released for good behavior. When a judge seemed about to renege on the agreement to sentence him to several decades in prison, Roman Polanski flew to Paris in January 1978 and never set foot in the United States again. United. He is still the subject of an international arrest warrant and has on several occasions risked being extradited.
On July 12, the Gascon prosecutor had insisted that Roman Polanski “remain a fugitive” and “should go to court to be sentenced in Los Angeles County Superior Court”. Samantha Gailey publicly forgave Roman Polanski in 1997. The director was accused by several other women of having raped them when they were minors, but the facts are prescribed and he has always denied them.