Roman Polanski won’t take his chances and return to court to resolve his sexual assault case, so his victim is going to stand up for him.
Samantha Geimer, who was 13 at the time of the crime, is going to appeal directly to a judge Friday to end the long-running case, the fugitive director’s lawyer said.
Geimer, 54, has long supported Polanski’s efforts to end the legal saga that limits his freedom, but Friday will be the first time she’s appeared in Los Angeles Superior Court on his behalf, attorney Harland Braun said.
“She’s tired of this case,” Braun said. “The judge is just playing games with him.”
The Oscar-winner has been a fugitive since he fled to France in 1978 on the eve of sentencing for having unlawful sex with a minor. Prosecutors dropped charges that he drugged, raped and sodomized the girl.
Polanski feared the judge was going to renege on a plea agreement and send him away for more time than the six weeks he served in prison during a psychiatric evaluation prior to sentencing.
Polanski, 83, is trying to get the Interpol warrant lifted so he can move freely among most of the 190 countries in the global policing network. If that happened, the California warrant would remain valid.
The hearing Friday is an effort by Braun to get the court to unseal testimony by the now-deceased prosecutor in the case, who is believed to have testified in a closed session about backroom sentencing discussions.
Braun wants to use the transcript to show Polanski has served his time so the international warrant is dropped.
Geimer has previously said she forgives Polanski for the assault that happened at Jack Nicholson’s compound in the Hollywood Hills during a March 1977 photo shoot.
Geimer sued Polanski and reached a settlement in 1993 for $500,000 that included over $100,000 in interest payments. Her longtime lawyer Lawrence Silver did not return phone and email messages seeking comment.
The Associated Press doesn’t typically name victims of sex abuse, but Geimer went public years ago.
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