The Roman Polanski case took another strange turn Thursday, with American prosecutors disputing who was responsible for an apparent miscommunication about sealed transcripts requested by Swiss authorities.
Swiss officials said their request to see the transcripts was denied — a choice that led them to free the director against U.S. wishes.
The Justice Department insisted that it notified Los Angeles prosecutors about its decision to reject the Swiss request. But Los Angeles officials said they never heard from Washington.
The dispute was not likely to change Polanski’s status since prosecutors had previously argued against unsealing the secret testimony. But Los Angeles authorities maintained they were not asked. The miscommunication was another in a long series of prosecutorial missteps that have dogged the case from its inception in 1977.
Loyola University law professor Stan Goldman said the current flap was mostly about attorneys “pointing fingers at each other.”
“It’s an embarrassment for the district attorney’s office,” he said. “It was they who were seeking to get Polanski back, and they have failed.”
Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley, declined to comment on what prosecutors would have done if they had known of the request.
“We don’t comment on ‘what if’ questions,” she said. “That’s speculation.”
Gibbons’ reiterated the office’s position, saying, “We were not specifically notified of the request.”
The Justice Department said that it kept the district attorney’s office fully informed of all requests from Swiss authorities regarding the effort to have Polanski extradited to the United States.
The department said Cooley’s office provided input and “approved all responses from the U.S. government to Swiss authorities on this matter,” including one rejecting a request to turn over sealed testimony that proved pivotal in Switzerland’s decision to free Polanski.
“The Department of Justice and the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office worked in close coordination on this important extradition request,” Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney said in an e-mail.
Polanski’s legal team had moved to unseal the documents, which contained testimony by the film director’s original prosecutor, Roger Gunson, who had testified in secret on Feb. 26, March 9 and March 10 in what is called a “conditional examination.”
The testimony was to be used only if Gunson became ill or otherwise unavailable to testify in person at future proceedings. It was sealed.
The Justice Department had told the Swiss that the transcripts could not be provided, according to a letter from Swiss officials to the U.S. Embassy in Bern, Switzerland, explaining what preceded the Swiss decision to deny extradition. The letter was dated Monday.
The Swiss officials said that the denial of access to the information was the key factor in the refusal to extradite Polanski.
The Swiss had said from the beginning that their extradition laws allowed Polanski to be sent to the United States only if he was going to be required to serve at least six months in prison. They sought the testimony of Gunson to clarify the matter.
The letter added, “Under these circumstances it cannot be excluded with certainty that Roman Polanski, who was imprisoned in the Chino State Prison for 42 days, has not already served the sentence imposed on him.”
It was the first indication that the Swiss were potentially accepting arguments raised by Polanski’s lawyers, who claimed he was a victim of misconduct by now-deceased Superior Court Judge Laurence Rittenband.
The letter mentions Rittenband by name and said authorities wanted to know whether Rittenband had promised Polanski that his time undergoing a diagnostic study in prison would be his entire sentence. He had pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl.
The request was transmitted to the Justice Department, they said, on May 5, 2010.
Adding to the confusion, Swiss Justice Ministry spokesman Folco Galli had said on April 30 that his department was not interested in the testimony. “Such documents are irrelevant for the extradition proceedings,” he had told The Associated Press.
In a written ruling issued May 10, Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza said he knew of no request.
“The Swiss Justice Ministry has recently opined the transcripts ‘are irrelevant for the extradition proceedings,'” he said. “The Swiss have not requested and the law does not permit that the transcripts be unsealed.”
But that ruling came five days after the Swiss said they had submitted their request to U.S. authorities. The Swiss ministry declined to explain the change of position.
“What’s clear is that the Justice Ministry asked for this transcript, which shows that it’s considered to be relevant,” said Guido Balmer, another ministry spokesman.
On May 6, 2010, the day after the new request, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office filed papers opposing any unsealing.
Polanski’s defense lawyer, Douglas Dalton, said the revelations support “the need for a formal inquiry into this issue.”
Disney Pledges $15 million In L.A. Fire Aid As More Celebs Learn They’ve Lost Their Homes
The Pacific Palisades wildfires torched the home of "This Is Us" star Milo Ventimiglia, perhaps most poignantly destroying the father-to-be's newly installed crib.
CBS cameras caught the actor walking through his charred house for the first time, standing in what was once his kitchen and looking at a neighborhood in ruin. "Your heart just breaks."
He and his pregnant wife, Jarah Mariano, evacuated Tuesday with their dog and they watched on security cameras as the flames ripped through the house, destroying everything, including a new crib.
"There's a kind of shock moment where you're going, 'Oh, this is real. This is happening.' What good is it to continue watching?' And then at a certain point we just turned it off, like 'What good is it to continue watching?'"
Firefighters sought to make gains Friday during a respite in the heavy winds that fanned the flames as numerous groups pledged aid to help victims and rebuild, including a $15 million donation pledge from the Walt Disney Co.
More stars learn their homes are gone
While seeing the remains of his home, Ventimiglia was struck by a connection to his "This Is Us" character, Jack Pearson, who died after inhaling smoke in a house fire. "It's not lost on me life imitating art."
Mandy Moore, who played Ventimiglia's wife on "This Is Us," nearly lost her home in the Eaton fire, which scorched large areas of the Altadena neighborhood. She said Thursday that part of her house is standing but is unlivable, and her husband lost his music studio and all his instruments.
Mel Gibson's home is "completely gone," his publicist Alan Nierob confirmed Friday. The Oscar winner revealed the loss of his home earlier Friday while appearing on Joe Rogan's... Read More