Polanski won't return to U.S. for hearing

LOS ANGELES, May 4 (UPI) -- Roman Polanski's attorneys say the French-born filmmaker will not return to the United States to meet a court deadline in his decades-old sex-abuse case.

Polanski pleaded guilty to having unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles in 1977, but he fled the country before he could be sentenced -- reportedly because he heard the presiding judge planned to send him to prison against the recommendations of the victim and probation department.

The 75-year-old Oscar-winning director's legal team has petitioned to have the case dismissed in light of what it claims is new evidence uncovered for a documentary about Polanski.

The Los Angeles Times said Monday Polanski's lawyers, Chad Hummel and Douglas Dalton, wrote in papers filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court that Polanski's presence this week "is neither necessary nor relevant" to the evaluation of the evidence by Judge Peter Espinoza, the supervising judge of the criminal division.

Espinoza has said he wouldn't consider a dismissal unless Polanski appeared before him. The judge also said that if Polanski doesn't come to court by Thursday, he will deny the request for a dismissal, the Times said.