Director Roman Polanski arrives on the red carpet before a tribute to Sigourney Weaver during the Marrakech International Film Festival in Marrakech on November 16, 2008. (UPI Photo/David Silpa) |
License Photo
LOS ANGELES, April 22 (UPI) -- A California appeals court has denied a petition for dismissal filed by the victim in the 1977 Roman Polanski child-sex case, officials said Thursday.
The 76-year-old Oscar winner has been under house arrest at a chalet in Switzerland since December 2009 while he awaits a decision regarding whether he will be extradited to the United States in the decades-old case in which he was accused of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl. He had been held in a Swiss jail for nearly two months before he posted bail and was placed under house arrest.
The filmmaker, who had been living in France but was in Switzerland to attend a film festival at the time of his arrest last year, has not traveled to the United States since he pleaded guilty in a Los Angeles court to having unlawful sex with a minor. He fled the United States before he could be sentenced.
Polanski's lawyers have alleged misconduct on the part of the Los Angeles criminal justice system at the time of the plea deal and are fighting extradition from Switzerland to the United States.
A California appeals court Thursday denied a petition by Samantha Geimer, Polanski's victim, to have the case thrown out, E! News said.
"She is a person who is harmed by the maintenance of the prosecution and she wants it to end," E! News quoted Geimer's attorney, Lawrence Silver, as writing in the petition for dismissal. "She has not been treated fairly."
