Switzerland is operating with “false and materially incomplete” information as it decides what to do with Roman Polanski, the director’s lawyers say.
Polanski’s lawyers say in court documents that material assembled by LA prosecutors to extradite the 76-year-old director are fundamentally flawed. The Friday filing is in an anticipation of a May 10 hearing on the “Chinatown” director’s 33-year-old rape case in downtown LA.
In their May 7 filing, Polanski’s lawyer’s damningly contend that sealed testimony would reveal, if made public,
that an affidavit from the LA DA to the Swiss government relies on “statements which the district attorneys knows are false and materially incomplete.”
As TheWrap previously reported, documents filed to the court on May 6 by the DA contested the unsealing of testimony by Roger Gunson, the prosecutor in the original 1977 case. The DA wrote that Polanski’s desire to have the testimony made public was “entirely meritless” and a clear sign the director was “running out of options to avoid extradition."
Tension in the already shrill case have been running high in recent weeks as a recent decision by the California 2nd District Court of Appeal set the stage for Polanski’s return to the United States by September.
The court’s April 23 decision rejected the 68-page petition the defense filed in late March. The petition alleged judicial prosecutorial misconduct during Polanski’s 1977 trial for raping and sodomizing an underage girl.
Then, in almost 1000-word statement posted online on May 2, Polanski accused Los Angeles District Attorney Steven Cooley of using his case to attract publicity for his run for California Attorney General. On Sept 26, 2009, the “Ghost Writer” director, who fled the US on Feb 1, 1978 for fear for further imprisonment, was detained on request of the Department of Justice at Zurich Airport.
Officials in Switzerland, where Polanski is currently under house arrest, said earlier this year that they have no interest in seeing the sealed testimony as a part of their decision on whether to send the director back to the US.
That is a big mistake, says Chad S. Hummel and other members of Polanski’s defense team.
"Unfortunately, the Swiss are not justified in their assumption that the district attorney in this case has accurately and fully presented the facts relevant to extradition," the defense team’s latest filing states. "The opposite is demonstrably true, and the Gunson testimony would definitively demonstrate that in the form of admissible evidence."
The DA stated in its May 6 brief that Gunson’s testimony was only taken as a precaution “should Mr. Gunson, at a future date, be unavailable when the defendant (Polanski) is finally in the custody of Los Angeles law enforcement.” The former prosecutor is currently undergoing treatment for cancer.
Requests by TheWrap for a response from the DA to the filing by Polanski’s lawyers were not immediately returned.
