Roger Gunson’s Unsealed Polanski Testimony Offers Details, Not Bombs, and a Path Through Bush

After 12 years in a secure vault, former Los Angeles District Attorney Roger Gunson’s testimony in the Roman Polanski sex case was sealed with a court order Thursday, and copies of the transcript were made available Sunday night.

What he presented at the end of the several hundred-page exhibition shot over three days in 2010 was not a series of explosive revelations. The ongoing scrutiny of the case leaves little room for surprises, given that Polanski fled the country before his conviction in 1978.

In addition, Ganson’s testimony was a long, highly detailed and in-depth review of Polanski’s crime, including the rape of a minor, and the subsequent alleged judicial and procedural misconduct.

Perhaps the most surprising detail, along with the horrific descriptions of the crime that would certainly have been repeated if Polanski were brought to trial, included Ganson’s statement that superiors at the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office had blocked Judge Lawrence. J. Rittenband, now deceased, will be disqualified from the malfeasance suit. This failed attempt occurred in August 1977, when Ganson, then in charge of the Polanski prosecution, was horrified by Rittenband’s habit of seeking information and opinions outside of normal court channels. Ganson was concerned enough to ask him to prepare a 20-page affidavit. But the two bosses refused to introduce him without explanation, after confirming his allegations in talks with Rittenband. Gunson immediately went on vacation to Florida and then returned to the case with a judge he did not trust.

The 2010 statement was sealed in response to an appeals court ruling by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta that overturned Ohta’s previous refusal to seal the document. It was journalists Sam Wasson and William Rempel, not Polanski, who tried and tried to open the ring. They were represented by a number of attorneys, including Schonbrun Seplow Harris Hoffman and John Washington of Zeldes, Susan E. Seeger of the University of California, Irvine Center for Press Freedom and Gary Bostwick. Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon initially opposed the sealing, backing down and conceding that allegations of official misconduct in the long-running case should be heard publicly.

Gunson testified on three separate dates, in February and March 2010, and his eligibility was questioned should the case continue, with health concerns, Polanski’s return or the court’s agreement to serve his sentence in absentia.

She largely bluntly and sworn confirmation of the allegations that Marina Zenovic made in front of the camera in her 2008 documentary. Roman Polanski: Wanted and Wanted. Zenovich’s narrative, through most of his unpublished testimony, was a guide to a series of missteps and missteps that turned into a 45-year legal nightmare.

Among his key statements in the minutes, Ganson reveals that he believed Judge Rittenband had improperly obtained information from “everywhere” (friends, the media, and prosecutor David Wells, who had no role in the case) and tried to organize it. a “deception or fabrication” that dictates the court arguments of both Gunson’s and Polanski’s defense attorney Douglas Dalton. In particular, Ganson made the then-well-known allegation that Rittenband had improperly rejected a plea bargain, leaving Polanski the option of a long prison sentence after assuring him that he would undergo a 42-day Chinese psychiatric evaluation. State Penitentiary. be his only punishment.

For Ganson, it was against the law to use the exam as a punishment, according to his testimony. But Rittenband’s decision, which decided to change course after Polanski’s arrest, also added a possible prison sentence of six months to fifty years, but gave lawyers specific assurances that it would allow Polanski to get out of jail after serving extra time. . 48 days

However, Gunson also stated that Polanski’s treatment was surprisingly mild. He was only allowed to plead the lighter charge against himself, apparently avoiding the rape charge in order to save his 13-year-old victim from trial. To avoid perceived danger in Chino prison, her psychiatric examination was stopped, and in an unusual move, a parole officer allowed her three exit interviews because she seemed to show enough remorse only on the third.

Lawyers Chad Hummel and Bart Dalton, representing Polanski, and Assistant District Attorney David Wahlgren testified before Judge Mary Lou Villar. The standoff between the two sides showed what a Polanski case could look like: Ganson, though collaborative, has trouble remembering important details and has had to provide notes and documents that have accumulated over the years.

One oddity that Ganson identified, but didn’t fully understand, was a meeting with a former prosecutor who asked him to help appoint Polanski as attorney while the case was pending. Ganson said the former prosecutor was probably close to Rittenband. But he never understood why he imagined that the prosecutor could influence his choice of lawyer.

In a separate prosecution, Gunson testified that two prosecutors working on the case discovered a photo of Jack Nicholson holding his Oscar while issuing a search warrant at the actor’s home, but did not provide the expected photographic evidence as it likely ended them. film.

Gunson said at length that he had made years of unsuccessful efforts to resolve the case by allowing the fugitive Polanski to return to the United States under a prearranged plea deal that did not include imprisonment. He noted that the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office repeatedly said that Polanski had to end his fugitive status before a plea deal could be reached, but briefly revealed in the 1990s that a plea deal could be reached.

Ganson, who served as a prosecutor for 34 years before retiring in 2002, has recovered from health issues that caused him to testify on probation.