im not particularly in the mood to debate the merits of sending a 76 year old man to jail for something he did 32 years ago that was very obviously wrong and despicable, but I think there should be a distinction made on him "serving his time". He did in fact serve his time as agreed upon by the courts at the time. He was scheduled to serve 90 days under psychiatric evaluation, and was released early after 42 days. He signed a plea agreement that said he would undergo the evaluation, and there was even a provision allowing him to first travel overseas to finish his current project, and in return he would have 5 of the 6 charges dropped against him, with an expected period of probation after release. Despite the probation officer, examining psychiatrist and the victim herself all recommending against jail time, the judge and the district attorney renegged on the deal and decided to send him back to prison, then order him deported. in other words, there was some sweetheart celebrity treatment here by the state at the time, basically dropping all the charges and letting him freely leave the country before his jail term, and an early release, which frankly shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who follows any celebrity trial. i think the original deal was awful generous to Mr. Polanski, but that falls on the attorneys. The fact that the court basically voided the plea deal to the vocal arguments of everyone else involved is an epic bungling of the legal system at the time. either they should have had the balls to prosecute him to a harsher penalty and not offered the deal, or they should have abided by the terms of the deal itself. Polanski essentially fled the US to avoid jail time of questionable legality. I think it's disingenuous to say he didn't serve his time. He certainly shouldn't have fled, but there's just so much done wrong on each side of this case.And he fucking didn't serve his time for the crime he committed. He's a fucking doucheface who should go to jail.
They had the victim on Larry King a few weeks ago, and she seemed to look at the whole thing rather realistically, I thought. She basically said that Polanski did a really terrible thing, but the fact of the matter was that he served his time, she was amicable to the plea bargain, and still the judge decided that he should return to jail despite protests from everyone involved, because the judge was concerned about how he would be portrayed in the media. She said she didn't think he should be sent to prison at this point, as he served the time originally agreed upon and had settled the monetary part of the case, and has been a model citizen since then (aside from fleeing the US, but again, there were reasons for that). While my personal view is that Polanski probably should have been in prison for at least a few years for what he did, that should have been done to start with and not 32 years later trapping the director in a "gotcha!" sting operation to bring him up on charges that are now rather questionable to begin with.
so yeah, is the dude rather scummy? definitely. is that the heart of the issue of him being arrested this time? no.
