Roman Polanski, the somewhat notorious 76-year-old French-Polish Film director, has been arrested in Zurich, for extradition to the USA.

His crime? ~ Unlawful sex with a thirteen-year-old girl, back in 1977 ~ when he was about 32.

He admitted to the crime, but fled abroad, while out on bail, never to return ~ or so he intended.
If he heard that a country might extradite him, he didn't go there ~ until he was offered 'a lifetime achievement award', to be presented in Switzerland.

Meanwhile ~ apparently ~ the girl sued Polanski, and they came to an agreement, which resulted in her deciding to drop charges.

But, in the USA, prosecutors still want him to be sentenced. He faced the possibility of life imprisonment.

How are people reacting to this arrest?



Quotes from here ~ also full story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8279466.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8277886.stm

What do you think about all this?

Not sure. Part of me thinks this is a witch hunt for old crimes and the other part thinks that he should be punished for his old crimes.

She was 13; he was 32.
He knew what he was doing and that it was wrong.

Just because years have passed by, doesn't make it any less wrong.

She dropped the charges. I don't think he should be charged, but that's just me.

Yes...and the fact that he ran off and enjoyed a career & life elsewhere doesn't erase his ethical and legal debt. If anything, it's salt in the wound.

I don't understand how she dropped the charges. Minors can't make the decision; the law is what it is.

Not to veer off-topic but this reminds me a bit of Woody Allen. He became sexually involved with a girl who was raised as his daughter, and Hollywood didn't bat an eyelash. It may not have been illegal, once she was of age, but it's still creepy and wrong, i. m. o.

There were no blood relations between Woody and his daughter and they were of legal age.

That's what I would have thought ~ and it seems that this is the line being taken here.

I agree ~ not illegal, but was it moral???

Like IronFront said this Korean girl was never Woody Allen's daughter, not even in an adopted kind of way. She belonged to Mia Farrow's earlier marriage with André Previn, both adopted her in 1978.

Here are a few quotes on this subject from Stephen Glover of The Daily Mail.

'A paedophile photograph... Polanski... why on earth does the arts world think it is immune from morality?' ~ By Stephen Glover, daily Mail, 1st October 2009

'There will be outraged cries of censorship after the removal of a photograph of the actress Brooke Shields, taken when she was ... ten, from an exhibition at the Tate Modern museum in London ....'

'Police advised the gallery ... that the picture could break obscenity laws.'

'... if a paedophile were caught downloading the very same picture he would almost certainly be in serious trouble.'

'Not surprisingly, in 1981 the actress tried to buy back the negatives ....'

'Meanwhile in New York, Paris and London members of the 'artistic community' are decrying the arrest .. of ... Roman Polanski ...'

'Polanski drugged, and then sodomised, a 13-year-old girl ...'

'... One may reasonably surmise that if he were not a world-famous .. film director, but a dirty old man ... who had virtually raped a 13-year-old girl 32 years ago, sympathy would be less widespread.'

'Drugging and sodomising a 13-year-old girl is not a peccadillo that can be discounted. ....'

'As Polanski's brutal seduction of a young girl is overridden, even negated, by his supposed status as a great artist, so the provocatively sexual picture of a minor will doubtless be celebrated .....'

'It is as though art and artists occupy a different moral sphere to the rest of us.'

Full article here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/articl...e-morality.html

Brooke Shields is just kinda like "Yo, dawg. I's ova it, xxxxxxxxxxx. This xxxxxxxxxx made a mistake let da xxxxxxxx go". This is not an exact quote, btw.

[Warning: Inappropriate language can lead to a ban ~ PDM]