Polanski Victim Speaks Out About Arrest
October 28, 2009 No Comments
The woman who was sexually assaulted by Roman Polanski at the age of 13 has spoken out, urging courts to drop the case because the media attention is ruining her life .
In a statement filed with California’s Second District Court of Appeal, Samantha Geimer said she has received over 500 calls from the media asking for interviews, including Larry King and Oprah Winfrey.
The statement said: “The pursuit has caused her to have health-related issues. The pursuit has caused her performance at her job to be interfered with and has caused the understandable displeasure of her employer and the real possibility that Samantha could lose her job.”
Calls from the media have besieged her at home, on her mobile phone and at work, seeking comment from the woman who was the 13-year-old victim in the film director’s child sex case three decades ago.
They have come at all hours, from as far as Germany, Israel and Japan. Every US network’s national morning show has called, as have Larry King and Oprah Winfrey. There have been close to 500 calls to Ms Geimer and her lawyer. Some offered money. She has been ambushed at the airport, and reporters and photographers showed up at her children’s schools and at her husband’s workplace.
They have offered her children toys in exchange for information. They camped out in front of her Hawaii home and photographed and videotaped her.
Now 45, she has been dealing with the media attention of this case for 32 years. Although her situation is unique in the length and scope of its media appeal, many victims of rape face similar difficulties.
Their sexual history and the intimate details of the crime become public interest when they are brought before the courts. The trials themselves can take years, in some cases decades. The pursuit of justice means that many victims must continue to relive their rapes for years. This often makes it impossible to put the matter behind them and have a normal life.
Samantha’s request is a selfish one, although that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have merit. The problem with dropping the case is that Polanski will not be brought to justice. The legal system cannot stop working because the victim finds the proceedings difficult. Rightly or wrongly, it is the people of the United States who are bringing the matter before the courts.
Polanski was indicted on six counts: furnishing a controlled substance to a minor, lewd and lascivious act upon child under 14, perversion, sodomy, unlawful sexual intercourse, rape by use of drugs. Time has not changed the facts of that day. The events described by the teenage Samantha in court are disturbing.
“After he kissed you, did he say anything?” asked the prosecutor, Roger Gunson.
“No,” the girl said.
“Did you say anything?”
“No, besides I was just going, ‘No, come on, let’s go home. . . .’ He said, ‘I’ll take you home soon.’ ”
“Then what happened?”
“And then he went down and started performing cuddliness.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he went down on me, or he placed his mouth on my vagina. . . . I was ready to cry. I was kind of — I was going, ‘No. Come on. Stop it.’ But I was afraid.”
Samantha’s testimony that day was unequivocal: She had kept trying to get away from him, putting her clothes back on, saying no repeatedly. She had made up a lie about having asthma to get out of a Jacuzzi. He persisted. She was scared. She did not physically fight him off. He began to have sex with her, then, concerned she might get pregnant, switched to anal sex.
The silver lining of this quagmire is that it sheds light on how badly the court and the media treat victims of sexual crimes. The system doesn’t work. The question now is whether there is more damage done by ignoring the heinous crimes Polanski was accused of, or ignoring the pleas of his victim.
You will also want to read:
Polanski Arrested For Sex With Minor
