Famous Child Rapist Arrested in Switzerland

Director Roman Polanski was taken into custody, Swiss police confirmed Sunday, on a 1978 U.S. arrest warrant for having sex with a 13-year-old girl.
Polanski was flying in to receive an honorary award at the Zurich Film Festival when he was detained late Saturday at the airport, festival organizers said in a statement.

Switzerland and the United States have an extradition treaty dating back to the 1950s that is still in force. Polanski fled the U.S. in 1978, a year after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl. He was charged making the child drunk, then raping and sodomizing her. The 1978 judge planned on letting Polanski off by just having him serve 42 days, but changed his mind after pulbic outrage made him consider a more routine sentence.

The 76-year-old director of such classic films as "Chinatown" and "Rosemary's Baby" has asked a U.S. appeals court in California to overturn a judges' refusal to throw out his case.

Polanski has lived for the past three decades in France, where his career has continued to flourish. He received a directing Oscar in absentia for the 2002 movie "The Pianist."

Polanski paid the victim an undisclosed amount and since that time, she has made public statements saying the matter should be closed and he should get off. But the law doesn't allow the victim to decide the punishment, nor does it take into account that Polanski jumped bail and has been a fugitive from justice for over 30 years. See Chick's THE TRIAL.