L.A. officials say they can’t act on Polanski sex assault case from 1975
Los Angeles prosecutors say there’s nothing they can do with a woman’s claim she was molested by director Roman Polanski in 1975.
In a charge evaluation worksheet released Monday, Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Michele Hanisee said the case was too old. “Offense date is outside applicable statute of limitations,” she wrote in the worksheet signed last month.
The worksheet did not name the alleged victim, but Los Angeles police previously confirmed they were investigating a claim Polanski molested a 10-year-old girl on a Malibu beach in 1975.
The alleged victim, Marianne Barnard, went public with her story in October as she launched an online petition calling for Polanski’s ouster from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Barnard said on Facebook she was hopeful law enforcement could do something with her claim.
“Los Angeles D.A. has ways of finding loopholes and there’s the pesky issue of ‘potential’ #childsextrafficking which has no statute of limitations,” she previously wrote on her Facebook page.
Polanski’s U.S. lawyer Harland Braun said Monday the decision from prosecutors was expected.
Polanski, 84, has been a fugitive since he fled to France in1978 shortly before his sentencing in the molestation case of 13-year-old victim Samantha Geimer. Polanski has been publicly accused of sexually abusing five teenagers.