Whatever his reasons, Dalton told Larry that Polanski would be interested in a plea bargain—but only one that would avoid prison time or deportation. There was only one of the charges that fit that requirement—the comparatively mild “unlawful sexual intercourse,” previously known as “statutory rape.” Rape by use of drugs and alcohol, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor, are serious crimes that fall under the rubric of “moral turpitude” and would mandate not only jail time, but deportation. The concept of “moral turpitude” is that some crimes are such a violation of moral standards that their inherent vileness and depravity make them more serious. “Unlawful sexual intercourse” was not considered moral turpitude. Dalton said that if all the other charges were dropped, his client might be interested in pleading guilty to that single charge. Sometime later, Dalton said that the reason the prosecution had dropped all of the other charges was that they could not prove them. You have to hand it to Dalton. Even when he lost, he kept saying he’d won.
Larry then contacted Gunson. Gunson told him he had to speak to “downtown.” Supervision of the matter was assigned to Chief Deputy District Attorney Stephen Trott. Gunson told Larry that Trott was not willing to accept such a plea bargain, and that it was especially problematic to accept a plea bargain in what was basically the first high-profile case since the district attorney had adopted the new, tough plea bargain guidelines. We’d thought there might be some resistance, but not a flat no.
Larry called Trott to discuss it further, and found him not just resistant but hostile. Trott’s position was simply that Polanski had engaged in serious criminal conduct and that the district attorney was not willing to allow him to go forward with the least significant crime and the least significant consequences. When Larry reported this to my mother and father, they were, of course, upset and angry. To them, I was being sacrificed so that the DA could score points.
Larry felt he had only one option. He knew the prosecution needed me in court to make their case. At this time, I was across the country in my father’s home in Pennsylvania. The prosecutor’s office did not know where I was. So Larry started talking about me as an uncooperative witness. It was possible that I could stay in York, continuing school there and not returning to Los Angeles. Or I could go to another place beyond the reach of the California courts.
Larry informed Trott that out of concern for my best interests, I would not be cooperating further with the prosecution, and indeed would not appear at the trial. Larry was not afraid of a little saber rattling. He told Trott he thought it was a serious crime to put me through this ordeal, and that he would do everything in his power to prevent me from being forced to testify. Trott groaned. He got the message loud and clear.
It was only a few days later when Larry got the call from Roger Gunson asking if, in light of my almost certain refusal to cooperate, Larry would be willing to protect my interests and accept Polanski’s guilty plea to the lesser charge. Larry’s request was critical. Without formal request given to the judge in open court, they would not negotiate the guilty plea. But if Larry were willing to request the acceptance of a plea, then the district attorney would do so as well.
We had our deal.
Larry called Dalton to confirm that his client would be willing to plead guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse. Dalton took his time, but eventually agreed. Larry then called Gunson to confirm that we had a plea bargain. And because the crime was unlawful sexual intercourse, there would be probation, but no jail time. There was no way to know how the judge would react, but now we three parties—the prosecution, the defense, and the victim—wanted the same thing.
In order to get the prosecution to accept the plea bargain, Larry had agreed to read a statement to the judge urging the variation from Van de Kamp’s newly articulated plea agreement rules. He read his letter, excerpted here, to Judge Rittenband in open court.
. . . My primary concern is the present and future well-being of this girl and her family. Up to this point the identity of my clients has been protected from public disclosure evincing a laudable exercise of restraint by the press. Your Honor has been sensitive to my clients’ right to privacy and has protected and will protect those rights consistent with Article I, section 1 of California’s Constitution, and the public policy expressed by the Legislature in its various enactments in protection of juveniles. Of course, if there were a trial in this case, the anonymity of my clients would be at an end.
In all cases, balances have to be struck. In this case, the balance that has to be affected is between the interests of society as represented by the District Attorney, the defendant, and my clients.
In evaluating my clients’ interests, I am mindful that they, and more particularly she, have been harmed as the victim of unlawful acts committed by the defendant. By a trial, the integrity of the charges they preferred would have been vindicated, even though the personal cost to them would be substantial. My view, based upon advice from experts, and the view of the girl’s parents, is that such a trial may cause serious damage to her. Long before I had met any other attorney in this case, my clients informed me that their goal in pressing the charges did not include seeking the incarceration of the defendant, but rather, the admission by him of wrongdoing and commencement by him, under the supervision of the court, of a program to ensure complete rehabilitation. The plea of guilty by the defendant is contrition sufficient for my clients to believe that goal may be achievable. The plea in this case has not changed the original goals and I commend them to Your Honor for consideration.
. . . Whatever harm has come to her as a victim would be exacerbated in the extreme if this case went to trial. The reliving of the sorry events with their delicate content, through the vehicle of direct and cross-examination in this courtroom packed with strangers would be a challenge to the emotional well-being of any person. The potential for harm is even greater to one of tender years. In the ordinary case, this consideration should cause concern; however, this is not the ordinary case. Although Your Honor has and would diligently protect the decorum of the courtroom, the intense national and international attention generated by this case has packed the corridors leading to and from the courtroom with a mass of media technicians flashing and prodding their equipment to feed an unseemly curiosity. A member of the media last Friday in anticipation said this case “promised to be one of the most sensational Hollywood trials . . .” This is not the place for a recovering young girl.
The public disclosure of her identity in such a charged atmosphere can only seriously harm her. Relationships with friends and indeed her family would never be the same. A stigma would attach to her for a lifetime. Justice is not made of such stuff. . . .
Judge Rittenband accepted the plea. It wasn’t a perfect solution—Polanski “walked” on the most serious charges—but it was a win for me.
At the end of the proceedings Polanski stood for the traditional on-the-record plea, admitting his guilt to the charge of unlawful sexual intercourse. Polanski knew the questions that were coming and Gunson knew the answers.
“I had intercourse with a female person, not my wife, who was under eighteen years of age,” Roman said.
“How old did you think the girl was?”
“I understood she was thirteen.”
It was that simple. That’s how this sordid affair should have ended.
But the judge wasn’t through with it yet, not by a long shot.
CHAPTER 12
POLANSKI PLEADS GUILTY TO SEX CHARGE INVOLVING TEENAGED GIRL
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (UPI): Film director Roman Polanski pleaded guilty Monday to “Unlawful sexual intercourse” with a 13-year-old girl and was ordered to undergo psychiatric examination to determine whether he should be committed to a hospital as a “mentally disordered sex offender.”
Superior Court Judge Laurence J. Rittenband withheld sentencing pending a probation report on the 43-year-old former husband of murdered actress Sharon Tate and maker of such movies as “Ros
emary’s Baby” and “Chinatown.” . . .
The district attorney’s office agreed, in return for the guilty plea, to drop five other more serious counts in the indictment involving the alleged drugging and raping of the unidentified girl March 10 at the home of actor Jack Nicholson, who was away at the time. . . .
. . . District Attorney John Van De Kamp said the “plea bargaining arrangement was reached largely at the urging of the girl’s family that she be spared the ordeal of appearing on the witness stand at a sensational trial.”
· · ·
In California, whenever a defendant in a felony case is convicted of a crime, whether it’s for a plea bargain or a jury verdict, a probation report is prepared. The report includes a number of different elements, among them a description of the circumstances of the crime; the person’s family and work history; a psychological evaluation; and a recommended sentence. The idea is to help the judge decide a proper sentence for the defendant.
But the probation report does not dictate what a judge must do—and in this case, it was hard to predict what Judge Rittenband would do one day to the next, or one ruling to the next. His decisions and reactions depended on any number of things, and looking back it seems they mostly had to do with his ego. At some point, this unpredictability turned into something that looked more like instability.
One thing was clear: the judge wasn’t much interested in me. For him, this case was all about power and publicity, and Mom and I were inconsequential nuisances. He wasn’t exactly shy about revealing his true feelings for us. At one memorable hearing, with the defense floating the theory that my mother had foisted me off on Polanski to advance her own career, he said, “What do we have here, a mother/daughter hooker team?”
Still, it seemed everyone was in agreement. My mother, father, Larry, and I agreed—and still do with the probation report’s final recommendation, that Polanski’s sentence be probation and nothing more. But here’s where things got even trickier with Judge Rittenband, who seemed to be having a grand old time at the center of the media spotlight.
The judge summoned Larry, Gunson, and Dalton to his office and said it would reflect poorly on him—Judge Rittenband—if he were to let Roman off without so much as a day in jail. Public scrutiny of this case had simply been too great, and Rittenband risked looking like a wuss if Polanski, who had just signed on to do a film in Bora-Bora with Dino De Laurentiis, got only probation.
Larry told us there had been hallway murmuring at the courthouse that the judge had solicited opinions and recommendations of reporters, trying to gauge how the media would react to one decision or another and how he, the judge, would be viewed. No one would come out and openly accuse the judge of such improprieties, but now here he was flatly admitting he was weighing public and press opinion in his sentencing decision. Incredible.
This is the convoluted solution he arrived at: He would send Polanski to Chino State Prison for ninety days, for something called a “diagnostic study.” Both Gunson and Dalton protested. Gunson pointed out to the judge that under the law, a study of this kind could not be used as punishment, and Dalton said that this step went against everything the judge had indicated he would do. Dalton also said that his client was about to embark on a new film project that would last about a year.
But the judge said not to worry. He was going to sentence him, but well, not really. In order to make each lawyer happy and to protect his image as a tough-minded defender of justice, Judge Rittenband planned some stage direction of his own.
When we get into court, here’s what I want you to do, he told the lawyers. He told Gunson to argue that he wanted Polanski put in custody. Then, he said, he would speak from the bench before issuing the ninety-day sentence. That would be Dalton’s cue to speak, but under backstage directions from the judge, Dalton was not permitted to argue the punishment was too harsh.
Well, this was Hollywood. Judge Rittenband had cast himself as writer-director-producer-actor and was orchestrating every beat of this production, thinking only about what was best for his own image. My family was only concerned that I did not get called to testify. That’s why we agreed to—encouraged—the reduced charges, but we still wanted all parts of the agreement to be enforced. If the judge changed one part, the rest of the agreement could fall apart and I’d find myself on the stand being cross-examined by Douglas Dalton.
The public would know there had been a plea bargain, that Polanski had admitted to unlawful sexual intercourse, and that he was sentenced to Chino State Prison for ninety days for a diagnostic study with the chance, depending on the results of that study, he could be sentenced to more time. Here’s what the public would not know—that the judge had offered Dalton a deal. He would sentence Roman to ninety days, but Dalton would ask for deferrals in ninety-day increments. In a year’s time, when all had calmed, and additional favorable probation reports had come in, the judge would make the whole business go away. No one in the media or the public would be the wiser.
Larry understood that Dalton had no choice. He had to either play it the judge’s way or risk the collapse of the plea deal altogether. There was no reasoned approach with Judge Rittenband, the lawyers were now fully realizing, not with someone far more interested in the movie starring Laurence Rittenband than in the movie starring Polanski and a thirteen-year-old rape victim.
And so the lawyers walked into court, resigned to saying their lines as the judge had directed. First Gunson, then Judge Rittenband, then Dalton, then Larry. Curtain. Applause.
If nothing else, the judge’s trespasses forged some unusual alliances, between the antagonists Larry and Dalton, and between the natural adversaries Dalton and Gunson. They may have had problems with each other personally, but they bonded over their shared sense that Rittenband was certifiable.
Rittenband had asked Polanski to give an accounting of himself. It is affecting in its very coolness; he had lived through a great deal. It says in part:
Dear Judge Rittenband,
I have been asked to write you a short account of my life. Following is what I think are the chief things that have happened to me. . . .
I was born in Paris in 1933, of Polish immigrants who had met and married in Paris. Shortly before the war, their financial situation forced our return to Poland. In September, l939, I started school in Cracow, but after one week the war began. We fled to Warsaw, hoping and believing the Germans would never advance that far. Unfortunately, the city was destroyed and the country fell.
We returned to occupied Cracow and were soon segregated with the rest of the Jewish population. I don’t think I need dwell too much on the known events of the next few years. The population of the ghetto was systematically reduced by raids. . . .
Presently my mother was taken to Auschwitz, where she died. It wasn’t until long after the war that I learnt she was pregnant. Before one raid, I cut through the barbed wire as usual but when I sneaked back I discovered that this time it was the final liquidation of our Cracow ghetto. The last men were being marched away, including my father. I tried to speak to him, but he signaled me to run away, which I managed to do. I was eight years old at the time.
Somehow I managed to survive the next few years, moving between various friends of my family and relatives in isolated parts of the country. Occasionally I ventured into town and sold newspapers, and my chief memory here is of going to movies with the money I made from that. I felt a slight guilt at this, because the movies were German and patriotic slogans on the wall said: “Only pigs go to movies.”
The Soviet offensive of 1945 found me back in Cracow, and after the liberation I remained there, unhurt by the war except for an arm injury caused by the very last bombs dropped by the retreating Germans. An uncle found me in the street and took me in.
A few months later my father returned from Mauthausen, which he had miraculously survived. I was naturally overcome with joy, but then he remarried, and for some reason that neither of us ever fully understood and made both of us s
ad, we were never again as close as we had been during my earliest childhood. It seemed best that he give me an allowance and that I live from then on in a kind of boarding house.
Now I’m thirteen, back in school. I started working on the side as a child actor, and at fourteen I played the lead in a play called “Son of the Regiment.” It was a big smash, and unquestionably the acclaim I received determined my desire to follow a theatrical career. My interest in school academics lessened. I became a poor student at best, though I vigorously pursued athletics of all kinds, specially bicycle racing. Probably my small stature, of which children are terribly conscious even if they don’t say so, was a powerful motivation towards those physical activities, which indeed I have pursued to the present day.
At sixteen I was attacked by a thug trying to rob me. He beat me on the head with a stone hard enough to put me in hospital for two weeks, with another month in bed recuperation. Actually, I was luckier than I realized. The thug was arrested and found guilty of murdering three persons during assaults similar to the one on me. He was hanged.
[Eventually Polanski ended up in Poland’s National Film School, married, and in 1960 was able to make his first feature film, Knife in the Water. His wife left him, he moved to France, and he eventually spent time in London also making movies, despite barely speaking English.]
Soon after, Robert Evans of Paramount Pictures invited me to Hollywood in 1967 to make my first American movie: “Rosemary’s Baby.” It wasn’t surprising: I was already typed as a horror-movie director because of “Repulsion.” I had never specially intended to concentrate on that genre—it had simply seemed the most saleable when I was broke—but as so often seems to happen, accidental choices turn into the back-stories that color the rest of our lives.
The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski Page 11
