Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski, a fugitive in Europe for the last 30 years, has filed a request in Los Angeles to have a child-sex charge against him dismissed.
Polanski (75), fled the United States in 1978 to avoid serving a prison sentence after ntering a guilty plea on charges of having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.
The film director's lawyers said they had new evidence, sparked by a documentary film earlier this year that revealed "judicial and prosecutorial misconduct ... so distorted the legal process that the interests of justice can only be served with complete dismissal of the case."
Polanski, who directed movie classics such as
Rosemary's Babyand
Chinatown, has French citizenship and cannot be extradited to the United States.
Vilified by the US media at the time, the French-Polish filmmaker has never returned to the US despite winning a best director Oscar in 2003 for the World War Two film
The Pianist.
A new team of lawyers representing Polanski filed a formal request yesterday for dismissal of the criminal case with Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Polanski was originally charged with several counts, including rape by use of drugs. But in a plea deal, he pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor. He had already spent 42 days in a California prison for a psychiatric evaluation but then fled the United States before being sentenced.
Interest in the Polanski case was revived by a documentary
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desiredthat was first shown at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
The documentary tracked down Polanski's lawyer in the 1978 case, the victim and her lawyer, reporters and film industry colleagues who spoke of troubling behaviour by the judge, who has since died. Polanski declined to be interviewed.
Samantha Geimer, the victim who is now in her 40s, has three sons and lives in Hawaii, said in a separate interview in June that Polanski should not have to serve time in prison and that she did not feel he was a danger to society."I don't think he needs to be locked up forever and no-one has ever come out ever besides me and accused him of anything," she said.