Polanski's Victim Samantha Geimer Wants Abuser Charges Dropped

by Yuliya Talmazan | October 27, 2009 at 12:50 pm

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Samantha Geimer, the rape victim of Polish-French film director Roman Polanski, is asking for her abuser's charges to be dropped. Geimer was in court Friday, asking for Polanski to be acquitted. Geimer suggested all the media hype is interfering with her personal and work life.

"The pursuit has caused her to have health-related issues," the filing states. "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."

Polanski was convicted of having sex with a minor in 1977, but was never sentenced as he took refuge in France for the last 32 years. In late September, Polanski was arrested in Switzerland while attending Zurich Film Festival. The U.S. made a formal request to extradite Polanski on October 23.

The film industry representatives in North America and Europe seem to have divided into two camps: on one side, there are Polanski's supporters like Whoopi Goldberg, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Kim Morgan and Harvey Weinstein; and in the hostile camp, people who think Polanski should be punished, among them Luc Besson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Howard Stern.

Polanski is an award-winning director who is behind such films as Chinatown, and the Pianist.