It gets worse and worse.

"Polanski agreed to $500,000 payment in civil suit
By GREG RISLING (AP) http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hxHBQYsgvQTSZICEjaU3aDe82oZwD9B399TO0

LOS ANGELES — Film director Roman Polanski agreed to pay his sexual assault victim $500,000 to settle a lawsuit 15 years after he fled the United States, according to court documents provided to media outlets Friday.
Polanski and the victim, Samantha Geimer, reached the deal in October 1993. The terms of the settlement were confidential, but the amount was disclosed in court documents because of a two-year struggle to get Polanski to pay.
Court records do not indicate if Polanski, now 76, ever paid. The last court filing in August 1996 shows Polanski owed Geimer $604,416.22, including interest.
Polanski's attorney, David Finkle, said he couldn't remember details of the case and declined comment.
"It's ancient," Finkle said."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Really? Are we really supposed to buy that the lawyer can't remember the basic details about a child rape case brought against his famous fugitive client? Were there so many scandalous lawsuits that the details all got fuzzy? I can understand that it was over a decade ago but really, one should be able to remember details about certain notorious crimes, and I am fairly certain most lawyers would be able to remember the salient facts in a case like that...

So the defense is going to continue to harp on the It Was SOOOO Long Ago, It Is Ancient History angle. Good luck with that. I don't see it working too well, Mr. Finkle, because raping little girls who have been plied with alcohol and quaaludes isn't something that sweetens with age, like a fine wine. It is more likely something that rots the longer it is left undealt with - - or turns to vinegar when left out too long - - and there is no way to pretty up the words "Roman Polanski Raped A Child", whether it was last week or last year or 3 decades ago.

And please make sure he actually paid that poor girl, 'k?

Free Polanski? Really?

"Some of the industry’s most prominent women said they believe Polanski, who faces a sentence as low as probation and as high as 16 months in prison for pleading guilty to having sex with a minor, should be freed. “My personal thoughts are let the guy go,” said Peg Yorkin, founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation. “It’s bad a person was raped. But that was so many years ago. The guy has been through so much in his life. It’s crazy to arrest him now. Let it go. The government could spend its money on other things.”–The Los Angeles Times, October 1, 2009 "

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My, my, my. The founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation seems to have lost her freakin' marbles. "Let the guy go"? "A person was raped"? "So many years ago"? "He has been through so much"? "The government could spend its money on other things"? The only thing she didn't invoke was the 'he makes pretty movies' line.

'Let the guy go" -- Roman pleaded guilty. It isn't a question of his guilt or his innocence - - he admitted to raping a 13 year old child that he drugged and sodomized- - this is now only a question about whether it is okay to expect him to actually deign to get sentenced. He needs to face the same consequences any other child rapist would face - - 'letting him go' is usually not an option.

"A person was raped" - - Hello, how much farther can one move to dehumanize this situation and make it sound like something else? It wasn't a 'person', it was a child - - a 13 year child - - who said no and asked to go home - - a child - - but now if we call her some faceless ageless 'person' we can skip over the fact that she wasn't even in high school yet. Peg, she was a child. And children shouldn't be raped. Ever.

"So many years ago" - - Are you kidding me? Does that mean we should just stop pressing charges after a certain time if people have the resources to skip the country and don't come back on their own? If you go fugitive, you go free? That would be a handy slogan for keeping crime down in the USA....

"He has been through so much" - - Yes, like half the current population in prison probably has their own share of hardship in their lives but we still expect them to do their sentence; those poor souls didn't have the chance to jet out of the country and spend 30 years making films on the beach...

"The government could spend its money on other things" - - Oh, I dunno, Peg, like what? Catching other child rapists?

This whole thing makes my blood boil. I don't expect much from the vapid airheads that are actors in Hollywood but I *do* expect the founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation to somehow say things that promote the Feminist viewpoint, which is usually a viewpoint that has heavy words for men who treat women as objects (and usually is first in line to speak out against things like raping little girls). That a Sister would be so quick to backpeddle away from something as cut and dried as raping a child makes me want to cry.