Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2014 | 10:22 a.m.
LOS ANGELES — Attorneys for Roman Polanski accused Los Angeles County prosecutors of misconduct as part of continued efforts to have a decades-old sexual assault case against the Oscar-winning director dismissed.
Polanski's legal team filed court papers Monday that allege district attorneys and judges carried out "serious misconduct" in an effort to prosecute the filmmaker and later force him to return to the United States, the Los Angeles Times reported.
A spokeswoman for the district attorney's office did not immediately return a call for comment Tuesday morning.
It is the latest twist in the legal saga that began in 1977, when Polanski was charged with raping and sodomizing a 13-year-old girl during a photo shoot at a private home in Los Angeles. In a plea deal, the Polish-born director pleaded guilty to one count of statutory rape. The night before his sentencing, he fled to France.
Monday's 133-page motion seeks an evidentiary hearing to determine whether "pervasive" misconduct and a "false" extradition request sent this year by the Department of Justice to the Polish government requires the case against Polanski to be dismissed.
The filing centers on an attempt in October to arrest Polanski while he was attending the Museum of the History of the Polish Jews in Warsaw, the Times said.
Polanski's attorneys say the Justice Department extradition request omitted that the director served 42 days of court-ordered prison time because prosecutors were trying to align the case history to meet the criteria of an extradition treaty between the United States and Poland.
The prison time has proved controversial because the order purportedly took place in 1977 in an off-the-record meeting with the prosecutor and defense attorney. At the time, Judge Laurence J. Rittenband ordered Polanski to undergo a psychiatric study at the state prison in Chino.
The prosecutor and Polanski's attorney understood that the time in the prison would serve as Polanski's punishment, Monday's filing said.
Polanski won an Academy Award for best director for his 2002 film "The Pianist" and was nominated for 1974's "Chinatown" and 1979's "Tess."
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