interesting - how was this missed?

A few quotes from the Independent article:

"Hoping to preserve Geimer's anonymity, her attorney Lawrence Silver arranged for Polanski to plea-bargain, to keep the case from going to trial. Accordingly, Polanski pleaded guilty to the lowest of the counts against him, unlawful sexual intercourse. A probation report recommended against a custodial sentence, but Rittenband decreed that Polanski should have a spell undergoing "'diagnostic study" at Chino State Prison. . . .

"Polanski was released after 42 days of his 90-day term, but here the story gets complicated. Polanski had been led to believe by Rittenband that after Chino, his time behind bars would be over. However, the judge was overheard boasting at his country club that he would put Polanski away "for 100 years".

"In the documentary, Geimer says of Rittenband, 'He didn't care what happened to me, and he didn't care what happened to Polanski. He was orchestrating some little show ' that I didn't want to be in.' Even Gunson comments and this is the prosecutor, mark you 'I'm not surprised that [Polanski] left under those circumstances.'"

OK, so let's put this all together. After an encounter that may or may not have been consensual (the two parties involved seem to have different views of what happened that night, and certainly the fact that Geimer was at least partially incapacitated - by her own choice? - should be taken into account), Polanski is convinced to do a plea bargain, but after he pleads guilty the terms of the plea bargain are changed. Polanski goes to jail and does his time, which was, remarkably, a reasonable punishment for the crime he may have committed, when he learns that the judge has been making remarks that he intends to renege on the deal once again, and put Polanski in jail for 100 years. The judge was not at all concerned about the well-being of the victim or the rehabilitation of Polanski, and was primarily interested in his own reputation and publicity - to the point that even the prosecutor recognized the judge's tendency towards injustice, and when Polanski acted to preserve himself from the arbitrary persecution by this judge, the media attacked him for the sake of their own publicity and financial gain.

In other words, not much has changed in 30 years, except that the possibility of a reasonable punishment for Polanski's alleged crime has been completely thrown out since then.

Quite interesting, though. I have often heard about this case, but this is the first time I've seen much written about what really happened.