Polanski Remains Locked Up For Now

(AP)  Roman Polanski will remain in a jail outside Zurich for at least three more days until he meets the security conditions of his bail, a Swiss official said Friday.

Polanski wouldn't be placed under house arrest in Switzerland before Monday, because he has yet to fulfill all the requirements to ensure that he stays in his chalet in the Swiss luxury resort of Gstaad, Justice Ministry spokesman Folco Galli said.

Galli did not elaborate, but the 76-year-old director must post $4.5 million bail, surrender his identity papers and be fitted with a monitoring bracelet.

Polanski cannot leave the chalet because the ministry is still deciding whether to extradite him to the United States for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl. Authorities in Los Angeles want him sentenced after 31 years as a fugitive.

Doubts over Polanski's whereabouts were answered Friday when the filmmaker's lawyer Lorenz Erni entered a prison in Winterthur, a city 16 miles (26 kilometers) northeast of Zurich.

Erni declined to speak to reporters after his 80-minute visit in the prison, where Polanski is being treated as an extradition detainee with more privileges than prisoners who have committed crimes in Switzerland.

A former Winterthur inmate said he was held in a cell next to Polanski, and that the Oscar-winning director of "Rosemary's Baby," "Chinatown" and "The Pianist" was given better treatment than others.

"For example, he could regularly call his wife or his lawyers," Yussi Akram told local Radio Top, adding that Polanski also chatted regularly with prison guards and could press an emergency button when he needed something.

Polanski always asked guards about their origins and the prison authorities kept the filmmaker away from other inmates, Akram added.

"He sounded very exhausted," Akram said.

Zurich prison authorities and the Winterthur jail declined to comment.

The bail decision Wednesday was a major win for Polanski after a series of legal setbacks following his Sept. 26 arrest on a U.S. warrant as he arrived in Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award at a film festival.

Polanski was accused of raping the girl after plying her with champagne and a Quaalude pill during a modeling shoot in 1977. He was initially indicted on six felony counts, including rape by use of drugs, child molesting and sodomy, but he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful sexual intercourse.

In exchange, the judge agreed to drop the remaining charges and sentence him to prison for a 90-day psychiatric evaluation. The evaluator released Polanski after 42 days, but the judge said he was going to send him back to serve out the 90 days.

Polanski then fled the U.S. on Feb. 1, 1978, the day he was to be sentenced. He has lived since then in France, which does not extradite its citizens.

Polanski claims the U.S. judge and prosecutors acted improperly in his case, and his attorneys will argue before a California appeals court in December that the charges should be dismissed.

Swiss authorities have declined to say how they will transfer Polanski to his Gstaad chalet called "Milky Way," which has a stunning view of the surrounding Alps. The three-story home still appeared deserted Friday.

[timothyjo]

why cant you stupid people understand proscuter did not make deal with pervy roman, they do not have that power judge must accept deal. and cannot do that till sentence day so you think there was a deal made prior to sentence day have never been in a court preceding.this is just his excuse

[timothyjo]

hope people stop going to his sick movies, org they said mansions friends went to his home in california for him, and instead murdered his wife, tate they claimed she sharon tate had helped him molest other childern all in record!!

[cbsblogger]

Wrong!

Why shouldn't he walk? He is a special creative elitist who is worthy of leniency and much more than scum Americans who do nothing.

[dagrandma]

Why in God's name is this man getting out on bail???????????

[SocietysNightmare]

Because whether or not we like it, MONEY CAN BUY ANYTHING!

[nowhiningallowed]

Polanski is a despicable pedophile and should be returned to the U.S. and made to stand trial for being a fugitive and then forced to serve a long sentence on these charges plus serving consecutively the original sentence for the crime he admitted committing.

[42920]

I agree with Polanski, the judge and the prosecutor did act improperly. The prosecutor should not have made such a plea and the judge should not have approved it. Why does responsibility and justice always seem to ride in the back seat?

[rbichamp]

He drugged her, raped her and sodomized her!

So this dirtbag deserves to be in jail and should get an even longer sentence for jumping bail.

Sent him back to the US to face justice!

[SocietysNightmare]

Not likely ......