Polanski raped 18-year-old actress in 1975

Not terribly surprising. French actress Valentine Monnier has reported that Polanski raped her in 1975 when she was 18.

It was in 1978 that he fled the US after pleading guilty to "unlawful sexual intercourse" with a thirteen-year-old girl.

You can read about it in Variety. 

The article ends:

Polanski himself had reacted to the backlash in an interview published in the press notes of “An Officer and a Spy” which triggered even more criticism. Comparing himself to his film’s protagonist, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the French-Jewish officer who was unfairly accused of spying for Germany in the late 1890s, Polanski said “I can see the same determination to deny the facts and condemn me for things I have not done.”

What's he saying he didn't do? The stuff he plead guilty to?

Europeans had more sympathy for Polanski than Americans. Polanski's parents were in a concentration camp where his mother died, he escaped from the Krakow ghetto through a sewer, he saw people murdered by Nazis. Two Germans took turns shooting at him when he was ten.

There are Americans who will defend Israel's right to commit any atrocity because the Nazis were mean, but they feel nothing for Polanski.

Me, I hate Israel, but I can't see putting Polanski in prison at this stage. Let him run out the clock in France. I can't understand people who want to drop the charges against him so he can return to the United States. France isn't good enough for him? Why would they want him here?

If Polanski did go to prison, it would be like Bill Cosby. I would be concerned for about ten minutes then forget all about him.

In any case, the French won't extradite him and it's too late to prosecute him for the latest accusation.