Polanski Victim ‘now Let Him Be’

The woman ROMAN POLANSKI had sex with at a Hollywood party when she was 13 has called on prosecutors to halt the case against the filmmaker now his extradition from Switzerland has been cancelled.

The director was released from house arrest at his home in Gstaad on Monday (12Jul10) after Swiss authorities refused to hold him any longer.

The decision means Polanski is now free to move around Switzerland and France - the country he fled to on the eve of sentencing for his sex crime in the late 1970s, and Samantha Geimer - the woman at the centre of the case - believes it’s time for Los Angeles officials to let the matter rest once and for all.

Geimer, who now lives with her family in Hawaii, previously called for prosecutors to halt the case against Polanski because the publicity surrounding it was embarrassing and distressing.

Now she tells the Los Angeles Times, “Enough is enough. This matter should have been resolved 33 years ago.”

Geimer, who has publicly forgiven Polanski, says she can’t understand why prosecutors continue to pursue the director, maintaining that he’s not a threat to anyone.

She adds, “At 76 years old? I don’t think so.”

But it seems legal officials are refusing to heed her remarks - they have vowed to continue their pursuit of Polanski.

U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley says, “A 13-year-old girl was drugged and raped. This is not a matter of technicality.”

Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, who led the effort to bring Polanski back to the U.S., has previously expressed his disappointment at the Swiss decision: “Mr. Polanski is still convicted of serious child sex charges. The Swiss could not have found a smaller hook on which to hang their hat.”