Roger Gunson’s Unsealed Polanski Testimony Offers Not Bombshells, But Details And A Path Through The Thicket
After 12 years in a lock box, former Los Angeles County prosecutor Roger Gunson’s conditional testimony in the Roman Polanski sex case was unsealed by court order on Thursday, and copies of a transcript were made available on Sunday night.
What the several hundred pages of testimony—taken over three days in 2010—finally delivered was not a series of bombshell revelations. Since Polanski fled the country before sentencing in 1978, constant examination of the case has left little room for surprises.
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Rather, Gunson’s testimony provided a long, highly detailed, deeply informed recap both of Polanski’s crime—which involved the rape of a minor—and of alleged judicial and prosecutorial misconduct that followed it.
Perhaps the most striking details—other than blunt descriptions of the crime, which would surely be repeated if Polanski ever came to trial—involved Gunson’s account of having been blocked by superiors in the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office from asking that Judge Laurence J. Rittenband, now deceased, be disqualified from the case for misconduct. That failed effort occurred in August of 1977, when Gunson, then in charge of prosecuting Polanski, became dismayed by Rittenband’s habit of soliciting information and opinions outside of normal judicial channels. Gunson was sufficiently alarmed to draft a 20-page affidavit seeking recusal. But two superiors—after having affirmed its claims in a discussion with Rittenband—declined to file it, without explanation. Gunson took an immediate vacation in Florida, then returned to work on the case with a judge in whom he had no confidence.
The 2010 testimony was unsealed by an order from Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Sam Ohta, in response to an appeals court order reversing Ohta’s prior refusal to unseal the document. The unsealing was sought not by Polanski—who had earlier tried and failed to open the testimony—but by journalists Sam Wasson and William Rempel. They were represented by a battery of lawyers that included John Washington of the Schonbrun Seplow Harris Hoffman and Zeldes firm, Susan E. Seager of the University of California Irvine’s Press Freedom Center, and Gary Bostwick. Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, who initially opposed the unsealing, reversed himself, acknowledging the need for a public examination of claims of official misconduct in the long-running case.
Gunson testified on three separate dates in February and March of 2010, at a time when health issues cast doubt on his availability should the case ever proceed, either with Polanski’s return, or under an agreement by the court to complete his sentencing in absentia.
In large part, he explicitly and under oath confirmed assertions he had already made on camera in Marina Zenovich’s 2008 documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired. Through much of the unsealed testimony, Zenovich’s narrative served as a guide through the thicket of steps and missteps that turned into a 45-year legal nightmare.
Among his core assertions in the transcript, Gunson makes clear that he believed Judge Rittenband inappropriately took input “from all over the place”—from friends, the media, and a prosecutor, David Wells, who had no role in the case—and that he tried to orchestrate a “sham or fabrication” by dictating courtroom arguments by both Gunson and Polanski defense lawyer Douglas Dalton. Most especially, Gunson stood by his claim, well-known at this point, that Rittenband improperly reneged on a plea deal, subjecting Polanski to the possibility of substantial prison time after having assured him that a 42-day psychiatric examination in Chino State Prison would be his only sentence.
For Gunson, according to his testimony, use of the examination as a sentence was contrary to law. But so was Rittenband’s decision, in the face of public disapproval, to shift gears after Polanski’s detention, adding a potential sentence of between six months and fifty years, but privately assuring lawyers that he would let Polanski out of prison after he had served an additional 48 days.
With that said, Gunson also testified that Polanski’s treatment was shockingly lenient. He was allowed to plead guilty only to the lightest charge against him, escaping a pending rape charge, supposedly to spare his 13-year-old victim the ordeal of a trial. His psychiatric examination was cut short, to spare him perceived danger in the Chino prison, and a probation officer, in an unusual step, allowed him three exit interviews, as he appeared to express suitable remorse only in the third.
The testimony, before Judge Mary Lou Villar, was conducted by lawyer’s Chad Hummel and Bart Dalton in Polanski’s behalf, and by deputy David Walgren for the District Attorney’s office. Sparring between the two sides gave a preview of what a Polanski trial might look like—while Gunson, though cooperative, often struggled to recall crucial details, and had to be prompted with notes and documents that had accumulated over the years.
One oddity described by Gunson—though he never fully understood it—was an encounter with a former prosecutor who asked him, while the case was current, to help him get appointed as Polanski’s defense lawyer. The ex-prosecutor, said Gunson, was supposedly close to Rittenband. But he could never understand why he imagined that a prosecutor could influence the choice of a defense attorney.
In another go-round, Gunson testified that two prosecutors who initially worked on the case were discovered to have photographed themselves holding Jack Nicholson’s Oscars while executing a search warrant at the actor’s house, but failed to deliver expected photo evidence, supposedly because they ran out of film.
Gunson testified at length about failed efforts over the years to resolve the case by letting the fugitive Polanski return to the United States under a pre-cut plea deal that would not involve jail time. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s office, he noted, has consistently said Polanski must end his fugitive status before a deal could be reached, though it briefly looked like a resolution might occur in the 1990s.
Gunson, who served as a prosecutor for 34 years before retiring in 2002, has survived the health issues that triggered the conditional testimony.
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