Two Academy Members Demand Al Gore’s Oscar Back

December 4, 2009

Los Angeles Times

By Andrew Malcolm

No, it wouldn’t do anything for the environment.

But two Hollywood conservatives (yes, there are some) have called on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to rescind the prestigious, profitable gold Oscar statuette that it gave ex-Vice President Al Gore two years ago for the environmental movie “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Roger L. Simon and Lionel Chetwynd, both Academy members, are among a small, meandering pack of known political conservatives still believed to be on the loose in the liberal bastion of movie-making.

In 2007, the Academy sanctified Gore’s cinematic message of global warming with its famous statue, enriched his earnings by $100,000 per 85-minute appearance and helped elevate the Tennessean’s profile to win the Nobel Peace Prize despite losing the election battle of 2000 to a Texan and living in a large house with lots of energy-driven appliances.

Chetwynd and Simon were prompted to make their hopeless demand this week by the …

… leak two weeks ago of a blizzard of British academic e-mails purporting to show that scientists at the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit systematically falsified data to document the appearance of global warming in recent years.

The university is reportedly investigating the claims, which added dry fuel to the never-ending political debate over whether the Earth really is warming as a result of human activity or if it’s just normal natural cycles and the debate is what’s heated. The demand to withdraw Gore’s award provides yet another opportunity to argue.

The startling leak comes at an inconvenient time, just before next week’s United Nations climate change meeting, which will cause an immense carbon footprint with thousands of people flying up or over to Denmark to talk about saving the environment.

These airplanes will include Air Force One with its primary passenger, President Obama, who’s returning to the Copenhagen scene where he didn’t help win the 2016 Summer Olympics for Chicago, which could do with a little global warming at this time of year.

Simon, a screenwriter who is also chief executive officer of Pajamas Media, a network of conservative online blogs, conceded he knew of no precedent for the Academy withdrawing a previously awarded Oscar, despite decades of Hollywood high jinks and worse. But, he added, “I think they should rescind this one.”

The controversial leaked documents have been assembled here by Pajamas Media and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The joint demand by Simon and filmmaker Chetwynd is available on video here.

The television news-watching world in America has not learned much about the so-called Climategate scandal because it has not really been mentioned on the air except for a notorious cable news channel named for a three-lettered, wily, wild animal that often seems to revel in debunking liberal shibboleths.

Network news programs have been far more concerned with the obviously more important White House party-crasher story involving a couple of formally-dressed phonies.

The falsified documents do not come up in Gore interview excerpts published late last night here by Politico’s John F. Harris and Mike Allen.

This week, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs claimed that global warming was no longer in dispute by most people. But a subsequent Rasmussen Reports poll of Americans finds only one in four adults believes most scientists agree on the topic.

And while only 20% claim to have followed the leaked e-mail story very closely, nearly 60% believe it is at least somewhat likely that scientists have falsified environmental data to support their own global warming beliefs and theories.

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Roman Polanski Will Remain in Swiss Prison

October 6, 2009

ABC News

By Luchina Fisher and Huma Khan

Roman Polanski will remain in a Swiss prison while awaiting possible extraditiion to the United States.

On Tuesday, the Swiss Justice Ministry rejected the 76-year-old director’s appeal to be let go. Ministry spokesman Folco Galli told The Associated Press there was still a high risk that Polanski would flee if released from custody.

Polanski’s lawyers had hoped that the filmmaker could get out on bail or house arrest. They filed the appeal with the Ministry on Sept. 29, the same day they initiated a similar process in the Swiss courts that also seeks Polanski’s freedom.

Last week, ABC News learned that 15 years after he pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, Polanski agreed to pay $500,000 to his victim, Samantha Geimer, to settle a civil lawsuit she filed. But it is unclear whether that payment was ever made.

According to documents released to the press, the two reached a deal in October 1993, but the terms of settlement were not disclosed. According to The Associated Press, it took Geimar two years to get Polanski to agree to pay the sum, but it was unclear from the court filings if the money was ever given.

In 1978, Polanski pleaded guilty to the charge of raping then 13-year-old Geimer. He spent 43 days in a California jail where he underwent a psychriatric evaluation and was deemend mentally fit. But amid fears of facing a long-term prison sentence, Polanski fled the country before he was sentenced.

Since then, Polanski has lived in Europe but has avoided countries that have extradition agreements with the United States.

But in late September, the director, who won an Academy Award in 2003 for “The Pianist,” was arrested at the airport in Zurich, Switzerland, as he was arriving for the Zurich Film Festival.

Officials there are now waiting for an official extradition request from the United States, and Polanski’s attorneys are seeking bond to fight the extradition.

Nearly 31 years after he fled the United States, Polanski still has an outstanding warrant for his arrest and the 1977 rape case is still pending.

In 1993, Polanski agreed to pay Geimar the amount she was asking, but according to the AP, in December 1995, Geimar’s attorneys wrote in a court filing that the Hollywood director had failed to pay. With interest accruing, that would amount to more than $600,000.

The AP reports that the victim’s attorneys tried to solicit the help at the time of the Directors Guild of America, International Creative Management, Warner Bros. Inc. and Sony Studios.

It remains unclear if Polanski gave any money to Geimar and why the case was not pursued further.

In 1997, Geimar, who is now in her early 40s, began advocating that Polanski’s case should be dropped. Since then, she has continually said she forgives Polanski and does not want him to face further jail time.

Experts say it’s not unusual for victims in this type of a case to seek financial damages.

“There’s nothing illegal, believe it or not, the victim of the crime asking for money because there’s always a parrallel civil claim already attached to these things,” said ABC News legal analyst Dana Cole. “Frankly, it’s both expected and not frowned upon to reap some sort of financial settlement. [It] gives a victim some restitution, compensation, so there’s nothing inaprorpriate about that.”

And the settlement could be the reason why Geimar has forgiven Polanski and doesn’t want him to spend more time in jail, he said.

“I don’t think it’s unsual, when a financial settlement has been reached,” Cole said. “That again is part of the perhaps implied agreement between the parties. The civil claim.”

He added, “It’s sort of like … understanding between parties.”

Renewed Interest in Polanski’s Case

ABC News obtained transcripts of Geimer’s 1977 grand jury testimony, which resulted in six charges against Polanski. They include shocking details of 13-year-old Geimer testifying that the 43-year-old Polanski plied her with champagne and part of a Quaalude before performing oral, vaginal and anal intercourse on her, despite her demands to “keep away.”

A former Los Angeles prosecutor who worked on the case said he believes that if people knew all the details, they would have less sympathy for Polanski.

“It’s outrageous,” David Wells, a former assistant district attorney on the case, told ABCNews.com. “This pedophile raped a 13-year-old girl. It’s still an outrageous offense. It’s a good thing he was arrested. I wish it would have happened years before.”

According to Geimer’s testimony, Polanski first met Geimer at her home Feb. 13, 1977. Geimer said the director asked her mother if he could photograph her for French Vogue. She said her mother agreed to a private photo shoot, which Geimer told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in 2003 that she believed would help further her acting career.

The director returned nearly a week later to take Geimer for the photo shoot about a block from her home. Geimer said that at the top of a hill, Polanski asked her to change shirts, which she did in front of him.

Then, she said, he asked her to pose topless, which she also did, though she said she felt uncomfortable.

Girl Testified ‘It Got a Little Scary’ With Polanski

Geimer testified that she did not tell her mother about the topless photographs because she had planned to tell Polanski, “I don’t want to get any more pictures taken again.”

However, when Polanski turned up at her home March 10 for a second photo session, Geimer agreed to go with him. She had planned to ask him if she could bring along a friend, but said she felt he was rushing her to go.

Polanski took pictures of Geimer at someone else’s residence before they drove to Jack Nicholson’s home. There, events took a darker turn, as Geimer said Polanski loaded her with champagne, then asked her to pose topless again.

“We did photos with me drinking champagne,” Geimer later told “GMA.” “He was friendly and then right toward the end it got a little scary, and I realized, you know, he had some other intentions, and then I knew I was not where I should be. I just didn’t quite know how to get myself out of there.”

Geimer said the other intentions became clear after Polanski offered her part of a Quaalude, which she took, then asked her to get into a Jacuzzi without her underwear. He took pictures of her in the Jacuzzi naked, before taking off his clothes and joining her in the water, she said.

Geimer said she grew uncomfortable when he grabbed her around the waist and started to move her hips around. When she hopped out of the Jacuzzi and retreated to the bathroom, she said, Polanski followed her there and she told him she wanted to go home.

“Yeah, I’ll take you home soon,” he said, according to her testimony.

“No, I have to go home now,” Geimer said she told him.

Geimer testified that Polanski persuaded her to go to the bedroom and lie down. Geimer went, she said, but she sat on the couch in the bedroom. She described Polanski sitting next to her and reaching over to kiss her. Geimer said she told him, “No, keep away” and “Come on, let’s go home.”

He ignored her, she testified, then “went down and he started performing cuddliness (sic).”

When the district attorney asked Geimer what “cuddliness” meant, she clarified, “he placed his mouth on my vagina.”

“I was ready to cry,” she said. “I was going, ‘No. Come on. Stop it.’”

Polanski Asked Girl If She Was on Pill During Rape, Victim Testified

Instead, a few minutes later, Geimer said, Polanski began having intercourse with her, while asking her if she was on the pill and when her last period was.

She testified that he then asked, “Would you like me to go in through your back?” Then, he started performing anal sex on her.

At one point, Geimer said, there was a knock on the door. The Los Angeles Times reported that the woman was actress Anjelica Huston, Nicholson’s girlfriend at the time, but Geimer testified that she did not know who the woman was who was in the house.

According to Geimer, the woman who knocked on the door said, “Roman, are you in there?”

Polanski went to the door and opened it a crack to speak to the woman. Meanwhile, Geimer testified, she put her underwear back on and started toward the door.

When asked why she didn’t say anything to the woman, Geimer said, “I was still pretty much afraid of him [Polanski].” She added that he was her only way home.

Geimer testified that Polanski closed the door before she could reach it, took off her panties and began intercourse again. When he finally let up, she said, she went to the bathroom and put on her dress again.

On her way outside to the car to wait for Polanski, she said, she again saw the woman in the house, spoke with her, but didn’t tell her what had just happened.

Geimer said she began to cry in the car, and Polanski got in about 10 minutes later and drove her home.

“All hell broke loose” when her mom found out, Geimer told “GMA.”

“My sister overheard me telling my then-boyfriend what happened on the phone after I got home. So she went in and told my mom,” Geimer said in 2003.

Polanski was arrested the next day. He claimed that the sex was consensual. Geimer said it was not and that she resisted.

Huston later described the teen as “sullen” in a probation report prepared at the time of Polanski’s plea deal.

“She appeared to be one of those kind of little chicks between — could be any age up to 25. She did not look like a 13-year-old scared little thing,” Huston said..

Today, Hollywood is still rushing to Polanski’s defense. Directors Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and Woody Allen are among dozens in the film industry who have agreed to sign a petition calling for the immediate release of Polanski. In a British newspaper, film producer Harvey Weinstein, who has already signed the petition, called Polanski’s original plea deal a “miscarriage of justice.”

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