Roman Polanski's 37-Year-Old Sex Assault Case Not Dismissed: ''He Openly Stands in an Attitude of Contempt,'' Judge Writes

Oscar-winning director fled the United States in 1978 and never returned for fear that a plea deal would not be honored and he's have to serve more jail time

The 2014 sequel to Roman Polanski's 2008 bid to have his decades-old sexual assault case dismissed had the same ending.

A Los Angeles judge has denied the 81-year-old filmmaker's bid (via his attorneys, of course, since Polanski hasn't set foot in the United States since 1978) for an evidentiary hearing to explore allegations of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct in the handling of his now 37-year-old case in hopes it would lead to a full dismissal.

The Rosemary's Baby director pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful intercourse with a minor for forcing himself on then 13-year-old Samantha Gailey in the spring of 1977.

He was sentenced to a 90-day evaluation in state prison and was released after 42 days after it was recommended that he needed no further incarceration. Judge Laurence Rittenband, who was presiding over the case, then said that he wanted Polanski to return to prison for another 48 days—and Polanski fled the country in January 1978 and never came back.

Allegations of judicial misconduct were explored in the 2008 documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired; the since-retired prosecutors who worked on the case said that Rittenband, who died in 1993, had initially meant for the evaluation to be Polanski's sentence but then changed his mind.

Polanski spend roughly six months under house arrest in Switzerland while authorities attempted to secure his extradition back to California, but he was released in July 2010. The director, who won an Oscar in absentia for The Pianist in TK, was also briefly questioned by Polish authorities in October while in Warsaw for the opening of the Museum of the History of the Polish Jews, purportedly at the request of another extradition request from the U.S. Department of Justice.

His now 52-year-old victim, whose married name is Samantha Geimer, has publicly supported the dismissal of the case, saying that she's just as eager to put it behind her. She released a memoir last year, The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski.

"I'm 100 percent behind him, and I'd testify at a hearing on his behalf," Geimer told the Los Angeles Times last week. "I feel the D.A. should investigate their own misconduct. But I'm not hopeful the L.A. courts or D.A.'s office will do the right thing now."

"Polanski is not entitled to avail himself of this court's power to hear his demands while he openly stands in an attitude of contempt of a legal order from this very court,"  wrote L.A. Superior Court Judge James R. Brandlin in dismissing the bid for an evidentiary hearing today.

L.A. County District Attorney Steve Cooley said that Polanski "has to surrender himself to the court. Until then, it's a dead letter."