“Because I was afraid of him.”
October 1, 2009
by The New Agenda
|The following is an excerpt from an article in The Smoking Gun which details testimony in the 1977 case of The People of the State of California vs. Roman Raymond Polanski. Trial transcripts can also be found here.
Two weeks after Polanski plied her with Champagne and a Quaalude, Samantha Gailey appeared before an L.A. grand jury and recalled Polanski’s predatory behavior in a Mulholland Canyon home owned by Jack Nicholson.
The teenager’s troubling–and contemporaneous–account of her abuse at Polanski’s hands begins with her posing twice for topless photos that the director said were for French Vogue. The girl then told prosecutors how Polanski directed her to, “Take off your underwear” and enter the Jacuzzi, where he photographed her naked. Soon, the director, who was then 43, joined her in the hot tub. He also wasn’t wearing any clothes and, according to Gailey’s testimony, wrapped his hands around the child’s waist.
The girl testified that she left the Jacuzzi and entered a bedroom in Nicholson’s home, where Polanski sat down beside her and kissed the teen, despite her demands that he “keep away.” According to Gailey, Polanski then performed a sex act on her and later “started to have intercourse with me.” At one point, according to Gailey’s testimony, Polanski asked the 13-year-old if she was “on the pill,” and “When did you last have your period?” Polanski then asked her, Gailey recalled, “Would you want me to go in through your back?” before he “put his penis in my butt.” Asked why she did not more forcefully resist Polanski, the teenager told Deputy D.A. Roger Gunson, “Because I was afraid of him.”
Sign our petition JAIL POLANSKI here.
Polanski is a rapist. A horrible, disgusting, creepy, rapist who escaped justice much like many other rapists do.
What concerns me is that we need to stand with the victim, to at least recognize what this case has done to her. Polanski took her choices away all those years ago, and when charges were filed back then the media and the system raped her all over again. She was under constant attack, called names, a lolita, accused of seducing him. People rallied around Polanski as if he were the victim, much like some idiots are doing today. Once again, today, the system is taking away her choices, she has filed papers asking the case to be dismissed, she has stated repeatedly that she does not want to rehash this case. It’s been more than 30 yrs, she has built a life for herself and this case is going to totally destroy that for her. Most likely she and her family will have to go into hiding to avoid the press. Likely she’ll have to give up her job, her friends, her neighborhood. Possibly she’ll get threats. Definitely her character will be attacked in the media.
So I understand people’s need for justice, their frustration with the fact that this man got away with something horrible. Still, I want people to understand that this case is about a very real woman, one who most likely will suffer more from having this case rehashed then Polanski ever will.
I’ll never forget the New conference on VAW – one of the speakers said that feminism needs to go viral. She was right! This petition is a step in the right direction.
Let’s get this out there… link to this petition at the blogs you frequent and email this to your friends and family. Facebook it. Twitter it. Link to this at your blog. ALOT OF EVERY DAY PEOPLE are seriously pissed about this. This has every chance of going completely viral.
Great plan Alison.
Please all pitch in and spread this around through comments, Twitter, Facebook, your email address book, etc.
Let’s get tens of thousands of signatures to show them!
I signed and I’ll be passing links.
But could you have a good link to the actual petition? Right now it just goe sto the new agenda home.
I read yttik’s comment and signed the petition despite recognizing the merits of her comment. I can despise Roman Polanski, boycott those Hollywood persons who support him, and believe Gailey wants very much to leave everything connected with Polanski behind. I hate having Gailey have to revisit all of the experience again.
Maybe it would be better for Gailey if Whoopie Goldberg and the rest of Polanski’s supporters shifted their allegience to Polanski over to Gailey.
My name disappeared from the petition? Is it getting overwritten?
My name disappeared, too.
We had it set up such that only the most recent 10 signatures appear. We’ve now included all – but as we get hundreds may need to change that.
IMPORTANT – ONCE YOU SIGN, THE PETITION GENERATES A CONFIRMATION EMAIL AND YOU MUST CLICK ON THE LINK IN THAT EMAIL FOR YOUR NAME TO SHOW AND FOR YOU TO BE AN OFFICIAL SIGNATORY.
I haven’t received the confirmation email yet. Should it happen instantaneously?
I’ve just added a note re. this petition to the Put Polanski in Prison blog, at http://polanskiprison.blogspot.com/
Hmmmm… I just tried again under a different email and I still haven’t gotten the confirmation email….
Alison – that’s weird – just resend you a confirm – it comes from The New Agenda.
Thank you Kell!
Great idea! I will be going viral with this! Thank you!
Don’t send the wrong message to rapists. Polanski is not a victim. He is a rapist. He is not above the law and must pay for his crime-celebrity director or not…
I’m very concerned about the way both sides are totally disregarding the wishes of the victim in this case. She has requested that we let it go and I, for one, am going to honor her wishes. Rape is wrong and the courts will decide what to do with him. I think the rest of us should stay out of it or expend our energies on raising awareness of the issue as it impacts women and girls today.
I still haven’t received my confirmation email.
I am dying to sign this petition. Thank You for giving me this opportunity
I am so triggered by this whole issue. I remember being a little girl, being raped, and being treated as if the grown man who raped me was the only one worth protecting (of course, the adults were also protecting their own social status and financial security).
I very much want my name on this petition.
For me, it would be very healing. And for how many others as well…
i got my confirmation email in the spam folder. so please check.
re: Yttik’s comment. I think they are valid, but we need to show our support to the victim by other means than letting this rapist get away. if the rational attacking the victim over again gives rapists a free way out, we have accepted the status quo. every rape destroys the victim and sends a very loud message of utter disrespect of all women. I remember in the 70ies in Germany our fight against criminalizing women who had an abortion. about 100 famous women went public claiming that they had had abortions. if 100 famous actresses went into public and claimed they had been raped without giving any more details,it might take the noise down from a single high profile case.
some of the current myths on rape still include: rape would have something to do with promiscuity, then since sex = fun that there could not be anything like rape, i.e. the victims enjoy it but just for their parents say that is was rape, and many other myths regarding limitations of that crime to certain locals, age groups and bad behavior of the victim.
we need to continue what Secretary Clinton started at the UN and break the silence. like the first wave: marches, boycotts, signature lists, brainstorming blogs how we can support the victims in high profile cases. as bad as rape is and as mcuh as we want to conceal the evidence of such uglyness and how painful every second of a memory is, but we all need to get the evidence out under the rug of collective silence.
my daughter signed but never got the confirmation email.
i found out her spam folder was set to throw spam out immediately. I changed the setting. but the first confirmation email was thrown out.
but since she already used the email address for signing she cannot sign again.
is there a chance you change your settings that people can change the spam setting and resign?
Marille,
Have her try to re-sign it. If that doesn’t work, you can email me her address and i will have someone track down her entry and resend a confirm
we did re-sign and got the message: somebody already tried to use your email.
please resend the confirmation email to herrmannfranziska@yahoo.com
thanks
Marille, we just resent it to that email address
[...] help JAIL POLANSKI. The New Agenda invites you to join us in sending a loud and clear message that CHILD RAPE IS WRONG AND PERPETRATORS SHOULD BE PUNISHED. We are asking organizations, blogs and individuals to [...]
[...] help JAIL POLANSKI. The New Agenda invites you to join us in sending a loud and clear message that CHILD RAPE IS WRONG AND PERPETRATORS SHOULD BE PUNISHED. We are asking organizations, blogs and individuals to [...]
I read the original court transcript and it more horrifying than I had thought possible. The Smoking Gun blog (“www.smokinggun.com”) has the full transcript posted. It is raw and shocking; but it contains insights and statements by the young girl that make Polanski not just another ‘child rapist’ but a monster who belongs in a 2×4 cell for the rest of his wretched life. No parole.
The questions you might have reading the transcript is: How did the girl’s Hollywood mother ever allow her to attend with Polanski for a photo shoot at Jack Nicholson’s home? The mother was starstruck and was an ‘enabler” as far as I am concerned. She contributed to delivering her daughter like Pizza to an “artist” who drove her to another HOllywood buddy’s mansion. Perhaps Polanski lied to the mother as to who would be there. But still, why did this woman not accompany her daughter? Polanski had planned this child rape all along and it is obvious from the transcript.
I am horrified that Whoopie feels this was just a child rape. Not a “rape-rape”. And this moronic woman was on the View defending Polanski! The other 3 women were far more realistic and did not appear to live in HOllywood’s fantasy land like Whoopie. Now I understand why her mentor Speilberg was so embarrassed by her when she hosted the Oscars (she used language that was way over the top even for HOllywood!) and of course she never got invited back to host the Oscars! What’s wrong with Hollywood celebs? Do they live in another world? John Phillips’ daughter would tell you, “yes”!
I am getting a lot of friends to sign the great Petition here in New Agenda! And I am glad PROTECT.org is around to protect kids from being treated like chattel. They’ve done phenomenal work on behalf of sexually abused kids and managed to change the legislation in many states so that incest-perps actually end up in jail, not just “Family Therapy” as they used to! Andrew Vacshs has done a great prosecutorial job on this. And I believe that California (we believe it!) is one of the ‘resistant’ states for the new tough legislation proposed.
Give poor child-rapist Polanski a break. Away from all this. Put him in a 2×4 cell. Throw the key away. And pour cement over the window and around the door. He has no right to “fatherhood”. Castration, no rehabilitation for these monsters.
I recently received a video “Searching for Angela Shelton” and it is an excellent way to help young women who’ve been through the pain of child sexual abuse. This girl named Angela Shelton has gone *public* with her trauma and has triumphed! She searched for girls with the same name as hers throughout the States and found hundreds who had been similarly abused. Phenomenal and Empowering. (I read the great comment above about German women and having 100 famous women step on the stage and proclaim their truths!)….
Angela Sheltons are all over. But I noticed that since Hillary’s nomination last year, more and more girls and women are coming ‘out’ and telling their stories loud enough to be heard!
The New Agenda should be congratulated for having the intelligence and guts to promote ALL girls and women, regardless of their political affiliation or other phony divisions that have kept women separate and apart from the real power in this culturally (genderically) unbalanced society we live in.
[...] New Agenda wrote extensively last October about Polanski’s rape of a 13 year-old girl. Hollywood showed up to defend their ‘above the law’ colleague – Whoopi even went [...]
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