Roman Polanski Threatens To Sue Academy For Booting Him

HOLLYWOOD, CA — Roman Polanski is used to exile, but one thing the fugitive Oscar-winning director can't abide, is failure to follow protocol. In an unexpected twist in Polanski's legal saga, an attorney for the convicted child molester threatened to sue the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences this week for failing to follow proper procedure when its board voted to expel Polanski along with convicted rapist Bill Cosby.

In a letter sent to the Academy Tuesday, attorney Harland Braun alleged that the Academy failed to follow both its own rules and broke the law. The Academy should have given the Oscar-winning director a chance to present his own case, Braun claimed, according to the Los Angeles Times. Braun demanded Polanski be granted a hearing.

"We are not here contesting the merits of the expulsion decision, but rather your organization's blatant disregard of its own Standards of Conduct in, as well as its violations of the standards required by California Corporations Code," Braun wrote.

"The only thing we're asking for is a hearing, a chance to present his side," Braun told The Times in an interview. "What I would hope is that (the academy's legal counsel) would say, `Let's avoid an expensive lawsuit. Let's just start over. We'll rescind the expulsion and we'll put him on notice that we're thinking of expelling him and we'll give you the opportunity to present your case.' That's the only rational thing. Otherwise, we've got to go to court and get a judge to rule that the academy has to follow its own rules, which should be a no-brainer."

There was no immediate response from the Academy.

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However, it's not clear where such a hearing would take place since Polanski would likely be arrested should he set foot on U.S. soil. Polanski has been a fugitive since his 1977 rape of a young girl. Polanski pleaded guilty in 1977 to unlawful sex with a minor, then-13- year-old Samantha Geimer, but fled before he could be sentenced. Since fleeing the country, he has been living in exile in Europe for the past four decades and is considered a fugitive by the U.S. criminal justice system. A second woman last year accused him of molesting her in Pacific Palisades when she was 10 years old in 1975.

Citing the organization's standards of conduct, the Academy's Board of Governors, which includes such industry heavyweights as Tom Hanks, Kathleen Kennedy and Steven Spielberg, voted to expel Polanski and Cosby. They are only the third and fourth members of the Academy to ever be expelled.

"The board continues to encourage ethical standards that require members to uphold the Academy's values of respect for human dignity," according to the Academy.

The unceremonious expulsion marks the paradigm shift brought about by the #MeToo movement. It comes less than a decade after 100 of the world's most prestigious filmmakers signed a petition urging Polanski's release from a Swiss jail after he was briefly arrested on a fugitive warrant for having sex with a 13-year-old girl, and many years after Cosby admitted under oath to drugging women in order to have sex with them. The rare expulsion signals a reckoning for an industry famed for looking the other way in matters of sexual abuse.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.

Photo: Emmanuelle Seigner and Roman Polanski attends the 'D'apres une histoire vraie' premiere at the 13th Zurich Film Festival on October 2, 2017 in Zurich, Switzerland. The Zurich Film Festival 2017 will take place from September 28 until October 8. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)