He was already found guilty. You can't "drop charges" after a guilty verdict. You can vacate the verdict, I suppose, but that's not what he was arrested for.

He was arrested for jumping bail. That is a crime against the state, not against the victim of the rape. The state holds all the cards in this one.

The above letter is correct. Sadly, the victim is asking for the wrong people to end this. it's not about the underlying conviction anymore, it's about a bail jumper who refused to serve his sentence. It must seem like that to her, obviously. She wants it all to stop. One person can make it stop, could have made it stop all along. Courts can't decide to let rich fugitive convicted rapists who have failed to appear for sentencing off the hook if they have made life sufficiently hellish for their victims. I want Polanski to be honorable for once and end this, so maybe this poor woman will stop asking the authorities for what only he can give.

Is that it?

Her wishes should not have any part. She plead guilty. What is needed is simple justice. And the courts aren't harassing her - the media is - and they will continue, even, or especially, if the charges were to be dropped.

To set the precedent that you can rape a child, then harass her, either directly, through sycophants, fans, friends, media, whatever, to the point where she just wants it all to go away, and you can get away with rape is a horrible precedent to set.

Nice to see that he's still just as much of a worthless, twisted piece of excrement as he has always been. And still people keep listening, and even publishing his rambling idiocy. Wow.

The victim has on her own come forward several times. No one forced her to. The question is whether her family was given extra financial incentive to "forgive and forget" at the time, so that she feels she should keep to a prearranged agreement. That is what it appears, but difficult to know, and woman's actions are inconsistant. Gore Vidal and others who make light of Polanski's crime, are probably sympathizing because of their own similar transgressions and contempt for their sexual prey. The movie industry's producer petition is telling. What job title would be most closely associated with taking sexual advantage of girls, women and boys than that of producer/director?

While I agree that it is a shame for this woman to be put through the wringer again, possibly at the expense of her job and already her dignity... The justice system cannot put aside verdicts and punishments because the victim forgives them or because the victim has a change of heart. The precedent here is oh so dangerous. I can see MEW taking the exact opposite stance in a similar stance if the offender were someone else, and that is the most unacceptable part, different justice for different people, which is funny because that's kind of what she is railing about...

How in fact is she having to “contend with the very public and high profile support her rapist has received” when she agrees with them? One could arguably say she’s been “bolstered” or “supported” by the fact that such a large number of famous, potentially influential people agree with her. Nothing suggests she sees the support for Polanski as an attack on her, or a furthering of her suffering (I don't think we can take Vidal's comments as typical of what the Hollywood elite has expressed). Not one word she has spoken suggests it.

And by the way, her reasons are not remotely “tough to fathom.” Only for those who, rather than looking at these particular people and their interaction, and choose instead to view this as a stereotyical rape scenario in which the allleged rapist is identical to every other rapist, and the alleged victim is no different than any other victim—in other words, only those who approach this story with an agenda and a pre-ordained scrpt—are likely to find her response surprising. When you step outside of the ideological box, when you look at their contact since that time, and when you look at what their lives have been since that time, her response becomes quite easy to fathom.

It must have been a wet dream for Salon, though, that they could once more disregard this woman’s pain, while hypocritically claiming to feel for her, lambast Polanski yet again, and even drop Gore Vidal in as the cherry on top. I bet they sat around the office sharing a cigarette after the story was posted.

It's possible the 'so called victem' who not a young girl but a young woman knows the truth. Why can't all you just leave her alone. Does she have to become the star of everyone's victem mentality, reality show?

This generation of telling all on TV is obnoxious. Some people like their privavcy.

I suggest you read the papers from that time period. Yes, Polanski admitted having sex with her, not knowing she was 6 months shy of age of consent. I'm not sure he admitted rape. If she consented it's a pretty gray area. Considering the circumstances this woman may now understand she may have been more a victim of her mother's ambitions, and just maybe she understands what some of you just don't get.

I can't imagine what it would be like to have to listen to the outpouring of hate this woman has faced for having had the gall to not be thrilled that she was raped by Polanski as a child.

But the folks calling for the charges to be dropped at HER request is barking up the wrong tree.

How about, LEAVE HER ALONE !

How hard is that ? How about calls for the media to stop assaulting her stop repeating the attack, stop making her the front and center of this case?

The man pled guilty, and fled the country. The victim should no longer be the subject of ANYONE's harassment - he pled GUILTY.

Then took off because he suspected that he might have to actually do time for raping a child. ow he faces having to return to this country and actually go before a judge and not only do the time that the laws of that era compell of him (any leniency he might have bargained for was lost when he fled) but also the time for the additional crimes of having been on the run from justice.

There is NO call in any of this to pester the woman who wants to be left out of the whole thing. So, again I ask?

Why not just LEAVE HER ALONE???