The publicity that always surrounds rape victims of prominent people is never pleasant. In Samantha Gailey Geimer's case, that unpleasantness has been doubled.
In 1977, the then 13-year-old Samantha Gailey testified before a Los Angeles grand jury that movie director Roman Polanski had plied her with champagne and quaaludes, talked her into removing her clothes in a hot tub, and then had sexual relations with her against her will.
Polanski's defense was that it was part of a blackmail plot hatched by Gailey's mother Susan, an actress. Samantha was just embarking on a modeling career, and Polanski approached her through an assignment as a freelance photographer for the French edition of Vogue. Earlier, he had taken topless photographs of her in the woods behind her house.
The fact that the hot tub incident happened at Jack Nicholson's home on Mulholland Drive provided even more enticement for the paparazzi. Polanski was brought to trial, but cut a plea bargain that allowed him to plead guilty to statuatory rape.
The director then spent more than a month undergoing a psychiatrc evaluation, but fled to France when he became concerned that the judge in the case might not honor the plea bargain, which spared Polanski any prison time.
The case had been long-forgotten, and Samantha Gailey had finished her modeling career, married and started a family when she suddenly found herself once again in the rude glare of the spotlight.
In September of 2009, Polanski was arrested in Zurich while receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award. This prompted indignation from the close-knit Hollywood community, a quick backlash from women's rights advocates, and renewed interest in the woman who now called herself Samantha Geimer.
For her part, Geimer seemed inclined to have the whole case go away.
"It was a terrible thing to have done to a young girl," she said. "He (Polanski) robbed me of my innocence. But it was a very long time ago."
It was in 2005, Geimer said, that she finally decided to "stop obsessing" about her treatment at the hands of Polanski and move on with her life. |