Los Angeles prosecutors say there’s nothing they can do with a woman’s claim she was molested by director Roman Polanski in 1975.
In a charge evaluation worksheet released Monday, Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Michele Hanisee said the case was simply too old.
“Offense date is outside applicable statute of limitations,” she wrote in the worksheet signed last month.
The worksheet did not name the alleged victim, but Los Angeles police previously confirmed they were investigating a claim Polanski molested a 10-year-old girl on a Malibu beach in 1975.
The alleged victim, Marianne Barnard, went public with her story in October as she launched an online petition calling for Polanski’s ouster from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
An artist from Santa Barbara, Barnard said on Facebook she was hopeful law enforcement could do something with her claim.
“Los Angeles D.A. has ways of finding loopholes and there’s the pesky issue of ‘potential’ #childsextrafficking which has no statute of limitations,” she previously wrote on her Facebook page.
Polanski’s U.S. lawyer Harland Braun said Monday the decision from prosecutors was expected.
He said his office remained committed to investigating the claim to put it to rest.
“We really want to get to the bottom of it. We’re more interested in the merits. We’re still going to work on it,” he said.
In a Facebook post last month, Barnard accused Braun’s office of trying to intimidate her with the private probe.
She said the “bully tactics” were meant to harass her and “silence Polanski’s victims who haven’t spoken out yet at all.”
Polanski, 84, has been a fugitive since he fled to France in 1978 shortly before his sentencing in the molestation case of 13-year-old victim Samantha Geimer.
Polanski has now been publicly accused of sexually abusing five teenagers.
Speaking to The News last year, Geimer said she forgave the Oscar winner.
“What Roman did to me was a bad thing. He’s sorry, he admitted he did it, he’s forgiven. It was a long time ago. People make mistakes,” Geimer told The News.
Barnard’s online petition, meanwhile, had more than 20,400 supporters as of Monday night.
“We can no longer be silent and allow this man who sexually assaulted little girls to enjoy fame, recognition or an honored place in history,” she said in the petition summary.
