Variety’s Gene Maddaus has posted a 7.18.22 article that summarizes recently unsealed 2010 transcripts about the decades-simmering Roman Polanski case, and more particularly the critical views of retired prosecutor Roger Gunson.
The gist is that 12 years ago Gunson believed that Judge Lawrence Rittenbrand (now deceased) was a bad apple who had rashly reneged on a plea deal with Polanski’s attorneys.
Is there anything new in these transcripts? Not if you’ve seen Marina Zenovich’s Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (‘08) and her follow up doc, Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out (‘12). The whole Gunson critique and the Rittenbrand history is contained, explained and examined every which way.
The long and the short is that the facts about Rittenbrand’s mishandling of this case have been available for well over a decade and damn near 15 years. It was mainly a matter of watching the first Zenovich doc; the second was dessert.
