LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles judge rejected Roman Polanski’s bid to end his long-running underage sex abuse case without the fugitive director appearing in court or being sentenced to more prison time.

Superior Court Judge Scott M. Gordon refused to address how Polanski would be sentenced if he returned to the U.S. after 40 years abroad. He noted that other courts, including a California appellate court, have ruled that the Oscar winner is a fugitive and must return to Los Angeles for sentencing.

Filmmaker Roman Polanski is shown at a 2015 extradition hearing on his case involving sex with a 13-year-old girl. Associated Press/Alik Keplicz

“There is no sufficient or compelling basis for reconsideration of these issues,” Gordon wrote.

Polanski was charged with six felonies in 1977 after he was accused of plying a 13-year-old girl with champagne and part of a sedative pill, then raping her at actor Jack Nicholson’s house.

Polanski pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, but he fled Los Angeles on the eve of sentencing in 1978. He has sought to resolve the case several times without personally appearing in court.

His travel has since been confined to three countries: his native France, Switzerland and Poland, where he fled the Holocaust. The victim has said she forgives the “Rosemary’s Baby” director and believes the case should end.

Polanski, 83, has long contended that he is the victim of judicial misconduct because a now-deceased judge who handled the case suggested in private remarks that he would renege on a plea bargain and sentencing agreement. It called for no more time behind bars for the director after he spent 42 days in a prison undergoing a diagnostic screening.

Polanski’s lawyer, Harland Braun, said Gordon’s order failed to address what he called the central issue in the case – misconduct by several previous judges who handled the case.

Related Stories