Polanski's a victim of L.A. court's judicial misconduct, says documentary

Washington, Feb 20 (ANI): In a new twist to film director Roman Polanski's case, a documentary made last year said that he was the victim of judicial misconduct in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Marina Zenovich's highly praised HBO documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, released in June 2008, and suggested that the court played an unusually aggressive role in defending itself and in attacking the director at every turn, reports Fox News.

The emails, which had all been generated by the court's chief press officer Allan Parachini, contained some of the most aggressive flackery seen in some time as the court went into overdrive to protect itself against a perceived threat by Zenovich.

Parachini had sent most of the emails in June 2008, right after the documentary debuted at the Cannes Film Festival and just before it was shown on HBO.

At the heart of Parachini's campaign was an assertion by Zenovich, backed up by Polanski's lawyer Douglas Dalton and Roger Gunson, a former assistant DA in the Los Angeles Superior Court.

That assertion was: in 1997, twenty years after Polanski split for France, Judge Larry Fidler told the two lawyers that Polanski could only return to the U.S. for a hearing if it were televised. Polanski declined the offer.

Zenovich ended her film with this statement. Parachini jumped on it, and demanded it be removed before the HBO airing.

He claimed in a media advisory and dozens of emails to media writers that the statement was a "fabrication".

A series of emails sent by him to various media outlets, not only chronicles his efforts to have the statement changed, but his gloating when it was accomplished. (ANI)