The Justice Department and Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office are squaring off against each other in a blame game over who is at fault for a mix-up over sealed transcripts Swiss officials requested in the Roman Polanski case, the Associated Press reported Thursday.
Roman Polanski (Getty Images)
The Swiss asked to see sealed testimony from the original prosecutor on the film director’s case. But the DOJ refused to provide the transcripts, leading to the decision by the Swiss not to extradite Polanski to the United States to stand trial in a decades-old unlawful sexual intercourse case.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office insists they were not told about the request, despite pledges from the DOJ to keep them abreast of case developments, according to the AP. The DOJ told the AP that they notified Los Angeles prosecutors about their decision not to release the sealed transcripts.
It is unlikely the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office would have agreed to give the Swiss the testimony since the prosecutors had previously been against unsealing the transcripts, according to the AP.
