Mary Strobel: Last News

Dominic Patten Senior Editor, Legal & TV CriticRoman Polanski won’t be voting on the winners for the 93rd Academy Awards, a California judge decided Tuesday.At a downtown hearing this morning, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mary Strobel concluded that the disgraced Oscar winner had been given more than enough of a heads up by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2018 before the organization tossed out the longtime member.As long hidden or accepted cases of sexual harassment and sexual assault were exposed in late 2017 and early 2018, Polanski was expelled for violating the AMPAS’ Code of Conduct with his rape of a 13-year-old girl in the 1970s and flight to Europe to escape American justice.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media WriterA judge on Tuesday denied Roman Polanski’s request to be reinstated to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, finding that the organization behind the Oscars had a right to expel him in May 2018.Polanski sued the Academy in April 2019, alleging that he had been thrown out without any warning and without a fair process. Polanski fled the United States in 1978, after pleading guilty to the rape of a 13-year-old girl.