Polanski loses bid to shift his ’77 child sex case out of L.A.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge turned aside fugitive filmmaker Roman Polanski’s request to have another jurisdiction handle his attempt to have a 31-year-old child sex case dismissed.

In a nine-page order Friday, Judge Peter Espinoza said the Academy Award-winning director had not shown any grounds to disqualify him or the entire court, which, he noted, includes 600 judicial officers working in 50 courthouses.

Espinoza, the supervising judge of the criminal division, is set to preside over a Jan. 21 hearing in which Polanski’s lawyers will argue that the sex charge should be dismissed.

Polanski’s attorneys say a spokesman tainted the case when he said the court’s long-standing position was that the director, now 75 and living in France, had to return to the U.S. to settle the case.

But in his ruling, Espinoza said the spokesman was conveying the judge’s own understanding of the case’s current state. “I did advise him that I was unaware of anything in the record that changed the outstanding arrest warrant that required the defendant to be present in court,” he wrote.

The judge wrote that despite that view he “had not yet decided” how the law cited by Polanski’s lawyers and prosecutors, who oppose his request, applied.

Polanski pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawful intercourse with a minor, a 13-year-old girl, in 1977, but fled the country before sentencing.

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harriet.ryan@latimes.com