Adding to the ever-growing pile of powerful men who just want everybody to chill out about their alleged rapes already, all right?, jeeze, come on, relax, celebrity lawyer Alan M. Dershowitz has filed a motion asking permission to represent Roman Polanski in an effort to close his ol' statutory rape case.

If you need a refresher, Roman Polanski was charged in 1978 with the drugging and raping of 13-year-old Samantha Geimer (née Gailey) the year before. He was convicted on five charges and, accepting a plea bargain, pled guilty to one: engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse. As part of the plea deal, Polanski reported to a state prison for a 42-day psychiatric evaluation. Before he was sentenced, the director and rapist fled to France and has since successfully avoided extradition.

Though he's been able to avoid it, the threat of extradition stills hangs over his head, the poor thing. But why attempt to close the case now? So Polanski can safely shoot a new movie in Poland, of course! It all comes back to his art, and how his wonderful, beautiful art is more important than human women. The New York Times reports the film is about "an Alsatian Jew, Alfred Dreyfus, who in the late 19th century was accused of passing military secrets to Germany." However, traveling to Poland might put the great artist's career at risk:

But to shoot in Poland, Mr. Polanski and his backers have said, would require assurance by the Polish authorities that he would not be subject to extradition.

So this is where Dershowitz's grand move comes in. The Times reports Dershowitz's motion seeks both to end the threat of extradition and obtain an evidentiary hearing to determine whether evidence in Polanski's latest extradition attempt contained false information:

The new filing says that the recent extradition request falsely characterized Mr. Polanski as a "continuing flight risk" — it points out that he appeared voluntarily for questioning by the Polish authorities — and, the filing says, "deliberately omitted the fact that Polanski has already served the term of imprisonment imposed by the trial judge. "In a statement, reports the Times, Mr. Dershowitz said Polanski "has taken responsibility for his actions, served his sentence, and a remedy should now by fashioned by the court once and for all."

The filing also claims Judge Peter Espinoza, Superior Court judge in 2009, had a plan to briefly jail Polanski:

Mr. Parachini's affidavit also repeated his claim, published last year in The Los Angeles Daily Journal, that Judge Espinoza had expressed willingness to limit Mr. Polanski's sentence to the time he had spent in prison. But, Mr. Parachini wrote, the judge had decided first to let Mr. Polanski "cool his heels in jail" by delaying that ruling for weeks should he return.

According to the Times, Dershowitz said, in a statement, Polanski "has taken responsibility for his actions, served his sentence, and a remedy should now by fashioned by the court once and for all."

Seems like Roman Polanski really wishes this rape didn't happen!

[image via Getty]