Polanski arrest: Lawyers just as surprised as everyone

By Matthew Belloni

Americans and Swiss are surely sleeping more soundly tonight knowing that 76-year-old director Roman Polanski is off the streets and sitting in jail. Three decades after his controversial trial in Los Angeles on charges of drugging and raping a 13-year old girl at Jack Nicholson's house, the law finally caught up with the now-elderly Polanski.   

But why now? Polanski has been in the land of army knives before and even owns a house there, according to some reports. It seems that the "Chinatown" and "Rosemary's Baby" director finally tipped his hand a little too much in agreeing to accept a lifetime achievement award from the Zurich Film Festival. Or perhaps he got a little cocky after the revelations in a recent HBO documentary led to his lawyers requesting that his trial be thrown out (that effort is currently on appeal in California).

Regardless, LA County law enforcement, which has been hot on his trail for years and nearly pulled the trigger on an arrest at least six times before backing out for various reasons, has finally got its man.

Now it's decision time for Polanski and his lawyers. Fight extradition or go willingly and take on the flawed verdict from a U.S. jail? They're not saying. At least not yet. We found it interesting that the arrest apparently caught Polanski's U.S. legal team by surprise.

"We were unaware of any extradition being sought and separate counsel will be retained for those proceedings,” wrote attorneys Douglas Dalton, Chad Hummel and Bart Dalton in a statement.

Georges Kiejman, Polanski's French lawyer, told the country's media that it was "too early to know" if Polanski would be extradited.

"The proceedings must take their course," he said on Sunday. "For now we are trying to have the arrest warrant lifted in Zurich."