Roman Polanski fears media like plague: attorney

Roman Polanski unleashed a slew of lawsuits against print publications that ran photographs of himself and his family.

His lawyer in the suits, Marion Gregoire, declared the French-Polish fugitive of the US fears the media “like the plague”.

Polanski and his wife, Emmanuelle Seigner, are suing four French publications, two newspapers and two magazines for a total of about 150,000 euros ($217,000).

Polanski is under house arrest in Switzerland after providing a $4.5million cash bail to Zurich authorities that nabbed him attending a film festival last September. He is wanted in Los Angeles to answer to charges he had sex with a minor in 1977.

Polanski’s children, Elvis and Morgane, were allegedly in the photos. French law protects minors from being shown in the media. “The legal case against Polanski in no way justifies the paparazzi’s stalking of his wife and children,” Gregoire said.

Gregoire argued that Le Journal du Dimanche weekly newspaper should pay damages of 10,000 euros for a photo of Polanski at a window. Christophe Bigot, a lawyer for the newspaper, held up a photo of a mass of photographers outside Polanski’s chalet soon after his house arrest. He said: “Can you seriously claim in this context that if you stand at the window you won’t get your picture taken?”