Roman Polanski is 81 years old. For almost half his life he has been unable to set foot in the United States because of a conviction on charges of raping an underage girl.

Roman Polanski is highly regarded as a filmmaker. Even though he can not work in the United States, many actors come to him to work on projects.

Roman Polanski’s victim, a 13-year-old girl who is now 51 years old herself, wrote a book about her experience and her unwillingness to let her life be defined by the incident. The book was called The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski. The Amazon description of the book by Samantha Geimer tells the tale of the incident:

“March 1977, Southern California. Roman Polanski drives a rented Mercedes along Mulholland Drive to Jack Nicholson’s house. Sitting next to him is an aspiring actress, Samantha Geimer, recently arrived from York, Pennsylvania. She is thirteen years old.

“The undisputed facts of what happened in the following hours appear in the court record: Polanski spent hours taking pictures of Samantha—on a deck overlooking the Hollywood Hills, on a kitchen counter, topless in a Jacuzzi. Wine and Quaaludes were consumed, balance and innocence were lost, and a young girl’s life was altered forever—eternally cast as a background player in her own story.

“For months on end, the Polanski case dominated the media in the United States and abroad. But even with the extensive coverage, much about that day—and the girl at the center of it all—remains a mystery. Just about everyone had an opinion about the renowned director and the girl he was accused of drugging and raping. Who was the predator? Who was the prey? Was the girl an innocent victim or a cunning Lolita artfully directed by her ambitious stage mother? How could the criminal justice system have failed all the parties concerned in such a spectacular fashion? Once Polanski fled the country, what became of Samantha, the young girl forever associated with one of Hollywood’s most notorious episodes? Samantha, as much as Polanski, has been a fugitive since the events of that night more than thirty years ago.”

Now Samantha Geimer is announcing to the world that she actually forgives Roman Polanski.

“I have absolutely forgiven [Polanski],” Samantha, 51, told The National Enquirer. “I feel like he owned up to what he did. He pleaded guilty and served his sentence and, although he fled, he was fleeing a corrupt and unethical judge. If they subpoenaed me, I’d have to appear, but I wouldn’t otherwise cooperate in any prosecution of Roman Polanski.”

Polanski has recently tried to get a new trial in the case, but that has been denied.