The US Film Academy expelled Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski
The famous American television presenter Bill Cosby and the Oscar-winning director, Roman Polanski, have been expelled from the Hollywood Academy, the institution reported Thursday in a statement. The Academy of Sciences and the Cinematographic Arts of Hollywood has announced in a note that, after a voting, it has decided to expel them for not fulfilling the norms of conduct of the organization.
"The board continues to promote ethical standards that require its members to respect the Academy's values of respect for human dignity." The decision, taken by the members of the Board of Governors of the entity, comes a few days after the American comedian was convicted of three crimes of sexual assault. Cosby, icon of the popular culture of the USA, was declared last April 26 guilty of three crimes of sexual aggression, in a trial loaded with symbolism, the first for a famous character since the emergence of the movement 'Me too'.
The offenses for which the actor was convicted are penetration without consent, penetration while unconscious and penetration after the supply of a narcotic drug. More than 60 women have accused Bill Cosby of sexually abusing them between the years 1960 and 2000, although those cases did not prosper because they had prescribed and only the judgment has been brought to trial today, due to the accusations of the Canadian Andrea Costand.
Polanski, meanwhile, is accused in the United States of having raped in 1977 Samantha Geimer, who was 13 years old at the time of the fact, although the woman for years says she has forgiven the director and wants to close the case. Subsequently, other accusations of women against the filmmaker have appeared, such as that of Marianne Barnard, who claimed that she was sexually harassed by the filmmaker during a photographic session in which the filmmaker portrayed her naked.
Last August, another woman, identified as Robin M., publicly denounced in Los Angeles that Polanski abused her in 1973 when she was a 16-year-old teenager. In 2010, it was Charlotte Lewis who charged the director for abuses. The director pleaded guilty in Geimer's case, but fled to Europe before receiving his conviction. Polanski, 84, presented last year a series of documents to return to the United States and close the case without having to go through prison, but a judge in Los Angeles rejected his proposal.
The Hollywood Academy has only expelled four people in its 91-year history. The most recent until this Thursday was producer Harvey Weinstein, whom the organization cast on October 14, shortly after multiple accusations of sexual harassment and abuse against him came to light. From Los Angeles, BBC World correspondent Beatriz Díez points out that, since the outbreak of the Weinstein scandal, numerous voices had demanded that the Academy take action on Cosby and Polanski. The guilty verdict against Bill Cosby for sexual assault a week ago seems to have accelerated the decision.
Carmine Caridi joins Weinstein, Cosby and Polanski, whom the organization threw in 2004 after he sent confidential and unpublished videos of a film to a friend. These images ended up published on the Internet. Even its president, John Bailey, was investigated in March by the board of governors after being subjected to several allegations of sexual harassment.
The film organization opened an internal investigation and closed it weeks later rejecting the accusations and exonerating the director of photography. Last December the Academy approved a code of conduct that would eliminate any sexual or power abuse among its members. The decision came just two months after the expulsion of Harvey Weinstein from their ranks.