Chapter 5. Liar, Liar, Panties on Fire!

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Yes, panties. We'll have to talk about them.

We alreadyknow from the Grand Jury transcripts that Lee Edward Mann, a criminalist assigned to the Scientific Investigation Division of the LAPD, and Dr.Larson both testified that the stain of semen left on the panties the family had given to the police belonged to a sterile man. Their testimonies are quite unambiguous. The man who left his stain on her panties was unable to have children, a condition that could be, for example, a result of vasectomy.

I repeat once again, in even plainer words: the experts testified that the stain was left by someone who was not Polanski.

What course of events could have lead to a third party’s semen appearing on Samantha’s panties? There a only a few versions, and they are all very unfortunate for her. First, she could have had sex with someone else on that very day. Next, her family could have forged this evidence. Whichever you choose, it’s damning evidence against her; and in either case, the family committed a crime trying to mislead the justice (whatever little justice there was).

But the Silver/Newman/Geimer team go even further than this. They (well, mainly Silver, I believe) are trying to make it sound as if there the conclusion of the experts was not definite. They never quote the experts, but write this instead:

Then came the criminologist who testified about my panties. To people who are into forensics, this was interesting. He testified that semen was found in the underwear, but not sperm. How? Unclear. Low sperm count, or possibly vasectomy. (But then again, why did Polanski ask me when I’d last had my period if he couldn’t get me pregnant? Of course, the test wasn’t conclusive.)

Note the “unclear” and “of course, the test wasn’t conclusive”, also the bold-faced attempt to involve Polanski (who, as you probably know, never experienced any sperm count problems) again.

There were also swabs from other parts of my body – vagina, anus – again with the appearance of semen, but no sperm. It was an unfortunate finding for the prosecution; the testing method for semen was known not to be as accurate as the testing method for sperm. First, there was a chance that the chemical used to detect semen was instead detecting enzymes in vaginal fluid; it was all a question of how quickly the chemical [94] applied to the stain changed color. (In this case, it changed color very quickly, indicating semen.) And second, sperm would have helped identify the perpetrator more readily, although not with the almost 100 percent accuracy of today. But at any rate, one could argue (and clearly the defense intended to) that the semen came from someone else.

The only thing the reader can get from all this is a vague feeling that due to the imperfection of the expertise, there was no telling whether or not the semen belonged to Polanski, and thus the mean defense was going to play on it. The authors also try to make it seem corroborated by declaring that the same peculiar “semen, but no sperm” was found on the swabs, which is just our old acquaintance, barefaced lie: the examination report goes, “Vaginal and anal slides were taken which, according to the Los Angeles police department criminalist were negative, were tested negative for semen”.

Of course they have to make it sound incomprehensible. It’s too big a thing. Clear and plain experts’ testimonies had to be removed as far as possible from the public’s eye.

They don’t stop even here, though. Fearing that someone might draw the right conclusions or, God forbid, read the actual transcript, they deal this preventive blow:

The medical examiner had found only semen and no sperm – meaning that a jury would hear the possibility that I, who admitted to having sexual experience, might have had that underwear stained with someone else’s semen.

Recognize the pattern? They do it all the time. If they say something sarcastically enough - note the use of the italics – the reader must at once shudder at the enormity of the accusation. Someone else’s semen indeed, what a thought! But… it was someone else’s, and there’s no way around it, hard as Silver tries to find it.

Another such attempt is implying that Dalton agreed to the plea bargain because further testing showed that it was Polanski’s semen after all. They never say it in as many words, because sometimes Silver, as we’ve seen, remembers that he is a lawyer. Then he endeavors to veil the most preposterous lies, and concoct this:

There is still a certain amount of mystery attached to the results of these tests. After two weeks, Dalton must have had them, but he never said anything to Larry [Lawrence Silver  - J.M.]. The test results of the prosecution’s sample were positive for semen but negative for sperm. The semen could have possibly belonged to someone else. Sperm may have provided a clearer link to Polanski. Still, after presumably getting the results of his sample back, Dalton wanted to discuss a plea bargain. Is it possible that somehow sperm had been found in that portion of the sample? Perhaps the defense’s test results made this less of a he said/she said situation after all.

All of this would be very clever – see, they are so honest, they even say that the prosecution’s sample was negative for sperm (omitting to add, however, that it means only one thing, without any maybes) – but at the same time manage to insinuate that the defense’s sample could have shown something different. Because, mind you, Dalton didn’t say anything to Silver. As to why the defense agreed to plea bargain, we analyzed it enough here. Silver and the Gaileys did everything they could to avoid trial, and Polanski was too noble not to understand that a “stigma” (as Silver put it in his letter to the judge) attached to the girl would really be too hard. What with a sterile man’s sperm, a total absence of all other evidence, and the Gaileys’ preposterous statements, she would have been publicly exposed as a perjurer and a false accuser, and that’s not the right way to start a life.

So, if we want to be able to see the truth behind Geimer/Silver/Newman cobwebs, we must always remember that they lie at every step – and the panties can be a graphic symbol thereof.

The course of the events that lead to the panties getting handed over to the police has been analyzed by us thoroughly, but let’s now look at some of their aspects as presented in the book.

Since no evidence was present (except someone else’s sperm, don’t forget this), it’s only her bare words that we have to deal with, thus everything hinges on her credibility. Geimer keeps complaining that the defense was going to “attack” her credibility. What credibility? We’ve already seen enough lies to reduce anyone’s credibility to zero, and we’re only starting.

To explain her behavior on that day she uses three main lies. The first is her being a “kid”, which we’ve already dealt with (see also this chapter). The next is her mother’s blissful ignorance, which we’ve been through with, too. At last, she keeps trying to convince us that he actually “drugged” her and “plied” her with champagne.

…I drink. He refills my glass. I drink more. He keeps refilling, but I try to pace myself.

…Next we go into the kitchen. He refills my glass.

…He shoots some more photos, and by the time we’re done in the kitchen, I’ve downed another glass of champagne. He pours again. My glass never gets empty. He’s a good host, too, I guess.

Now let’s calculate. The bottle of champagne was 0.75 liter. According to the police description, half was left; it makes it 0.375. Two people – Polanski and Kalliniotes, who poured the wine – drank a glass each. An average champagne glass holds 100 to 125 ml; ok, we’ll be biased in Geimer’s favor (we always are when we don’t know exact figures or facts) and make it 100. Then, all Samantha could consume – including what she drank in the presence of Kalliniotes - was no more than 0.175 l. Now go back to the quotes and count the number of “refilled” glasses she says she drank.

We remember, of course, from the Grand Jury transcript, that nobody forced Samantha to drink any of this at all. Of all the beverages that were in the fridge, she chose champagne (“I’d been offered beer or wine at my parents’ friends’ houses before”); Elena Kalliniotes poured it to her. At no time in the testimony does Samantha say that Polanski actually asked or prompted her to drink. Now we suddenly learn that his directions went like this:

“Should I drink the champagne or just pretend?”

“Yes, drink it. Hold the glass to your lips. Now lower it. Sip. Look at me. Look over there. Sip a little.”

and that he “kept refilling” it from a magic bottle where half the content always remains no matter how many people have drunk. Now it’s not out of place to remember what Geimer says in the end of the book:

[Lawrence Silver] has been there every step of the way. I’ve depended on his memory to tell my story, which in many ways is his story too.

which Silver himself confirms:

I have provided Samantha with information about the legal events, and helped jog her memory.

That accounts for it, of course. New details appear, and the old miraculously disappear – for example, how she confessed to the Jury that she had also drank champagne from Polanski’s glass (we’ll discuss the implications of this in the next chapter). Likewise, new details about her taking that part of the Quaalude pill read like another contribution from the indefatigable Silver:

“Do you want part of one?” he asks. First I say no. Then he asks me if I’ve ever had one. I say I have. This is a lie. But I think, If I say I have, then I’m someone who knows what she’s saying no to. I’ve tried them, don’t like them – that’s cool, right?

Then he asks again. And then… Oh, I don’t know. He wants me to. How can I say no?

So then I say yes.

In the testimony, this story is much simpler, remember? He asked if she wanted some, and she said ok. Never did she mention that he asked her “again” or that he “wanted” her to. I am not even mentioning the obvious – that she testified to have taken the Quaaludes before, and her denying it now is exceedingly clumsy.

But we must be grateful for small favors. At least she didn’t write something like what she said in her Hattie Kauffman 2003 interview. Remember? That he deceived her into taking the pills, pretending they were asthma medicine?

I wonder what she would say now if confronted with that interview? Could she still maintain that she has any “credibility”? Even if she hadn’t concocted such a lot of other obvious lies, that alone could have been enough to never ever believe any word she says… but she never stops. She repeats the old ones, or discards the old ones and creates new ones while discarding the recorded, documented truths…

Aren’t we already sick of her lying? Must I explain once again why the old “double sodomy” tale is entirely a product of the family’s joint imagination, or will it suffice if I just say that Geimer’s description of her feelings about it, amounting to nothing more than a mild surprise, perfectly corroborate our argumentation here? I sincerely hope so, because I would like to remove Geimer’s A-hole as far from these pages as possible; it features prominently enough in every article written about her.

Let’s for a change take all her words for granted and look at the “events” as she describes them.

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