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Roman Polanski - Source: Reuters -
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Lawyers for Roman Polanski have filed an appeal demanding the fugitive film director be sentenced in California for a decades-old sex crime even as he remains under house arrest in Switzerland.
The lawyers said Polanski was entitled under California law to be sentenced without returning in person to Los Angeles on a charge of having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.
The appeal cites new evidence that a prosecutor was aware of misconduct by the judge handling the case in 1977.
Polanski has been under house arrest in Switzerland since September facing a US arrest warrant over his conviction for unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.
The 76-year-old director left the US in 1978 before he could be sentenced and has never returned.
The BBC says the appeal asks for a special counsel to investigate alleged judicial misconduct.
Polanski's lawyers say former Deputy District Attorney Roger Gunson gave secret testimony this year on the judge's conduct.
They asked that the transcripts of Gunson's testimony be unsealed and that Polanski be sentenced to time served without requiring his presence in court.
In January, a judge in Los Angeles ruled that Polanski must appear in court in the US before he can be sentenced.
Switzerland has said it will not decide whether to extradite the director until any appeal over his US trial is resolved.
The Swiss justice ministry has said it would make "no sense" to move him from house arrest before a definitive ruling in the US.
Polanski's latest film, The Ghost Writer, won the Silver Bear award for best director at the Berlin Film Festival in February.
