Whoopi Goldberg has caused controversy by suggesting Roman Polanski 1978 arrest and subsequent plea-bargain charge - of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor - was not as serious as the court deemed it. Polanski was arrested in Switzerland on Saturday and faces being extradited to the US after fleeing the country in 1978 while awaiting sentencing. "It was something else but I don't believe it was rape-rape," Whoopi said during a heated discussion on US chat show The View. "He went to jail and when they let him out he was like, ‘This guy's [the judge] going to give me 100 years. I'm not staying.' "We're a different kind of society, we see things differently. Would I want my 14 year old having sex? Not necessarily, no."Despite admitting that in 1977 - then aged 44 - he supplied drugs and alcohol to 13-year-old model Samantha Geimer before performing oral sex on her and engaging in intercourse and sodomy while ignoring her repeated pleas for him to stop in return for a lighter sentence, Polanski has many supporters. Following his arrest a host of Hollywood stars have signed a petition calling for his release. Major industry players including Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar, Monica Bellucci, Terry Gilliam, John Landis, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese and Tilda Swinton have added their names to a French petition that calls the film-maker's arrest "a case of morals".
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