A lawyer for Roman Polanski asked a Los Angeles judge on Tuesday to sentence the Oscar-winning director in absentia in his three-decade-old child sex case, dpa reported.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza asked for legal briefs on the request and scheduled another hearing for January 22.
Polanski is currently under house arrest in Switzerland as he fights an extradition request from the US. The 76-year-old filmmaker, who helmed Chinatown and The Pianist, fled the US in 1978 after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, as he feared the judge would impose an unusually harsh sentence.
Polanski's lawyers have since claimed there was illegal collusion between the judge and prosecutors, but the courts have been unwilling to re-examine the case in Polanski's absence.