Exiled director Roman Polanski is making a new push to finally put to rest his decades-old child rape case — and return to the United States, his lawyer told The Post on Thursday. 
 
 The “Chinatown” director’s attorney, Harland Braun, has requested that a Los Angeles judge unseal secret testimony that allegedly proves Polanski’s longtime contention that the judge in the 1977 case reneged on a deal for him to spend 42 days at Chino State Prison in Chino, Calif. 
 
 Polanski completed the stint in the lockup and underwent psychiatric evaluation — and Braun now wants the court to honor the plea deal defense attorneys struck with the original LA prosecutor in the case, retired Deputy District Attorney Roger Gunson. 
 
 “I believe there is no current excuse or justification for keeping DDA Roger Gunson’s sworn testimony under seal,” Braun wrote to Judge Scott Gordon in a February 6, 2017, letter obtained by The Post. 
 
 “The truth is that the sealing of the Gunson statement makes it appear that someone fears its contents.” 
 
 The 83-year-old Polanski was accused of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl at the home of actor Jack Nicholson on March 10, 1977. Polanski had lured her there on the pretext of photographing her for French Vogue. 
 
 The late Judge Laurence Rittenband initially signed off on the plea deal, but had a sudden change of heart and ordered Polanski to spend up to 50 years behind bars. 
 
 Polanski fled the United States and has lived in Paris, France, ever since as a fugitive. 
 
 In 2009, Polanski was captured while traveling through Zurich, Switzerland. He was jailed for over 300 days as US authorities tried unsuccessfully to extradite him. 
 
 Braun has been working with Los Angeles prosecutors to resolve the case so that Polanski can travel freely throughout the world. ||||| FILE - This Feb. 25, 2015 file photo shows filmmaker Roman Polanski during a break in a hearing concerning a U.S. request for his extradition over 1977 charges of sex with a minor, in Krakow, Poland.... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - This Feb. 25, 2015 file photo shows filmmaker Roman Polanski during a break in a hearing concerning a U.S. request for his extradition over 1977 charges of sex with a minor, in Krakow, Poland. A Los Angeles judge on Monday, April 3, 2017 rejected a request by Polanski to end his 40-year-old case... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - This Feb. 25, 2015 file photo shows filmmaker Roman Polanski during a break in a hearing concerning a U.S. request for his extradition over 1977 charges of sex with a minor, in Krakow, Poland. A Los Angeles judge on Monday, April 3, 2017 rejected a request by Polanski to end his 40-year-old case... (Associated Press) FILE - This Feb. 25, 2015 file photo shows filmmaker Roman Polanski during a break in a hearing concerning a U.S. request for his extradition over 1977 charges of sex with a minor, in Krakow, Poland.... (Associated Press) 
 
 LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Los Angeles judge on Monday rejected Roman Polanski's bid to end his long-running underage sex abuse case without the fugitive director appearing in court or being sentenced to more prison time. 
 
 Superior Court Judge Scott M. Gordon refused to address how Polanski would be sentenced if he returned to the U.S. after 40 years abroad. He noted that other courts, including a California appellate court, have ruled that the Oscar winner is a fugitive and must return to Los Angeles for sentencing. 
 
 "There is no sufficient or compelling basis for reconsideration of these issues," Gordon wrote. 
 
 Polanski was charged with six felonies in 1977 after he was accused of plying a 13-year-old girl with champagne and part of a sedative pill, then raping her at actor Jack Nicholson's house. 
 
 Polanski pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, but he fled Los Angeles on the eve of sentencing in 1978. He has sought to resolve the case several times without personally appearing in court. 
 
 His travel has since been confined to three countries: France, Switzerland and his native Poland. 
 
 The victim has said she forgives the "Rosemary's Baby" director and believes the case should end. 
 
 Polanski, 83, has long contended that he is the victim of judicial misconduct because a now-deceased judge who handled the case suggested in private remarks that he would renege on a plea bargain and sentencing agreement. It called for no more time behind bars for the director after he spent 42 days in a prison undergoing a diagnostic screening. 
 
 Polanski's lawyer, Harland Braun, said Gordon's order failed to address what he called the central issue in the case — misconduct by several previous judges who handled the case. 
 
 Polanski contends emails show that several judges had discussed how Polanski had to return to Los Angeles for sentencing. 
 
 "It seems like this just another cover-up," Braun said in an interview. 
 
 He said his efforts were aimed at seeing if the judicial system could fix previous errors in the case, and whether it was "capable of healing itself." 
 
 "In that regard, Judge Gordon proved that he cannot," Braun said. 
 
 Gordon's ruling says Polanski and Braun had "not presented sufficient credible, admissible evidence or legal arguments to warrant the requested relief." 
 
 Previous rulings have stated that the only way Polanski can address his allegations is to return to Los Angeles for his sentencing hearing. That would likely involve him being arrested and serving additional time behind bars while he awaited a hearing. 
 
 Braun has said Polanski's confinement in jail and house arrest in Switzerland during a failed extradition effort in 2009 and 2010 meant the director has already served his sentence. 
 
 The ruling came two weeks after Gordon convened a hearing to address several requests by Polanski's lawyer. Los Angeles prosecutors, who declined to comment on Monday's ruling, vehemently opposed any ruling that would end the case without Polanski's appearance in court. 
 
 Deputy District Attorney Michele Hanisee said Polanski was asking Gordon to give a "wealthy celebrity different treatment than any other fugitive." 
 
 Polanski won an Academy Award for best director for his 2002 film "The Pianist" and was nominated for 1974's "Chinatown" and 1979's "Tess." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP . ||||| More than three decades after Roman Polanski fled Los Angeles for France to avoid sentencing in the sexual assault of a teenager, his attorneys have opened a new front in the legal saga aimed at having all charges against the Oscar-winning director dismissed. 
 
 Polanski's legal team, which now includes celebrity attorney Alan M. Dershowitz, is making accusations of prosecutorial misconduct in its effort to end the case, which has kept the director out of the United States as well as many countries with U.S. extradition treaties since he fled in 1978. 
 
 In court papers filed Monday in Los Angeles, Polanski's attorneys allege that district attorneys and judges carried out "serious misconduct" in an effort to prosecute, and later force the return of, the famed director. 
 
 The 133-page motion seeks an evidentiary hearing to determine whether "pervasive" misconduct and a "false" extradition request sent Oct. 28, 2014, by the Department of Justice to the Polish government requires dismissal of the case against Polanski. 
 
 A spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office was not available for comment Monday night. 
 
 The motion revives a sensational case that began in 1977, when Polanski was charged with raping and sodomizing a 13-year-old girl during a photo shoot. In a plea deal, the Polish-born director pleaded guilty to one count of statutory rape, but he was never formally sentenced. 
 
 Lawyers for filmmaker Roman Polanski are seeking to have a case involving a 1977 charge of unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl dismissed Lawyers for filmmaker Roman Polanski are seeking to have a case involving a 1977 charge of unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl dismissed SEE MORE VIDEOS 
 
 He spent a month and a half in state prison for psychological testing, but the night before his sentencing he fled to Europe after learning from his attorney that the judge planned to give him additional time in prison. 
 
 Monday's motion centers on an attempt in October to arrest Polanski while he was attending the Museum of the History of the Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland. 
 
 Polanski's attorneys say the extradition request omits that he served court-ordered prison time because prosecutors were trying to align the case history to meet the criteria of an extradition treaty between the United States and Poland. 
 
 The prison time has proved controversial because the order purportedly took place in 1977 in an off-the-record meeting with the prosecutor and defense attorney. At the time, Judge Laurence J. Rittenband ordered Polanski to undergo the psychiatric study at the state prison in Chino. The prosecutor and Polanski's attorney understood that this time in the prison would serve as Polanski's punishment, Monday's filing said. 
 
 Polanski reported to Chino and was released after 42 days. 
 
 But Rittenband then told the attorneys in private that he wanted Polanski to finish the 90 days — and then leave the country. If he didn't leave, he'd get even more prison time. 
 
 His attorney, Douglas Dalton, alleged misconduct by the judge. 
 
 He argued that Rittenband improperly used the psychiatric study to incarcerate Polanski, that he had no authority to compel his deportation and that he was letting media coverage and public outcry influence his decisions. 
 
 The murky sentencing, among other factors, prompted the Swiss government in 2009 to refuse to extradite the director when he visited the country to accept a lifetime achievement award at a film festival. 
 
 The hearing sought Monday by Polanski's attorneys would offer "full, public disclosure of the true facts and circumstances surrounding the 1977 and 1978 proceedings," his attorneys argued. 
 
 Polanski's attorneys also alleged that in 2008 and 2009, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza heeded the "marching orders" of Judge David Wesley when he applied the fugitive disentitlement doctrine, which bars those who dodge the system from finding relief in it later. 
 
 A sworn statement from a former court spokesman, along with copies of emails, allege that Espinoza sought to bring Polanski back to the U.S. with a promise to sentence him for time served, the documents claim. 
 
 matt.hamilton@latimes.com 
 
 Twitter: @MattHjourno
– It's been 40 years since Roman Polanski set foot on the US mainland, but the disgraced director is said to want to square things up and come back to America without facing jail time, TMZ reports. What needs squaring: his punishment for raping a 13-year-old girl in 1977 at Jack Nicholson's house. Lawyer Harland Braun reportedly wants long-sealed testimony in the Polanski case opened to prove that Polanski had cut a deal to spend just 48 days behind bars for the sexual assault. But when the director of Rosemary's Baby was released after serving 42 days, which included psychiatric evaluation, the judge (now deceased) who'd reportedly signed off on the deal allegedly had a change of heart and decided 50 years in prison was a more just punishment. Polanski fled to Paris, where he's been living as a fugitive since, shortly after he agreed to plead guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse and right before his sentencing, per Page Six. A Polish court ruling in a recent Polanski extradition case said Polanski, now 83, had honored his punishment with his original stint behind bars, prompting Braun to call for a Los Angeles County Superior Court to do the same. (Polanski was picked to lead the jury for France's equivalent of the Oscars this month—and women's rights advocates aren't happy.)