In January, Wells told The Times that he regretted making the statements but never said they were untrue. Rittenband died in 1993. Wells said today that he notified the district attorney’s office several months ago that he had lied during the film and apologized for his actions.

Why the sudden change? One possibility: He wants to continue to manipulate the system, hoping his new denial will shortcut Polanksi's legal argument and he wants to keep his own as* out of jail:

...Mr. Wells said he was publicly recanting now, in order to clear his actions away from other issues in the Polanski case. But he also acknowledged that the conduct he described in the 2007 documentary, “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” could have triggered an action against him before the state bar. “If it happened, it would have been unethical,” Mr. Wells said.

Not to mention potentially illegal.

Here's Wells both admitting and defending his conduct to the LA Times in 2008:

Wells said his discussions with the judge were in no way inappropriate and dismissed the allegations as irrelevant. "He asked us a legal question. I gave him a legal answer," he said in an interview with The Times. "It had nothing in particular to do with the Polanski case, it was a general conversation about what could be done about sentencing anybody."

Wells, who was the prosecutor on the case during the investigation and for obtaining warrants, also said the photograph he showed the judge was in a German newspaper, and the judge would have seen it whether or not he brought it into court.

..."It's a guy that raped a 13-year-old girl and wants to get no prison time. If that's the case, [Polanski] should be in state prison for life. That's how I feel about it, but remember I was not the lawyer on the case," said Wells, who said he was taken off the case because he became too involved in the investigation and his office feared he might be called as a witness. "If I were the D.A. on the case, he would've been tried, and there would've been" none of these complications.

Here's Wells next version, talking to the LA Times in January, 2009:

Reached at his home in Paso Robles, Wells, who is now retired, said he regretted participating in the documentary. "A lot of that stuff I said was just off the top of my head," he said. Still, he said he thought that Polanski's request would be turned aside.

No mention that he lied or didn't talk to the judge about Polanski. He didn't publicly say he made the story up until yesterday. And he's still sticking to the part about bringing the judge the photo. Is he also denying he told the judge Polanski was flipping him off?

I view this as another blatant (and very transparent) attempt by Wells to manipulate the legal system. Like every lawyer, he was an officer of the court. Yet he inserted (and continues to insert) himself into Polanski's proceedings. I'm not surprised he was removed from the case by the DA's office due to his excessive personal interest in the case. He's still not over it, and continues to express his irrelevant desire to see Polanski do hard time.

On a related note -- the fugitive entitlement issue the DA is relying on to deprive Polanski on a hearing -- here's an interesting tidbit from a 1990 news article:

The California Supreme Court Wednesday ruled that movie director Roman Polanski may defend himself against a civil suit by the 13-year-old girl he sexually assaulted in 1977, even though Polanski fled to France before sentencing.

The victim, now 26 and living in Hawaii, filed a civil suit against Polanski stemming from the unlawful sex in 1977. She argued that Polanski forfeited the right to defend himself in court against her claim because he fled the country and never faced sentencing. The high court rejected the argument and refused to hear an appeal in the case.

So the California Supreme Court has already allowed Polanski to defend himself in civil court, nothwithstanding his lack of presence in this country and before the court, and his status as a fugitive. Why is someone alleged to be a fugitve allowed to defend their property but not their liberty? There's lack of consistency here.

The case settled in 1994, after which the victim asked, through her lawyer, that Polanski be allowed to return without further arrest or imprisonment. Her lawyer said it wasn't a condition of the settlement, the amount of which has not been disclosed.

Back to Wells: According to the state bar's website (no link because it contains his personal information which I don't want to re-publish), Wells maintains an active license to practice law. I'm not surprised he's now concerned about keeping it.

Wells now has three versions:

1. What he said in the documentary: He had multiple ex parte communications with the judge plotting how to send Polanski to prison.. He came up with a way, told the judge and the judge went along. He also showed the judge a photo of Polanski in Europe and told him Polanski was "flipping him off." As intended, the judge got riled and became determined to ignore the probation report and the in-custody psych eval, and sentence Polanski to more time.

2. He only discussed general principles with the judge, never the Polanski case.

3. He didn't talk to the judge about sentencing, he merely showed him a photograph of Polanski in Europe so the judge would think Polanski was being disrespectful. The judge took it from there on his own.

I disagree with those who think Wells' retraction makes Polanski's case more difficult. Wells has destroyed any credibility he might have had as a fact witness. (I won't be surprised to see him take the 5th when supboenaed.) That leaves the judge's conduct, which from the record appears improper in several key respects independent of Wells' instigation and manipulations. As the LA Times noted today,

Wells' statements in the HBO documentary make up a portion but far from all of the misconduct allegations Polanski's attorneys leveled at Rittenband for his handling of the original case.

In my view, this case has been mangled beyond repair, by a DA initially so over-invested in the case he was removed from it by higher-ups in his office, and a judge, who while now deceased, left behind his many ethically questionable and arguably illegal actions to speak for themselves.

Free Roman.