IMF head Strauss-Kahn charged with rape of hotel maid

[Flashermac]

From the BBC -

 

 

<< NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said Mr Strauss-Kahn had been charged with a criminal sexual act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment relating to an incident involving a 32-year-old woman.

 

Mr Browne said the allegations had been made by a 32-year-old woman who worked at the hotel, which has been identified as the Sofitel near Times Square. [color:red]His accommodation there was described by the New York Times as a luxury suite costing $3,000 per night (£1,900).[/color]

 

"We received a call that a chambermaid in a hotel in midtown Manhattan had been sexually assaulted by the occupant of a luxury suite at that hotel, and that that individual had fled," Mr Browne told the BBC.

 

"The maid described being forcibly attacked, locked in the room and sexually assaulted," he said. >>

 

 

Maybe he figured at that price she was part of the deal.

 

 

 

[Hugh_Hoy]

I'm very skeptical that things happened as reported.

 

HH

[chuckwoww]

What strikes me as odd is all the publicity. Normally guys with his kind of clout manage to keep things quiet.

[kamui]

I'm very skeptical that things happened as reported.

 

HH

 

But strange, that he fled the hotel leaving his mobile phone and other items behind...

[Bangkoktraveler]

Maybe he thought she was another whore from Craigslist dressed as a maid.

[kamui]

What strikes me as odd is all the publicity. Normally guys with his kind of clout manage to keep things quiet.

 

It happened to a Frenchman in the USA. Conservative USA media will be all over it.

 

Three thoughts:

- Strauss Kahn had been involved in a kind of sex scandal at the beginning of his job at IMF. He had an affair with a women working for him and he had to apologize publicly. So maybe he does over step boundaries and ignores rules in regard to women occasionally.

 

- False accusations of rape seem to be rare. As far as I understand false accusations usually happen when a women wants to smear/destroy a person she knows well. A hotel maid in a luxury hotel making a false accusation against a very high-ranking guest seem to be very far-fetched. I guess more often rapes by a person of power go unreported and are being dealt with secretly.

 

- Strauss Kahn has an important international position and he was about to declare running for president for the Left in the next election in France. Even before his announcement his ratings among the French was higher than of president Nicolas Sarkozy.

The recent years have shown that politics in France is extremely dirty, even with French secret service and other agencies involved. Smear campaigns including false accusations and faked evidence seem to be not that uncommon.

Since this happened in the USA it will be harder to prove for Strauss Kahn that he was set up (if he was set up) as long as the maid sticks to her story. If it was a set up it won't be a problem to produce false evidence (DNA traces, e.g.), since the maid (and whoever is employing her) had free access to his room every day.

[kamui]

If Strauss Kahn was set up he was an extremely easy target.

 

From the New York Times:

 

Some of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s allies said that he must have been the victim of a setup. Christine Boutin, head of the small Christian Democratic Party, told French television: “[color:red]That he could be taken in like that seems astounding, so he must have been trapped.â€[/color]

 

Gérard Grunberg, a respected political scientist who studies the left, said that Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s political future and career at the I.M.F. were over. “[color:red]It’s a political earthquake and a catastrophe for France[/color],†he said in an interview.

 

...

 

Mr. Strauss-Kahn was criticized by the I.M.F after an [color:red]affair with a subordinate[/color], an economist, Piroska Nagy, in 2008. But an investigation found that he had not abused his position, the affair was consensual, and he publicly expressed regret.

...

 

Mr. Strauss-Kahn behaved aggressively toward a young female journalist and novelist, Tristane Banon, in 2002, according to the newspaper Le Parisien and other Web sites, and corroborated by Ms. Banon herself in a 2007 television interview on Paris Première, a cable channel. At the time, she said that a French politician — whom she later said was Mr. Strauss-Kahn — had [color:red]tried to rape her in an empty apartment in Paris[/color] after she had contacted him for a book she was writing.

 

“He wanted to grab my hand while answering my questions, and then my arm. We ended up fighting, since I said clearly, ‘No, no.’ [color:red]We fought on the floor[/color], I kicked him, he undid my bra, he tried to remove my jeans,†she said.

 

Afterward, she said that she had contacted a well-known lawyer who already had “a pile of files on Mr. Strauss-Kahn,†but that she never filed a complaint. “I didn’t dare; I didn’t wish to be the girl who had a problem with a politician for the rest of my life,†she said.

 

NYT

 

 

 

[Flashermac]

 

Reminds you a bit of Bill Clinton, but with less class.

[Flashermac]

From the Wall Street Journal -

 

 

 

<< Police said a 32-year-old cleaning woman accused Mr. Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her in the Sofitel Hotel near Times Square. [color:red]The alleged victim, allegedly a native of Guinea and mother of two[/color], said she entered room 2806, a $3,000-a-night luxury suite, around 12 p.m. on Saturday to clean it, thinking it was empty, according to a law-enforcement official with knowledge of the case.

 

According to the narrative she gave investigators, Mr. Strauss-Kahn emerged from the bathroom nude and approached her from behind and touched her breast, then threw her on to the bed, the official said.

 

She told police she broke free but was then pushed into a rear hallway of the suite near the bathroom. Mr. Strauss-Kahn allegedly caught up with her and sexually assaulted her, the official said, before allowing her to leave.

 

The accuser allegedly informed hotel security officials, who allegedly showed her a photo of the suite's occupant. After she allegedly identified Mr. Strauss-Kahn as her attacker, hotel officials allegedly then called police, the official allegedly said. The alleged victim was taken to a hospital where she was allegedly treated for trauma, tested for sexual assault and later allegedly released, the official allegedly said.

 

The official allegedly said alleged detectives have recovered DNA evidence at the alleged scene.

 

Mr. Strauss-Kahn checked out of the Sofitel at 12:28 p.m., police said. But it was his call from JFK airport to the hotel in search of his phone at 3:40 p.m. that identified his whereabouts. Police were then able to locate him and escort him from the plane. Later in the night, Mr. Strauss-Kahn was formally charged with sexual assault and attempted rape, the department later said in a statement. On Sunday, the woman picked the IMF chief out of a lineup at a Manhattan police station, the official said.

 

[color:red]The arrest threw into question whether Mr. Strauss-Kahn will be forced to resign his IMF slot. In 2008, early in his IMF term, he was investigated by the IMF's staff for whether he abused his power by having an affair with a female staffer. Although he was cleared of abuse of power charges, several directors said they warned Mr. Strauss-Kahn that such conduct wouldn't be allowed in the future and that he had brought the IMF into disrepute.[/color] >>

 

 

 

Link

 

[Flashermac]

 

 

Dominique Strauss-Kahn to face fresh sex assault complaint

 

 

 

A French writer who claims Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted her nine years ago is to file an official complaint, her lawyer has announced.

 

Tristane Banon previously described the attack, which happened when she was in her early 20s, in a television programme in 2007, when she called Strauss-Kahn, whose name was bleeped out, a "rutting chimpanzee."

 

She says she consulted a lawyer at the time, but was persuaded not to take action by her mother, a regional councillor in the Socialist party and friend of the Strauss-Kahn family. Banon is goddaughter to Strauss-Kahn's second wife.

 

Banon's lawyer, David Koubbi, said: "We are planning to make a complaint. I am working with her."

 

Koubbi said Banon, now 31, was "literally blown over" when she heard the claims Strauss-Kahn had attacked a hotel chambermaid in New York. "At the same time, she was certainly not surprised," he said.

 

Across France, after the shock of Strauss-Kahn's arrest on sex charges in New York, speculation, self-pity and conspiracy theories have blossomed.

 

For some, the story of Strauss-Kahn's fall from presidential hopeful to prison cell was a combination of sordid tale and Shakespearean tragedy. For others the story was so extraordinary it smacked of a set-up.

 

Only three weeks ago, Strauss-Kahn evoked such a possibility in an interview with French newspaper Libération when he said he thought he was under surveillance and named the three principal difficulties he foresaw if he was to stand for the presidential elections.

 

"Money, women and the fact I am Jewish." He added: "Yes, I like women ... so what?" He said he could see himself becoming the victim of a honey trap: "a woman raped in a car park and who's been promised 500,000 or a million euros to invent such a story ..."

 

But not in his or his Socialist party's worst nightmares, nor in President Nicolas Sarkozy's wildest dreams, could anyone imagine Strauss-Kahn, nicknamed with almost tacit admiration the Great Seducer, being at the epicentre of what was described as a "political earthquake".

 

Jean-Marie Le Guen, a Socialist party MP who has known Strauss-Kahn for 25 years, said the story was "not credible" and inconsistent with what he knew of the politician's character. "Seduction, yes, but no way would he use constraint or violence. A certain number of facts, and certain aspects of the story we are hearing from the press, make this not credible."

 

He said Strauss-Kahn had not fled the scene of the alleged crime as reported but had lunched in New York before catching a flight booked weeks previously.

 

France-Soir reported that when plain-clothed police officers approached the politician in the first-class section of the Air France plane bound for Paris, he looked up at them and asked: "What's the matter?"

 

Le Guen said his friend knew he would be the target of mud-slinging but added: "What they are asking us to believe ... it's just hallucinations. I'm a doctor and I know this can happen. We knew there would be hyper-violent attacks on him [strauss-Kahn]. We could hear the knives being sharpened in preparation."

 

Libération editor Nicolas Demorand suggested France was having its first sex scandal "à l'anglo saxonne" and was "brutally entering a zone of public debate which, up to now whether because of the cultural exception, the 'latin' identity or democratic weakness has been confined to rumours and gossip among a small inner circle".

 

"Politicians ... enjoy a particular tolerance on this subject," he wrote. "Part of the shock comes also from the unusual scene, until now unthinkable here: police arresting a top-level politician on a matter of morals."

 

There is sympathy for Strauss-Kahn's third wife, television journalist Anne Sinclair, who Le Guen said was bearing up with "strength and courage".

 

[color:red]In a spasm of self-flagellation, political commentators spoke of the affair as a disgrace and humiliation for France, referring to the country as "the victim" in the affair.[/color] :content:

 

Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, the ecology minister, did at least mention the 32-year-old chambermaid allegedly attacked by Strauss-Kahn. "As well as the presumed victim, the chambermaid, there is a proven victim ... France. We should remember the facts are very serious; in France we tend to treat things like this a little bit lightly," she told news agency AFP.

 

Of the pictures of Strauss-Kahn being led in handcuffs by New York police, criticised by some, including Le Guen as "hyper violent", Kosciusko-Morizet said the French politician was a suspect like any other. "I have confidence in American justice ... it's so French to see conspiracies everywhere, it's something I believe that's in our culture."

 

The Socialist party was holding an emergency meeting to decide on how to react to the crisis in its ranks. Two months from the closing date for the party's primary election in October, Strauss-Kahn was the opposition's main hope of unseating Sarkozy.

 

 

 

The Guardian