Dominique Strauss-Kahn 'refused to pay' hooker maid for sex
By BRAD HAMILTON and CATHY BURKE
Last Updated: 12:01 PM, July 3, 2011
Posted: 1:09 AM, July 3, 2011
She had dollar signs in her eyes.
Before she ever walked into Dominique Strauss-Kahn's dazzling suite at the Sofitel, his accuser was well aware of his VIP status -- and planning to get her hands in his deep pockets, sources told The Post.
"She figured he's a rich dude, and she would get paid," said a source close to the defense investigation. "She was told by the crew she ran with that this was a gold mine."
The maid, who routinely traded sex for money with male guests, parked her cleaning cart outside Suite 2806 on the morning of May 14 and keyed her way into the room -- knowing what he looked like from a photo hanging in a maid closet that identified him as an important guest.
Multiple versions have emerged of what happened next, but nobody disputes that the 32-year-old maid performed oral sex on the Frenchman known as "the Great Seducer."
Sources now tell The Post that when the two were finished, the woman demanded cash from Strauss-Kahn -- but he refused to pay.
"There was an expectation of money after the fact, but he was dismissive," the source said.
And not gently, the source said -- DSK brushed off the maid's request as he turned his back and got dressed.
She pressed her case.
"She remained in the room with him while he got dressed for at least nine minutes," the source said.
The humiliating exchange sparked the maid's anger, prosecutors suspect.
The woman's lawyer has charged that DSK angrily grabbed her breast and vagina, leaving her with bruises to the groin area.
The fight also apparently prompted DSK to bolt the Sofitel in such a hurry that he left behind a cellphone.
Unraveling the explosive events became more complicated with the accuser's varying versions of what happened both in the hotel suite and afterward, prosecutors say.
In the hours following the incident, she told cops Strauss-Kahn chased her, grabbed her, locked the suite's door and then dragged her into a bedroom to force her to perform oral sex.
She claimed she broke free only to be dragged into a bathroom to complete the sexual encounter -- and that at one point Strauss-Kahn tried to pull off her pantyhose and rape her.
She also claimed she didn't know who her alleged attacker was.
"She didn't know who Dominique Strauss-Kahn was at the time of the incident. I was the one who explained to her," a relative told AFP.
Yet within a day, the maid was recorded speaking on the phone with a jailed drug dealer, reportedly crowing about a potential windfall if she pursued charges.
Her lies then caught up with her.
"In the weeks following the incident charged in the indictment, the complainant told detectives and assistant district attorneys on numerous occasions that, after being sexually assaulted . . . she fled to an area of the main hallway of the hotel's 28th floor and waited there until she observed the defendant . . . entering an elevator," reads a letter from prosecutors.
She said she then alerted her supervisor and waited for him.
She repeated this version to cops and a grand jury -- but finally admitted she later cleaned a nearby room and DSK's suite before reporting the incident to her supervisor.
The DA's case has fallen into turmoil, and DSK was freed of his strict bail conditions.
"The investigation is continuing. It may lead to dismissal. It may not," a senior prosecutor involved in the case said yesterday, adding the DA's Office has not decided whether to go forward with the case.
DSK enjoyed his newfound freedom yesterday by leaving his swanky TriBeCa town house at 3 p.m. in one of a small fleet of limos.
After a brief stop at the TimeWarner Center in Columbus Circle, he and wife Anne Sinclair went to the Museum of Modern Art, dining in the fifth-floor café that overlooks a lush garden, workers said. They were back home at around 5:30 p.m.
"He looked extremely happy -- he's free," said one museum worker.
At the Sofitel, one worker was mystified by the sullied maid's web of sex and lies, and doubted others would ever follow suit. "Why would they risk that?" he said.
Source:click here
Now it's making sense. He tried to rip her off and she screamed "rape" to get back at him. Did money come up prior to the act? If not why not? However when one listens to what she said to her jailed boyfriend and the fact that she knew Strauss-Khan was a VIP and she had his photo means that she was going to extort money from him. I wonder how many other men she done this do regardless of if she's had sex with them or not. All a woman has to do is scream "rape" against a man and watch his career,family,friends and life go down the drain. It's that easy.
This DA should drop the charges but he won't because he wants Strauss-Khan to plead guilty to something so the DA doesn't lose face. He and the cops got played for suckers and if I were him I would want this to go away as soon as possible and the best way to do that is dismiss the charges and give Strauss-Khan his passport back. I would also prosecute Diallo to the full extent of the law but don't expect Vance to do it anytime soon.New York City already looks bad with the mayor on down taking a big bite of a shit sandwich.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
New IMF chief may be corrupt
Christine Lagarde under investigation over role in payments to Bernard TapieThe French finance minister is to be the subject of a full judicial inquiry after Tapie received £248m to end 15-year legal dispute.
She's a former synchronised swimmer who became the first female finance minister of a leading industrialised country and one of France's most popular rightwing politicians. Christine Lagarde could see her golden image shaken by a judicial investigation into whether she abused her position to favour a controversial tycoon.
Lagarde, once a lawyer in Chicago, has become embroiled in the soap-opera saga of Bernard Tapie, one of the most flamboyant and controversial figures in French public life. Tapie is a maverick rags-to-riches tycoon whose CV includes a stint as head of Marseille football club, head of the Adidas sports empire, left-wing urban affairs minister under Francois Mitterrand, a seven-month jail term for match-fixing, a conviction for tax fraud and an amazing public comeback as an actor, singer, chatshow host and supporter of Nicolas Sarkozy.
For almost two decades, a battle raged through the courts after Tapie claimed he was cheated by the Credit Lyonnais bank which handled the 1993 sale of Adidas. Credit Lyonnais, once publicly owned, had been wound up and its liabilities taken over by a state-operated consortium.
In 2007, Lagarde intervened and ended the court dispute by ordering a special panel of judges to arbitrate. In 2008, they ruled that Tapie should receive €285m (£248m) in damages. The out-of-court settlement scandalised opposition politicians. The centrist Francois Bayrou said it was "unthinkable that the state dips into the taxpayers' pocket for a private beneficiary". At the time, Lagarde tried to calm the row, saying that, after tax and debt payments, Tapie would only pocket about €30m. Later reports suggested he kept about €200m.
The Socialists accused Lagarde of improper conduct by intervening and asked for a full-scale investigation. Jean-Louis Nadal, the public prosecutor, has now recommended a full judicial inquiry into Lagarde's role, saying there was evidence of "several reasons to be suspicious of the regularity and even the legality" of the settlement, which could constitute "an abuse of authority". He suggested the case should not have been settled in private since public money was at stake.
Lagarde denounced an attempt to sully her name, telling Le Figaro: "This is an attempt to smear me." She accused Socialists of trying to gloss over the reality that the Tapie saga dated from the Mitterrand era when they were in power. She said: "For my part, I've always acted with rigour and transparency, in only one sense: the public interest." She said she was "as calm as I have always been" over the affair. She added that she had "total government support".
Eva Joly, the former anti-corruption investigative magistrate and potential green party presidential candidate, said Lagarde might have received "instructions" directly from the Elysée. She said the settlement was completely abnormal in the way it was done and the amount awarded. She said the inquiry must look at who had ordered the settlement and what they got out of it. "This could be a corruption affair."
Other politicians questioned Sarkozy's friendship with Tapie. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Joly's fellow MEP for the green party, Europe Ecologie Les Verts, told French TV, "What I know is that Lagarde's decision was pushed by Nicolas Sarkozy. It's Sarkozy's responsibility and his friendship with Bernard Tapie that's under discussion here."
The Socialist Segolene Royal said Lagarde had not made the decision alone and was "doubtless the victim of Sarkozy's orders".
Lagarde, 55, is one of France's best known ministers abroad, for her fluent English and regular US TV appearances. She recently denied charges of a conflict of interest over a personal stake in a small business start-up, saying some people took pleasure in trying to stab her in the back. She said she handed her shares over to an intermediary to "close the controversy".
Source:click here
She's a former synchronised swimmer who became the first female finance minister of a leading industrialised country and one of France's most popular rightwing politicians. Christine Lagarde could see her golden image shaken by a judicial investigation into whether she abused her position to favour a controversial tycoon.
Lagarde, once a lawyer in Chicago, has become embroiled in the soap-opera saga of Bernard Tapie, one of the most flamboyant and controversial figures in French public life. Tapie is a maverick rags-to-riches tycoon whose CV includes a stint as head of Marseille football club, head of the Adidas sports empire, left-wing urban affairs minister under Francois Mitterrand, a seven-month jail term for match-fixing, a conviction for tax fraud and an amazing public comeback as an actor, singer, chatshow host and supporter of Nicolas Sarkozy.
For almost two decades, a battle raged through the courts after Tapie claimed he was cheated by the Credit Lyonnais bank which handled the 1993 sale of Adidas. Credit Lyonnais, once publicly owned, had been wound up and its liabilities taken over by a state-operated consortium.
In 2007, Lagarde intervened and ended the court dispute by ordering a special panel of judges to arbitrate. In 2008, they ruled that Tapie should receive €285m (£248m) in damages. The out-of-court settlement scandalised opposition politicians. The centrist Francois Bayrou said it was "unthinkable that the state dips into the taxpayers' pocket for a private beneficiary". At the time, Lagarde tried to calm the row, saying that, after tax and debt payments, Tapie would only pocket about €30m. Later reports suggested he kept about €200m.
The Socialists accused Lagarde of improper conduct by intervening and asked for a full-scale investigation. Jean-Louis Nadal, the public prosecutor, has now recommended a full judicial inquiry into Lagarde's role, saying there was evidence of "several reasons to be suspicious of the regularity and even the legality" of the settlement, which could constitute "an abuse of authority". He suggested the case should not have been settled in private since public money was at stake.
Lagarde denounced an attempt to sully her name, telling Le Figaro: "This is an attempt to smear me." She accused Socialists of trying to gloss over the reality that the Tapie saga dated from the Mitterrand era when they were in power. She said: "For my part, I've always acted with rigour and transparency, in only one sense: the public interest." She said she was "as calm as I have always been" over the affair. She added that she had "total government support".
Eva Joly, the former anti-corruption investigative magistrate and potential green party presidential candidate, said Lagarde might have received "instructions" directly from the Elysée. She said the settlement was completely abnormal in the way it was done and the amount awarded. She said the inquiry must look at who had ordered the settlement and what they got out of it. "This could be a corruption affair."
Other politicians questioned Sarkozy's friendship with Tapie. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Joly's fellow MEP for the green party, Europe Ecologie Les Verts, told French TV, "What I know is that Lagarde's decision was pushed by Nicolas Sarkozy. It's Sarkozy's responsibility and his friendship with Bernard Tapie that's under discussion here."
The Socialist Segolene Royal said Lagarde had not made the decision alone and was "doubtless the victim of Sarkozy's orders".
Lagarde, 55, is one of France's best known ministers abroad, for her fluent English and regular US TV appearances. She recently denied charges of a conflict of interest over a personal stake in a small business start-up, saying some people took pleasure in trying to stab her in the back. She said she handed her shares over to an intermediary to "close the controversy".
Source:click here
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Nafissatou Diallo:maid and hooker
Maid cleaning up as 'hooker'
* Big tips for extra 'turndown service' * Prosecutors list litany of lies, scams
By LAURA ITALIANO
Last Updated: 2:41 PM, July 2, 2011
Posted: 1:57 AM, July 2, 2011
Dominique Strauss-Kahn's accuser wasn't just a girl working at a hotel -- she was a working girl.
The Sofitel housekeeper who claims the former IMF boss sexually assaulted her in his room was doing double duty as a prostitute, collecting cash on the side from male guests, The Post has learned.
"There is information . . . of her getting extraordinary tips, if you know what I mean. And it's not for bringing extra f--king towels," a source close to the defense investigation said yesterday.
The woman was allegedly purposely assigned to the Midtown hotel by her union because it knew she would bring in big bucks.
"When you're a chambermaid at Local 6, when you first get to the US, you start at the motels at JFK [Airport]. You don't start at the Sofitel," the source said. "There's a whole squad of people who saw her as an earner."
The woman also had "a lot of her expenses -- hair braiding, salon expenses -- paid for by men not related to her," the source said.
Allegations that she worked as a hotel hooker may explain why Strauss-Kahn insists their encounter was consensual. His defense attorneys refused yesterday to comment on the damning evidence -- or say whether he paid her for sex.
Sources also told The Post Strauss-Kahn's probers uncovered evidence that she was part of a pyramid scheme that targeted immigrants from her native Guinea.
"We have people who have been victimized, who have claimed she ripped them off. Nice working people from her neighborhood," a source said.
The stunning new info surfaced yesterday as the accuser was unmasked as a pathological liar and scam artist by prosecutors whose rape case has unraveled.
Strauss-Kahn -- who was under house arrest with a $5 million bond -- was released without bail after the Manhattan DA's Office admitted that the maid repeatedly lied to them about the alleged attack and her personal history.
Most damning to the case is that she flat-out lied on her asylum application that she was the "victim of a gang rape" in Guinea -- memorizing a cassette tape that coached her on what to say, according to a letter prosecutors sent to the defense.
"She reiterated these falsehoods when questioned about her history and background, and stated that she did so in order to remain consistent with the statement that she had submitted as part of her application," prosecutors said in the letter.
"Presently, the complainant states that she would that she was raped in the past in her native country but in an incident different than the one that she described during initial interviews."
To get tax benefits, she also claimed she had a second child. She only has one, a 15-year-old daughter.
"She also admitted to misrepresenting her income in order to maintain her present housing," the letter said.
Prosecutors said the woman lied to a grand jury by testifying she immediately alerted a supervisor about the assault.
The maid actually cleaned a neighboring suite on the 28th floor and then scrubbed Strauss-Kahn's room before she reported the incident to her boss.
Twenty-eight hours after the alleged sexual assault, the woman talked to her boyfriend in an immigration jail in Arizona -- saying "words to the effect of, 'Don't worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I'm doing,' " The New York Times quoted an official saying.
The bombshell disclosures will likely force the DA to drop all charges against the banking big shot.
"I understand that the circumstances surrounding the case have changed substantially," Judge Michael Obus said as he ordered Strauss-Kahn's $1 million bail and $5 million bond returned and gave permission for him to travel anywhere in the United States without restriction.
His passport was not returned.
"In the meantime, there will be no rush to judgment in this case," said Obus, adding, "I expect the process will go on in a manner that is fair as can be."
Strauss-Kahn, considered before his May 14 arrest to be a leading candidate for the French presidency, happily strode out of Manhattan Supreme Court holding hands with loyal wife Anne Sinclair after the brief, dramatic hearing.
"On the eve of Independence Day, we get to celebrate with Mr. Strauss-Kahn and his family a bit of personal independence," said his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman. "This is a giant step in the right direction. The next step will lead to complete dismissal of the charges."
Strauss-Kahn's first taste of freedom came last night at the cozy -- and pricey -- Upper East Side Italian eatery Scalinatella, where he sipped red wine with his wife and a security detail at a celebratory meal that cost $700.
Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr., said that although his investigators have "raised concerns about the complaining witnesses' credibility . . . today's proceedings did not dismiss the indictment, or any of the charges."
The maid's lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, blasted Vance, accusing prosecutors of sabotaging their own case despite strong evidence of rape.
"Our concern is that District Attorney Vance is too afraid to try this case," Thompson said. "We believe he's afraid he's going to lose this high-profile case" like he did the trials over an alleged cop rape and the Deutsche Bank Building fire.
Thompson called allegations about her call to a jailed friend -- and that she had a bank account that contained $100,000 deposited by several people over two years -- "a lie."
When asked about the maid supposedly cleaning the rooms before reporting that she had been attacked, Thompson said she was very upset at the time and "did not know what to do."
The lawyer said there was other evidence against Strauss-Kahn, including hotel security video that shows him looking "nervous" afterward with "toothpaste smeared outside of his mouth."
Thompson admitted she lied on her asylum application but said she did so because "the victim is also a victim of female genital mutilation" and was desperate to shield her daughter from the same fate.
A spokesman for the hotel union denied it placed the victim at the Sofitel.
"These allegations are absurd," spokesman Josh Gold said. "She never registered at our hiring hall. We never sent her for a single interview. We absolutely did not place her at the hotel and we do not track tips."
The Lies She Told
“I cowered in fear after DSK’s attack.” She told a grand jury under oath that after she was sexually assaulted in DSK’s hotel Suite No. 2806, she fled down the hall, where she cowered until she saw him leave for the elevator. She then immediately told her supervisors of the attack, she said.
TRUTH: She eventually confessed to prosecutors that what she really did after the “attack” was clean two rooms, including Suite No. 2806. Only then did she tell hotel staff what had “happened.”
“I was gang-raped by Guinean soldiers.” DSK’s 32-year-old accuser swore in asylum paperwork that in retaliation for her family’s political opposition to Guinea’s dictatorship, she had been beaten and raped by a mob of soldiers. Prosecutors say she sobbed and “appeared distraught” as she recounted the ordeal.
TRUTH: “In subsequent interviews, she admitted that the gang rape had never occurred,” prosecutors told defense lawyers in legal documents. “Instead, she stated that she had lied about its occurrence and fabricated the details.”
“I have two children.” Prosecutors say that for the past two tax years, DSK’s accuser declared she had two children as dependents on her tax returns.
TRUTH: “She declared a friend’s child in addition to her own as a dependent on her tax returns for the purpose of increasing her tax refund beyond that to which she was entitled,” prosecutors say in court papers. She is actually the mother of only one child, a 15-year-old girl.
Source: click here
Why doesn't the DA let go of this case? He and the cops were played for fools. It is Diallo's fault not Strauss-Khan's. If you hate his politics fine but don't make false accusations. This is well past "old" by now.
* Big tips for extra 'turndown service' * Prosecutors list litany of lies, scams
By LAURA ITALIANO
Last Updated: 2:41 PM, July 2, 2011
Posted: 1:57 AM, July 2, 2011
Dominique Strauss-Kahn's accuser wasn't just a girl working at a hotel -- she was a working girl.
The Sofitel housekeeper who claims the former IMF boss sexually assaulted her in his room was doing double duty as a prostitute, collecting cash on the side from male guests, The Post has learned.
"There is information . . . of her getting extraordinary tips, if you know what I mean. And it's not for bringing extra f--king towels," a source close to the defense investigation said yesterday.
The woman was allegedly purposely assigned to the Midtown hotel by her union because it knew she would bring in big bucks.
"When you're a chambermaid at Local 6, when you first get to the US, you start at the motels at JFK [Airport]. You don't start at the Sofitel," the source said. "There's a whole squad of people who saw her as an earner."
The woman also had "a lot of her expenses -- hair braiding, salon expenses -- paid for by men not related to her," the source said.
Allegations that she worked as a hotel hooker may explain why Strauss-Kahn insists their encounter was consensual. His defense attorneys refused yesterday to comment on the damning evidence -- or say whether he paid her for sex.
Sources also told The Post Strauss-Kahn's probers uncovered evidence that she was part of a pyramid scheme that targeted immigrants from her native Guinea.
"We have people who have been victimized, who have claimed she ripped them off. Nice working people from her neighborhood," a source said.
The stunning new info surfaced yesterday as the accuser was unmasked as a pathological liar and scam artist by prosecutors whose rape case has unraveled.
Strauss-Kahn -- who was under house arrest with a $5 million bond -- was released without bail after the Manhattan DA's Office admitted that the maid repeatedly lied to them about the alleged attack and her personal history.
Most damning to the case is that she flat-out lied on her asylum application that she was the "victim of a gang rape" in Guinea -- memorizing a cassette tape that coached her on what to say, according to a letter prosecutors sent to the defense.
"She reiterated these falsehoods when questioned about her history and background, and stated that she did so in order to remain consistent with the statement that she had submitted as part of her application," prosecutors said in the letter.
"Presently, the complainant states that she would that she was raped in the past in her native country but in an incident different than the one that she described during initial interviews."
To get tax benefits, she also claimed she had a second child. She only has one, a 15-year-old daughter.
"She also admitted to misrepresenting her income in order to maintain her present housing," the letter said.
Prosecutors said the woman lied to a grand jury by testifying she immediately alerted a supervisor about the assault.
The maid actually cleaned a neighboring suite on the 28th floor and then scrubbed Strauss-Kahn's room before she reported the incident to her boss.
Twenty-eight hours after the alleged sexual assault, the woman talked to her boyfriend in an immigration jail in Arizona -- saying "words to the effect of, 'Don't worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I'm doing,' " The New York Times quoted an official saying.
The bombshell disclosures will likely force the DA to drop all charges against the banking big shot.
"I understand that the circumstances surrounding the case have changed substantially," Judge Michael Obus said as he ordered Strauss-Kahn's $1 million bail and $5 million bond returned and gave permission for him to travel anywhere in the United States without restriction.
His passport was not returned.
"In the meantime, there will be no rush to judgment in this case," said Obus, adding, "I expect the process will go on in a manner that is fair as can be."
Strauss-Kahn, considered before his May 14 arrest to be a leading candidate for the French presidency, happily strode out of Manhattan Supreme Court holding hands with loyal wife Anne Sinclair after the brief, dramatic hearing.
"On the eve of Independence Day, we get to celebrate with Mr. Strauss-Kahn and his family a bit of personal independence," said his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman. "This is a giant step in the right direction. The next step will lead to complete dismissal of the charges."
Strauss-Kahn's first taste of freedom came last night at the cozy -- and pricey -- Upper East Side Italian eatery Scalinatella, where he sipped red wine with his wife and a security detail at a celebratory meal that cost $700.
Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr., said that although his investigators have "raised concerns about the complaining witnesses' credibility . . . today's proceedings did not dismiss the indictment, or any of the charges."
The maid's lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, blasted Vance, accusing prosecutors of sabotaging their own case despite strong evidence of rape.
"Our concern is that District Attorney Vance is too afraid to try this case," Thompson said. "We believe he's afraid he's going to lose this high-profile case" like he did the trials over an alleged cop rape and the Deutsche Bank Building fire.
Thompson called allegations about her call to a jailed friend -- and that she had a bank account that contained $100,000 deposited by several people over two years -- "a lie."
When asked about the maid supposedly cleaning the rooms before reporting that she had been attacked, Thompson said she was very upset at the time and "did not know what to do."
The lawyer said there was other evidence against Strauss-Kahn, including hotel security video that shows him looking "nervous" afterward with "toothpaste smeared outside of his mouth."
Thompson admitted she lied on her asylum application but said she did so because "the victim is also a victim of female genital mutilation" and was desperate to shield her daughter from the same fate.
A spokesman for the hotel union denied it placed the victim at the Sofitel.
"These allegations are absurd," spokesman Josh Gold said. "She never registered at our hiring hall. We never sent her for a single interview. We absolutely did not place her at the hotel and we do not track tips."
The Lies She Told
“I cowered in fear after DSK’s attack.” She told a grand jury under oath that after she was sexually assaulted in DSK’s hotel Suite No. 2806, she fled down the hall, where she cowered until she saw him leave for the elevator. She then immediately told her supervisors of the attack, she said.
TRUTH: She eventually confessed to prosecutors that what she really did after the “attack” was clean two rooms, including Suite No. 2806. Only then did she tell hotel staff what had “happened.”
“I was gang-raped by Guinean soldiers.” DSK’s 32-year-old accuser swore in asylum paperwork that in retaliation for her family’s political opposition to Guinea’s dictatorship, she had been beaten and raped by a mob of soldiers. Prosecutors say she sobbed and “appeared distraught” as she recounted the ordeal.
TRUTH: “In subsequent interviews, she admitted that the gang rape had never occurred,” prosecutors told defense lawyers in legal documents. “Instead, she stated that she had lied about its occurrence and fabricated the details.”
“I have two children.” Prosecutors say that for the past two tax years, DSK’s accuser declared she had two children as dependents on her tax returns.
TRUTH: “She declared a friend’s child in addition to her own as a dependent on her tax returns for the purpose of increasing her tax refund beyond that to which she was entitled,” prosecutors say in court papers. She is actually the mother of only one child, a 15-year-old girl.
Source: click here
Why doesn't the DA let go of this case? He and the cops were played for fools. It is Diallo's fault not Strauss-Khan's. If you hate his politics fine but don't make false accusations. This is well past "old" by now.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Strauss-Khan accuser admits to extortion plot
Strauss-Kahn Accuser’s Call Alarmed Prosecutors
By JIM DWYER and MICHAEL WILSON
Published: July 1, 2011
Twenty-eight hours after a housekeeper at the Sofitel New York said she was sexually assaulted by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, she spoke by phone to a boyfriend in an immigration jail in Arizona.
Investigators with the Manhattan district attorney’s office learned the call had been recorded and had it translated from a “unique dialect of Fulani,” a language from the woman’s native country, Guinea, according to a well-placed law enforcement official.
When the conversation was translated — a job completed only this Wednesday — investigators were alarmed: “She says words to the effect of, ‘Don’t worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I’m doing,’ ” the official said.
It was another ground-shifting revelation in a continuing series of troubling statements, fabrications and associations that unraveled the case and upended prosecutors’ view of the woman. Once, in the hours after she said she was attacked on May 14, she’d been a “very pious, devout Muslim woman, shattered by this experience,” the official said — a seemingly ideal witness.
Little by little, her credibility as a witness crumbled — she had lied about her immigration, about being gang raped in Guinea, about her experiences in her homeland and about her finances, according to two law enforcement officials. She had been linked to people suspected of crimes. She changed her account of what she did immediately after the encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn. Sit-downs with prosecutors became tense, even angry. Initially composed, she later collapsed in tears and got down on the floor during questioning. She became unavailable to investigators from the district attorney’s office for days at a time.
Now the phone call raised yet another problem: it seemed as if she hoped to profit from whatever occurred in Suite 2806.
The story of the woman’s six-week journey from seemingly credible victim, in the eyes of prosecutors, to a deeply unreliable witness, is drawn from interviews with law enforcement officials, statements from the woman’s lawyer and a letter from prosecutors to Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s defense team released in court on Friday. Some of the events were confirmed by both law enforcement officials and the women’s lawyer; others rely solely on law enforcement officials. In the end, it was the prosecutors’ assessment of the housekeeper’s credibility that led them to downgrade their confidence in the case and agree on Friday that Mr. Strauss-Kahn could be freed from house arrest.
In the beginning, her relationship with prosecutors was strong. Her account seemed solid. Over time, the well-placed official said, they discovered that she was capable of telling multiple, inconsistent versions of what appeared to be important episodes in her life. After the encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn, she asked her supervisor at Sofitel, “Can any guest at the hotel do anything they want with us?” her lawyer, Kenneth P. Thompson, said during a sidewalk press conference on Friday defending her.
The supervisor called security, and officers, finding semen on the floor and wall, called the police, setting off the quick chain of events that led to police officers escorting Mr. Strauss-Kahn off an Air France plane set to depart Kennedy International Airport.
Suspicions of the woman’s associations arose relatively quickly: within a week of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s arrest, the authorities learned of a recorded conversation between the subject of a drug investigation and another man, who said his companion was the woman involved in the Strauss-Kahn matter, according to another law enforcement official.
Prosecutors and investigators interviewed the woman at length.
Her immigration history was a focus. At first, she told them what she told immigration officials seven years ago in her accounts of how she fled Guinea and her application for asylum on Dec. 30, 2004. She described soldiers destroying the home where she lived with her husband, and said they were both beaten because of their opposition to the regime. She said her husband died in jail.
But then, in a subsequent interview with Manhattan prosecutors, she said the story was false, one she had been urged to tell by a man who gave it to her on a cassette recording to memorize. She had listened to the recording repeatedly.
The housekeeper also told investigators that she had been gang raped in Guinea. She cried and became “markedly distraught when recounting the incident,” according to a letter to the defense from prosecutors released Friday. But she later admitted that that, too, was a lie, once again one she had told to help her application for asylum. She said she was indeed raped in Guinea, but not in the way she had described.
Her lawyer, Mr. Thompson, said she was desperate to leave Guinea, and had been encouraged to embellish her application for asylum.
The boyfriend in the Arizona detention center was another issue. He had been arrested while bartering counterfeit designer clothing from Manhattan’s Chinatown for marijuana in the Southwest, the well-placed law enforcement official said. Her lawyer said she did not know the man was “a drug dealer.”
Meanwhile, as the interviews continued, the relationship grew more strained. During a meeting at the district attorney’s office on June 9, the woman wept as she was questioned closely after Mr. Thompson had left for another engagement. Her 15-year-old daughter, who was waiting outside, noticed that her mother was upset and called a relative to alert Mr. Thompson. The lawyer called the prosecutors and demanded an end to the questioning. He said on Friday that the daughter heard them shout, “Get out! Get out! Get out of here!” at her mother. The authorities say there was no shouting.
At another meeting, the woman threw herself to the floor in response to questions, the well-placed official said.
Then, for some 10 days, prosecutors were unable to get Mr. Thompson to bring her in; the lawyer said she was being treated for a shoulder injury that she suffered in the attack, an injury she had not reported earlier.
The final meeting occurred on Tuesday in the seventh-floor offices of the district attorney at 1 Hogan Place. It began at 11 a.m. and lasted five or six hours, except for a short lunch break, around an oval table in a conference room in the offices of the Public Integrity Unit.
It was devastating. In recent weeks, investigators collected bank records showing deposits of thousands of dollars in Arizona, Georgia, New York and Pennsylvania to an account in her name.
The woman had repeatedly said that the Sofitel was her only source of income.
Now, investigators confronted her with the bank records.
The woman, silent, turned to Mr. Thompson, seemingly pleading for direction on how to respond. He seemed startled.
“He was speechless,” the well-placed official said.
The district attorney’s office said the woman had lied about her income to maintain her public housing, and had claimed a friend’s child as her own dependant to increase her tax refund.
At the same meeting, the woman gave a new version of what she had done immediately after the encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn. In testimony before the grand jury in May, she said she had fled Suite 2806 to an area in the main hallway and waited until she saw Mr. Strauss-Kahn leave in an elevator. She has said that her supervisor arrived a short time later, and that she told her supervisor what had happened.
On Tuesday, the well-placed official said, she told investigators new details, stating, “I forgot to tell you this.”
In fact, she said, she left Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s room and entered another room — her lawyer said it was Suite 2820 — and cleaned it, and then returned to Suite 2806 and cleaned it until her supervisor arrived.
“She did not know what to do,” her lawyer said. “She did not want to lose her job. She knew that her supervisor was going to be coming upstairs momentarily. So, she went into another room.”
And yet, even this version was not corroborated by card-key data obtained by investigators on Friday, which indicated that the housekeeper went to the other room only after she had finished Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s room.
Some within the district attorney’s office suggested that the rush to bring the case to a grand jury may have contributed to its current, weakened state.
Early on, there appeared to be disagreement in the office over how to proceed — whether to agree to a bail package for Mr. Strauss-Kahn and take more time to investigate before seeking his indictment, or whether to try to keep him locked up and quickly take the case to the grand jury for an indictment, according to three people involved in the case.
The office chose to seek a quick indictment, but a Manhattan judge let Mr. Strauss-Kahn out on bail anyway.
Mr. Thompson said that the housekeeper’s account of what took place in Suite 2806 is the only one that matters, and said that in the jail recording, she recounted a version of the encounter that matched what she had told the police.
“It’s a fact that the victim here has made some mistakes, but that doesn’t mean she’s not a rape victim,” Mr. Thompson said Friday.
The woman has been crushed that her inconsistent statements have been brought to light, Mr. Thompson said. “I will go to my grave knowing what this man did to me,” she told him on Friday, he said.
Source: click here
By JIM DWYER and MICHAEL WILSON
Published: July 1, 2011
Twenty-eight hours after a housekeeper at the Sofitel New York said she was sexually assaulted by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, she spoke by phone to a boyfriend in an immigration jail in Arizona.
Investigators with the Manhattan district attorney’s office learned the call had been recorded and had it translated from a “unique dialect of Fulani,” a language from the woman’s native country, Guinea, according to a well-placed law enforcement official.
When the conversation was translated — a job completed only this Wednesday — investigators were alarmed: “She says words to the effect of, ‘Don’t worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I’m doing,’ ” the official said.
It was another ground-shifting revelation in a continuing series of troubling statements, fabrications and associations that unraveled the case and upended prosecutors’ view of the woman. Once, in the hours after she said she was attacked on May 14, she’d been a “very pious, devout Muslim woman, shattered by this experience,” the official said — a seemingly ideal witness.
Little by little, her credibility as a witness crumbled — she had lied about her immigration, about being gang raped in Guinea, about her experiences in her homeland and about her finances, according to two law enforcement officials. She had been linked to people suspected of crimes. She changed her account of what she did immediately after the encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn. Sit-downs with prosecutors became tense, even angry. Initially composed, she later collapsed in tears and got down on the floor during questioning. She became unavailable to investigators from the district attorney’s office for days at a time.
Now the phone call raised yet another problem: it seemed as if she hoped to profit from whatever occurred in Suite 2806.
The story of the woman’s six-week journey from seemingly credible victim, in the eyes of prosecutors, to a deeply unreliable witness, is drawn from interviews with law enforcement officials, statements from the woman’s lawyer and a letter from prosecutors to Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s defense team released in court on Friday. Some of the events were confirmed by both law enforcement officials and the women’s lawyer; others rely solely on law enforcement officials. In the end, it was the prosecutors’ assessment of the housekeeper’s credibility that led them to downgrade their confidence in the case and agree on Friday that Mr. Strauss-Kahn could be freed from house arrest.
In the beginning, her relationship with prosecutors was strong. Her account seemed solid. Over time, the well-placed official said, they discovered that she was capable of telling multiple, inconsistent versions of what appeared to be important episodes in her life. After the encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn, she asked her supervisor at Sofitel, “Can any guest at the hotel do anything they want with us?” her lawyer, Kenneth P. Thompson, said during a sidewalk press conference on Friday defending her.
The supervisor called security, and officers, finding semen on the floor and wall, called the police, setting off the quick chain of events that led to police officers escorting Mr. Strauss-Kahn off an Air France plane set to depart Kennedy International Airport.
Suspicions of the woman’s associations arose relatively quickly: within a week of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s arrest, the authorities learned of a recorded conversation between the subject of a drug investigation and another man, who said his companion was the woman involved in the Strauss-Kahn matter, according to another law enforcement official.
Prosecutors and investigators interviewed the woman at length.
Her immigration history was a focus. At first, she told them what she told immigration officials seven years ago in her accounts of how she fled Guinea and her application for asylum on Dec. 30, 2004. She described soldiers destroying the home where she lived with her husband, and said they were both beaten because of their opposition to the regime. She said her husband died in jail.
But then, in a subsequent interview with Manhattan prosecutors, she said the story was false, one she had been urged to tell by a man who gave it to her on a cassette recording to memorize. She had listened to the recording repeatedly.
The housekeeper also told investigators that she had been gang raped in Guinea. She cried and became “markedly distraught when recounting the incident,” according to a letter to the defense from prosecutors released Friday. But she later admitted that that, too, was a lie, once again one she had told to help her application for asylum. She said she was indeed raped in Guinea, but not in the way she had described.
Her lawyer, Mr. Thompson, said she was desperate to leave Guinea, and had been encouraged to embellish her application for asylum.
The boyfriend in the Arizona detention center was another issue. He had been arrested while bartering counterfeit designer clothing from Manhattan’s Chinatown for marijuana in the Southwest, the well-placed law enforcement official said. Her lawyer said she did not know the man was “a drug dealer.”
Meanwhile, as the interviews continued, the relationship grew more strained. During a meeting at the district attorney’s office on June 9, the woman wept as she was questioned closely after Mr. Thompson had left for another engagement. Her 15-year-old daughter, who was waiting outside, noticed that her mother was upset and called a relative to alert Mr. Thompson. The lawyer called the prosecutors and demanded an end to the questioning. He said on Friday that the daughter heard them shout, “Get out! Get out! Get out of here!” at her mother. The authorities say there was no shouting.
At another meeting, the woman threw herself to the floor in response to questions, the well-placed official said.
Then, for some 10 days, prosecutors were unable to get Mr. Thompson to bring her in; the lawyer said she was being treated for a shoulder injury that she suffered in the attack, an injury she had not reported earlier.
The final meeting occurred on Tuesday in the seventh-floor offices of the district attorney at 1 Hogan Place. It began at 11 a.m. and lasted five or six hours, except for a short lunch break, around an oval table in a conference room in the offices of the Public Integrity Unit.
It was devastating. In recent weeks, investigators collected bank records showing deposits of thousands of dollars in Arizona, Georgia, New York and Pennsylvania to an account in her name.
The woman had repeatedly said that the Sofitel was her only source of income.
Now, investigators confronted her with the bank records.
The woman, silent, turned to Mr. Thompson, seemingly pleading for direction on how to respond. He seemed startled.
“He was speechless,” the well-placed official said.
The district attorney’s office said the woman had lied about her income to maintain her public housing, and had claimed a friend’s child as her own dependant to increase her tax refund.
At the same meeting, the woman gave a new version of what she had done immediately after the encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn. In testimony before the grand jury in May, she said she had fled Suite 2806 to an area in the main hallway and waited until she saw Mr. Strauss-Kahn leave in an elevator. She has said that her supervisor arrived a short time later, and that she told her supervisor what had happened.
On Tuesday, the well-placed official said, she told investigators new details, stating, “I forgot to tell you this.”
In fact, she said, she left Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s room and entered another room — her lawyer said it was Suite 2820 — and cleaned it, and then returned to Suite 2806 and cleaned it until her supervisor arrived.
“She did not know what to do,” her lawyer said. “She did not want to lose her job. She knew that her supervisor was going to be coming upstairs momentarily. So, she went into another room.”
And yet, even this version was not corroborated by card-key data obtained by investigators on Friday, which indicated that the housekeeper went to the other room only after she had finished Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s room.
Some within the district attorney’s office suggested that the rush to bring the case to a grand jury may have contributed to its current, weakened state.
Early on, there appeared to be disagreement in the office over how to proceed — whether to agree to a bail package for Mr. Strauss-Kahn and take more time to investigate before seeking his indictment, or whether to try to keep him locked up and quickly take the case to the grand jury for an indictment, according to three people involved in the case.
The office chose to seek a quick indictment, but a Manhattan judge let Mr. Strauss-Kahn out on bail anyway.
Mr. Thompson said that the housekeeper’s account of what took place in Suite 2806 is the only one that matters, and said that in the jail recording, she recounted a version of the encounter that matched what she had told the police.
“It’s a fact that the victim here has made some mistakes, but that doesn’t mean she’s not a rape victim,” Mr. Thompson said Friday.
The woman has been crushed that her inconsistent statements have been brought to light, Mr. Thompson said. “I will go to my grave knowing what this man did to me,” she told him on Friday, he said.
Source: click here
New IMF head is a sexist feminist
Christine Lagarde: 'There should never be too much testosterone in one room'
The Monday Interview: France's image abroad has not always been enhanced by Nicolas Sarkozy. Which makes Christine Lagarde's value to her country all the greater. John Lichfield met her
Monday, 7 February 2011
Christine Lagarde, one of the most powerful women in the world, says she would like to spend more time with her "beautiful roses" in Normandy. She says she would like to spend more time cooking for her family or making apricot and quince jam.
What? Is the first woman ever to become finance minister of a large industrial country, a former "FT finance minister of the year", tired of politics? Is she bored with defending the embattled euro and – since France currently holds the presidency of the G8-G20 – saving the planet?
Or is it simply that the elegant Ms Lagarde is weary of the world of suits? Does she think that politics, and especially financial politics, should be left to the boys after all?
Not at all. Christine Lagarde believes that women in high places are essential. Men, left to themselves, will usually make a mess of things. The 2008 financial collapse was, at least in part, she says, driven by the aggressive, greedy, testosterone-fuelled mood of male-dominated, hi-tech trading rooms.
Ms Lagarde spoke to The Independent in her large office with sweeping views over the Seine, in the modern university-like campus of the French finance ministry at Bercy, in eastern Paris. "Gender-dominated environments are not good... particularly in the financial sector where there are too few women," she said. "In gender-dominated environments, men have a tendency to... show how hairy chested they are, compared with the man who's sitting next to them. I honestly think that there should never be too much testosterone in one room."
Christine Lagarde, 55, the Finance Minister since 2007, has become, next to President Nicolas Sarkozy, the best known face of the French government outside France. Because she speaks fluent English, and is comfortable and eloquent on television and radio, she is a frequent performer on the BBC, CNN and other non-French networks.
She is a different kind of French politician for other reasons. Ms Lagarde did not clamber into the French elite by the narrow, winding, stairs of the "grande ecoles" or tribal, party allegiance. She joined a large American law firm Baker and McKenzie in Paris in 1981 and rose, by the elevator of her own talent, to be its global chairman in Chicago.
Ms Lagarde, lawyer-turned-politician, says she now regards France, and the French people, as her "client". For the last year, her client has also been the ailing euro.
She is confident, she says, that the euro will now survive, and thrive, but she admits that there was a weekend last May when she feared that it might collapse. She also spoke of France's ambitious plans for regulating the world financial system and why these should be seen as a way of saving international markets from their own excesses, and not a French "dirigeiste" conspiracy against "Anglo-Saxon" interests.
A distinction can and should be made, she suggests, between the kind of excessive speculation in "virtual" markets which produced the 2008 crash and "real" markets linked to a "real world".
Ms Lagarde, a divorcee with two sons, also spoke a little of her career, her family and her beloved country retreat, north of Rouen, in upper Normandy. It turns out that one of the forgotten victims of last year's euro crisis – and all those weekend ministerial meetings – was Christine Lagarde's gross domestic product of home-made jam. Perhaps than many politicians, she knows the "real world". She was born Christine Lallouette on 1 January 1956 in Paris. Her father, Robert, a university lecturer, died when she was 17. Her mother, Nicole, a teacher, was left to bring up Christine and her three younger brothers.
As a teenager, Christine Lallouette was on the French national synchronised swimming team. She was educated in Paris and Le Havre and then spent some time in the US, including a stint as an intern on Capitol Hill. Back in France, she trained as a lawyer and made two unsuccessful attempts to enter the elite French civil service college, the Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA).
Had she been successful, she now agrees, it is "very unlikely" that she would have fought her way through the male-dominated world of French politics to reach her present, eminent position. Instead, at 25, she joined the Paris office of Baker & McKenzie, a law firm present in 35 countries. By 1999, she was chairman at company HQ in Chicago, the first woman to hold the position. In 2005, she was headhunted to become Trade Minister in the French government. After a one month stint as Agriculture Minister in May 2007, she became Finance Minister and is now a few months short of being the longest-serving finance minister of the Fifth Republic (ie since 1958).
Is the euro crisis now over? For the whole of last year, the financial markets were one step ahead of EU governments in speculating against the Greeks, the Irish, the Portuguese and against the survival of the euro itself. Berlin and Paris have been using the present uneasy calm to try to jump ahead of the markets. "We're working at the moment on what I call the foundation strengthening of the eurozone," Ms Lagarde said. "Our deadline is the March council [EU summit] and we'll deliver on time."
The Germans have given up their opposition to the idea of euroland-wide economic governance. The French have accepted that all euroland members should become more German: through corporate tax harmonisation, constitutional limits on deficits and curbs on pay rises. Other countries are squealing. Ms Lagarde says "compromise" will be needed on all sides, but not too much...
The euro was given "fragile foundations" by its "founding fathers", she said. "Founding fathers not mothers, notice. Regrettably there was no woman at the table at the time... We are now working on [foundations] which are bigger, which are stronger."
Looking back, she says, the insistent speculation against the euro last year was not, as some suggest, a deliberate assault on the European currency by euro-hating "Anglo-Saxon markets". Nor was it truly a question of the markets being "worried" by Greek or Irish debt. "Markets love volatility," she said. The markets simply saw an opportunity to create, and then profit from, volatility which the weak, founding rules and the inherent tensions in euroland made it impossible to calm.
Was she ever worried that the euro might not survive? "I think during the weekend of the 9th and 10th of May, yes," she said. "We put together this bilateral loan and bilateral instrument to support Greece. Much to our regret we then saw that the markets were still... undermining confidence in the zone and in the currency... Over the weekend, from Saturday to the early hours of Monday morning, we worked hard to put together the financial stability fund. It was a make or break then. Yes, I certainly had that feeling."
And now? British and American commentators remain obsessively negative about the euro's prospects but Ms Lagarde points to signs that "the markets" themselves are betting on the currency's long-term survival. A recent offering of bonds denominated in euros for the new European stability fund was "oversubscribed by a factor of nine or 10", she said. "I think the maturity of the bond was 10 or 15 years," she said. "It shows that [the markets] assume that in 10 years' time the euro will still be there."
Ms Lagarde's Norman roses may continue to be neglected this spring and summer, whether the euro crisis revives or not. France holds the presidencies of the G8 and G20 groups of developed and rapidly developing countries. President Sarkozy has outlined an ambitious agenda for new global regulation of financial markets to be discussed at the Cannes summit in November.
Some of the ideas – especially the proposal for what she calls a "teensy-tiny" tax on each international financial transaction – have already been shot down by market fundamentalists in Britain and the US.
The "transaction tax" idea is not dead, she insists. A group of countries may go ahead in the hope of shaming others. The idea was originally conceived by the American economist James Tobin as a way of "putting a little grain of sand in the currency transaction machine in order to reduce the volatility" of markets. This may still be justified, she said, but the real reason for pushing ahead now is the need to raise the $100bn a year promised, from 2020, to help poor countries invest to cope with climate change.
"There are multiple transactions going on every day, at lightning speed ... and that could constitute a very large [tax] base if everyone was to play the game. We could assess a teensy tiny, minute tax... on every transaction."
There was much opposition to the idea, Ms Lagarde admitted, "but we could very well try a coalition of the willing. If it's just France on its own it's going to be difficult, but if it were a larger a number of countries then we could show that it works."
But wouldn't that just mean that traders would shift their operating bases to those countries which did not charge the tax?
"It's possible, it's possible. So we need to explore who is prepared to play the game," she said. "We need to see what public opinion thinks about those that always say 'no, no, no, you've got to leave financial transactions alone'."
One of the other ambitious French proposals for G8-G20 is to regulate "futures trading" in commodities from oil, to wheat, to copper, to cocoa. Immoderate speculation in commodities is blamed by some people (not all) for the recent sharp spikes in food and metal prices. Mr Sarkozy and Ms Lagarde spent much time at the Davos World Economic Forum last month assuring other delegates that their idea was not to ban futures trading but to curb new and dangerous forms of speculation.
But isn't all futures trading speculative by its very nature? Yes, says Ms Lagarde, but there is legitimate speculation and there is speculation which has lost all touch with physical reality. In some futures markets, she says, the amount of money in play at any one time can be "35 or 40 times" the value of the entire stocks of that commodity available in the world.
This, she says, is "scary" and reminiscent of the kind of virtual trading in "credit default swaps", or insurance policies on debt, which lay behind the 2008 economic collapse. Then, the value of the "default swaps" traded on US mortgages exceeded, by several times, the value of the entire American economy.
Ms Lagarde has two sons aged 22 and 24. Her delight, away from work (when she can get away from it) is to spend time with them, and her new partner, in upper Normandy.
"I love cooking," she said. "Not for myself alone. Cooking is about giving. And I've got a beautiful rose garden that I absolutely adore. I haven't seen much of my roses this summer. I long for the time when I can... (she broke off wistfully)."
"And I couldn't make any jam this year, which I always do." What type of jam? "Oh, all sorts of berries, and apricots. And quinces."
For at least another year, it seems, the only jam to bother Christine Lagarde will be the one the world is in.
A life in brief
Born 1 January 1956, Paris.
Family Both her parents were teachers. She is divorced with two grown-up sons and lives with her partner.
Education Graduated from Le Havre university before attending Paris X law school and later completing a master's degree at the Institut d'études politiques d'Aix-en-Provence.
Career After being called to the bar, Lagarde joined international law firm Baker & McKenzie. In 2005 she was appointed minister for foreign trade and, after a brief stint as minister for agriculture and fisheries, became the first female finance minister in a G8 country. Forbes recently listed her as the world's 43rd most influential woman.
She says "I hate to say there are female and male ways of dealing with power, because I think each of us has a male and a female part. But based on my own experience, women will tend to be inclusive, to reach out more, to care a little more." (Forbes, September 2009)
He says "Her lightning-quick wit, genuine warmth and ability to bridge divides while remaining fiercely loyal to French interests have been a source of admiration." (Timothy Geithner, US Secretary of the Treasury, Time, April 2009)
Source:click here
Case against Dominique Strauss-Khan falls apart
By Basil Katz and Mark Egan
NEW YORK Fri Jul 1, 2011 6:55pm EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was released from house arrest on Friday after prosecutors said the hotel maid who accuses him of attempted rape lied to a grand jury and made other false statements.
Strauss-Kahn, 62, still faces charges that he sexually assaulted the woman in New York but questions about her credibility appear to be shifting the case in his favor in a twist that could upend French politics.
The former steward of the global economy smiled as he left court with his wife, Anne Sinclair, at his side.
Until his May 14 arrest, Strauss-Kahn was a strong potential challenger to Conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2012 election. Jubilant supporters in the French Socialist party hoped he might rejoin the presidential race but some analysts saw his chances as too tarnished.
Strauss-Kahn's lawyers want the charges dropped. The judge said prosecutors will reexamine the evidence after they revealed the maid lied to a grand jury about her actions after the alleged attack and on tax and immigration documents.
"I understand that the circumstances of this case have changed substantially and I agree the risk that he would not be here has receded quite a bit," Justice Michael Obus told the court as he released Strauss-Kahn.
"There will be no rush to judgment. The people will continue to investigate and reexamine the matter as appropriate."
Strauss-Kahn, whose house arrest had included electronic monitoring and an armed guard, agreed to return to court as needed, including for a July 18 hearing.
His bail payment of $1 million and bond of $5 million were returned to him but his passport was not, meaning he can travel only within the United States.
With his resignation on May 19, Strauss-Kahn severed all his ties to the International Monetary Fund. Christine Lagarde, who has just stepped down as French finance minister, takes over the top IMF job on Tuesday.
QUESTIONS EMERGE
The case has hinged on the accuser, a 32-year-old Guinean immigrant who cleaned the $3,000-a-night suite at the Sofitel hotel in Manhattan where Strauss-Kahn was staying.
Prosecutors found issues with her asylum application, tax return and statements to the grand jury investigating the assault case, court documents showed.
Prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Orbon told the court "the facts of the sexual encounter was and is corroborated" but some details appear to have changed.
The woman initially said Strauss-Kahn assaulted her and she then cowered in the hallway outside his room until he left and she felt safe to seek help. Now, prosecutors say, she admits she cleaned a nearby room and then returned to Strauss-Kahn's suite to start cleaning before reporting the incident.
After the dramatic revelations, Strauss-Kahn's lawyer Benjamin Brafman said he wants the charges dropped.
"We are absolutely convinced that while today is a first giant step in the right direction, the next step will lead to a complete dismissal of the charges," Brafman said.
The woman's brother told Reuters in Guinea that she was the victim of a smear campaign.
Her lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, said after the hearing his client's story had never wavered and that Strauss-Kahn had bruised her badly and tore a ligament in her shoulder.
"The claim that this was consensual is a lie," Thompson told reporters. "She made some mistakes but that doesn't mean she is not a rape victim."
The New York Times quoted law enforcement officials as saying prosecutors found possible links between the accuser and people involved in drug dealing and money laundering.
They also discovered the woman made a phone call to a jailed man within a day of her encounter with Strauss-Kahn in which she discussed the possible benefits of pursuing the charges against him, the paper said.
The conversation was recorded. The man was among a number of people who had made multiple cash deposits, totaling around $100,000, into the woman's bank account over the last two years, The New York Times said.
Some commentators suggested that Strauss-Kahn, known as the "great seducer" of French politics, could have been set up.
His arrest opened the field for several other Socialist candidates for next April's presidential election, including party leader Martine Aubry, who trails colleague Francois Hollande in opinion polls.
Sarkozy, who nominated Strauss-Kahn for the IMF job, has not commented on the affair since his arrest. The case has prompted debate in France on gender equality and a media tradition of respecting the privacy of politicians' sex lives.
Nina Mitz, a former senior adviser to Strauss-Kahn at the French Ministry of Finance, said: "Today's stunning news can only make us regret that so much talent may have been wasted at a time when we all very much needed it."
(Additional reporting by Grant McCool, Christine Kearney, Paula Rogo and Bernd Debussmann Jr in New York, Mark Hosenball in Washington, Marie Maitre, Catherine Bremer and Geert De Clercq in Paris and Saliou Samb in Guinea; Writing by Mark Egan; Editing by John O'Callaghan)
Source:click here
But then again we already know the identity of the false accuser:click here
Strauss-Khan's replacement as head of the IMF is a misandrist feminist so this may have been a feminist conspiracy to get him out of the way and put one of their own in his place. Gender politics at the global level.
NEW YORK Fri Jul 1, 2011 6:55pm EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was released from house arrest on Friday after prosecutors said the hotel maid who accuses him of attempted rape lied to a grand jury and made other false statements.
Strauss-Kahn, 62, still faces charges that he sexually assaulted the woman in New York but questions about her credibility appear to be shifting the case in his favor in a twist that could upend French politics.
The former steward of the global economy smiled as he left court with his wife, Anne Sinclair, at his side.
Until his May 14 arrest, Strauss-Kahn was a strong potential challenger to Conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2012 election. Jubilant supporters in the French Socialist party hoped he might rejoin the presidential race but some analysts saw his chances as too tarnished.
Strauss-Kahn's lawyers want the charges dropped. The judge said prosecutors will reexamine the evidence after they revealed the maid lied to a grand jury about her actions after the alleged attack and on tax and immigration documents.
"I understand that the circumstances of this case have changed substantially and I agree the risk that he would not be here has receded quite a bit," Justice Michael Obus told the court as he released Strauss-Kahn.
"There will be no rush to judgment. The people will continue to investigate and reexamine the matter as appropriate."
Strauss-Kahn, whose house arrest had included electronic monitoring and an armed guard, agreed to return to court as needed, including for a July 18 hearing.
His bail payment of $1 million and bond of $5 million were returned to him but his passport was not, meaning he can travel only within the United States.
With his resignation on May 19, Strauss-Kahn severed all his ties to the International Monetary Fund. Christine Lagarde, who has just stepped down as French finance minister, takes over the top IMF job on Tuesday.
QUESTIONS EMERGE
The case has hinged on the accuser, a 32-year-old Guinean immigrant who cleaned the $3,000-a-night suite at the Sofitel hotel in Manhattan where Strauss-Kahn was staying.
Prosecutors found issues with her asylum application, tax return and statements to the grand jury investigating the assault case, court documents showed.
Prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Orbon told the court "the facts of the sexual encounter was and is corroborated" but some details appear to have changed.
The woman initially said Strauss-Kahn assaulted her and she then cowered in the hallway outside his room until he left and she felt safe to seek help. Now, prosecutors say, she admits she cleaned a nearby room and then returned to Strauss-Kahn's suite to start cleaning before reporting the incident.
After the dramatic revelations, Strauss-Kahn's lawyer Benjamin Brafman said he wants the charges dropped.
"We are absolutely convinced that while today is a first giant step in the right direction, the next step will lead to a complete dismissal of the charges," Brafman said.
The woman's brother told Reuters in Guinea that she was the victim of a smear campaign.
Her lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, said after the hearing his client's story had never wavered and that Strauss-Kahn had bruised her badly and tore a ligament in her shoulder.
"The claim that this was consensual is a lie," Thompson told reporters. "She made some mistakes but that doesn't mean she is not a rape victim."
The New York Times quoted law enforcement officials as saying prosecutors found possible links between the accuser and people involved in drug dealing and money laundering.
They also discovered the woman made a phone call to a jailed man within a day of her encounter with Strauss-Kahn in which she discussed the possible benefits of pursuing the charges against him, the paper said.
The conversation was recorded. The man was among a number of people who had made multiple cash deposits, totaling around $100,000, into the woman's bank account over the last two years, The New York Times said.
Some commentators suggested that Strauss-Kahn, known as the "great seducer" of French politics, could have been set up.
His arrest opened the field for several other Socialist candidates for next April's presidential election, including party leader Martine Aubry, who trails colleague Francois Hollande in opinion polls.
Sarkozy, who nominated Strauss-Kahn for the IMF job, has not commented on the affair since his arrest. The case has prompted debate in France on gender equality and a media tradition of respecting the privacy of politicians' sex lives.
Nina Mitz, a former senior adviser to Strauss-Kahn at the French Ministry of Finance, said: "Today's stunning news can only make us regret that so much talent may have been wasted at a time when we all very much needed it."
(Additional reporting by Grant McCool, Christine Kearney, Paula Rogo and Bernd Debussmann Jr in New York, Mark Hosenball in Washington, Marie Maitre, Catherine Bremer and Geert De Clercq in Paris and Saliou Samb in Guinea; Writing by Mark Egan; Editing by John O'Callaghan)
Source:click here
But then again we already know the identity of the false accuser:click here
Strauss-Khan's replacement as head of the IMF is a misandrist feminist so this may have been a feminist conspiracy to get him out of the way and put one of their own in his place. Gender politics at the global level.
Battle of the Wisconsin jurists
More Details Emerge in Wisconsin’s ‘Chokegate’
June 28, 2011 11:42 A.M. By Christian Schneider
With the Wisconsin Supreme Court devolving into a storyline only Vince McMahon could love, rumors are still swirling about what actually happened when two justices engaged in a physical confrontation behind closed doors on June 13. Justice Ann Walsh Bradley claims Justice David Prosser “choked” her. Prosser denies he choked Bradley, and claims she initiated physical contact. In the past two days, multiple sources with first-hand knowledge of the incident have been able to provide more details as to what exactly happened behind closed chamber doors.
The week before the legislature was set to re-pass the collective-bargaining provision, three of the four conservative justices were ready to issue a ruling reinstating the union law as originally passed. Prosser, on the other hand, wanted to wait longer, to avoid the appearance that the court was rushing their decision through. Prosser thought he had an agreement with liberal Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson to delay release of the opinion until Tuesday of the following week.
As Monday arrived, there was no word from Abrahamson on whether the decision would be issued the next day. At 5:30 p.m., Prosser and the other conservative justices marched around the chambers, looking for Abrahamson, who was found in Justice Bradley’s office. Prosser stood outside Bradley’s door, talking to the justices in Bradley’s office. The discussion got heated, with Prosser expressing his lack of faith in Abrahamson’s ability to lead the Court.
According to one witness, Bradley charged toward Prosser, shaking her clenched fist in his face. Another source says they were “literally nose to nose.” Prosser then put his hands up to push her away. As one source pointed out, if a man wants to push a woman who is facing him, he wouldn’t push her in the chest (unless he wants to face an entirely different criminal charge). Consequently, Prosser put his hands on Bradley’s shoulders to push her away, and in doing so, made contact with her neck.
At that moment, another justice approached Bradley from behind and pulled her away from Prosser, saying, “Stop it, Ann, this isn’t like you.” Bradley then shouted, “I was choked!” Another justice present replied, “You were not choked.” In a statement following the incident, Bradley maintained Prosser “put his hands around my neck in anger in a chokehold.”
On Monday night, Bradley called Capitol Police Chief Charles Tubbs to talk to him about the incident. On the morning of Wednesday, June 15, Tubbs joined the justices in a closed-door meeting, where he discussed “issues relating to workplace violence.”
During the meeting, Chief Justice Abrahamson actually reenacted the incident on Chief Tubbs — no doubt an amusing sight, as the diminutive Abrahamson mimicked choking the tall, portly police chief. During her demonstration, Abrahamson emphasized that Prosser had exerted “pressure” on Bradley’s throat.
“There was no pressure,” interrupted the justice who had initially broken up the incident between Bradley and Prosser. “That’s only because you broke us apart,” shot back Bradley. This exchange led several meeting attendees to believe Bradley was making up the charge, as they took her rejoinder as an admission that there was no pressure applied to her neck.
During the Wednesday meeting, Bradley urged the justices present to take a vote on whether Prosser should be forced into anger-management counseling. The threat was implicit — if they didn’t vote her way, she would be forced to “take the next step” against Prosser, which they took to mean filing a restraining order against him. The other justices balked, wondering whether they even had the authority to order Prosser into any type of counseling. Some thought it would be “demeaning” to Prosser to have to go to counseling when he had done nothing wrong. In the end, Bradley realized she didn’t have enough justices on her side and no vote was taken.
To date, Bradley has not filed any kind of charges against Prosser. Instead, the story was leaked to the George Soros–funded Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, who used three anonymous sources to back up Bradley’s story. There were six justices present at the time of the incident, four of whom would be more likely to back Prosser’s version of the story. That leaves Abrahamson and Bradley as the only two remaining justices present. One source present speculated the third source may have been Bradley’s law clerk, who likely didn’t actually see the confrontation but may have head Bradley shout “I was choked.”
Speculation is abundant as to why Bradley decided to forgo a criminal complaint against Prosser, deciding instead to go to the press ten days after the event. Some say Bradley’s complaint wouldn’t have stood up if given the scrutiny of a criminal investigation. Furthermore, others speculate that if any formal criminal proceedings had moved forward (a restraining-order filing, for instance), Prosser would be afforded evidentiary hearings, testimony, and discovery.
Furthermore, sources unanimously believed that it was Shirley Abrahamson who has been the impetus behind the story, managing the press operation from behind the scenes. Justices had been working together regularly since the incident without any signs of rancor until Abrahamson decided to make this an issue, sources believe.
While Bradley has not filed any charges against Prosser, an investigation was initiated by the Capitol Police, who then quickly turned the case over to the Dane County Sheriff, David Mahoney — who once actually appeared in a campaign ad supporting the reelection of Chief Justice Abrahamson. The ad also included not-yet-famous circuit-court judge Maryann Sumi, whose ruling the Supreme Court had to vacate in order to allow Scott Walker’s collective-bargaining bill to stand.
Source:click here
June 28, 2011 11:42 A.M. By Christian Schneider
With the Wisconsin Supreme Court devolving into a storyline only Vince McMahon could love, rumors are still swirling about what actually happened when two justices engaged in a physical confrontation behind closed doors on June 13. Justice Ann Walsh Bradley claims Justice David Prosser “choked” her. Prosser denies he choked Bradley, and claims she initiated physical contact. In the past two days, multiple sources with first-hand knowledge of the incident have been able to provide more details as to what exactly happened behind closed chamber doors.
The week before the legislature was set to re-pass the collective-bargaining provision, three of the four conservative justices were ready to issue a ruling reinstating the union law as originally passed. Prosser, on the other hand, wanted to wait longer, to avoid the appearance that the court was rushing their decision through. Prosser thought he had an agreement with liberal Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson to delay release of the opinion until Tuesday of the following week.
As Monday arrived, there was no word from Abrahamson on whether the decision would be issued the next day. At 5:30 p.m., Prosser and the other conservative justices marched around the chambers, looking for Abrahamson, who was found in Justice Bradley’s office. Prosser stood outside Bradley’s door, talking to the justices in Bradley’s office. The discussion got heated, with Prosser expressing his lack of faith in Abrahamson’s ability to lead the Court.
According to one witness, Bradley charged toward Prosser, shaking her clenched fist in his face. Another source says they were “literally nose to nose.” Prosser then put his hands up to push her away. As one source pointed out, if a man wants to push a woman who is facing him, he wouldn’t push her in the chest (unless he wants to face an entirely different criminal charge). Consequently, Prosser put his hands on Bradley’s shoulders to push her away, and in doing so, made contact with her neck.
At that moment, another justice approached Bradley from behind and pulled her away from Prosser, saying, “Stop it, Ann, this isn’t like you.” Bradley then shouted, “I was choked!” Another justice present replied, “You were not choked.” In a statement following the incident, Bradley maintained Prosser “put his hands around my neck in anger in a chokehold.”
On Monday night, Bradley called Capitol Police Chief Charles Tubbs to talk to him about the incident. On the morning of Wednesday, June 15, Tubbs joined the justices in a closed-door meeting, where he discussed “issues relating to workplace violence.”
During the meeting, Chief Justice Abrahamson actually reenacted the incident on Chief Tubbs — no doubt an amusing sight, as the diminutive Abrahamson mimicked choking the tall, portly police chief. During her demonstration, Abrahamson emphasized that Prosser had exerted “pressure” on Bradley’s throat.
“There was no pressure,” interrupted the justice who had initially broken up the incident between Bradley and Prosser. “That’s only because you broke us apart,” shot back Bradley. This exchange led several meeting attendees to believe Bradley was making up the charge, as they took her rejoinder as an admission that there was no pressure applied to her neck.
During the Wednesday meeting, Bradley urged the justices present to take a vote on whether Prosser should be forced into anger-management counseling. The threat was implicit — if they didn’t vote her way, she would be forced to “take the next step” against Prosser, which they took to mean filing a restraining order against him. The other justices balked, wondering whether they even had the authority to order Prosser into any type of counseling. Some thought it would be “demeaning” to Prosser to have to go to counseling when he had done nothing wrong. In the end, Bradley realized she didn’t have enough justices on her side and no vote was taken.
To date, Bradley has not filed any kind of charges against Prosser. Instead, the story was leaked to the George Soros–funded Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, who used three anonymous sources to back up Bradley’s story. There were six justices present at the time of the incident, four of whom would be more likely to back Prosser’s version of the story. That leaves Abrahamson and Bradley as the only two remaining justices present. One source present speculated the third source may have been Bradley’s law clerk, who likely didn’t actually see the confrontation but may have head Bradley shout “I was choked.”
Speculation is abundant as to why Bradley decided to forgo a criminal complaint against Prosser, deciding instead to go to the press ten days after the event. Some say Bradley’s complaint wouldn’t have stood up if given the scrutiny of a criminal investigation. Furthermore, others speculate that if any formal criminal proceedings had moved forward (a restraining-order filing, for instance), Prosser would be afforded evidentiary hearings, testimony, and discovery.
Furthermore, sources unanimously believed that it was Shirley Abrahamson who has been the impetus behind the story, managing the press operation from behind the scenes. Justices had been working together regularly since the incident without any signs of rancor until Abrahamson decided to make this an issue, sources believe.
While Bradley has not filed any charges against Prosser, an investigation was initiated by the Capitol Police, who then quickly turned the case over to the Dane County Sheriff, David Mahoney — who once actually appeared in a campaign ad supporting the reelection of Chief Justice Abrahamson. The ad also included not-yet-famous circuit-court judge Maryann Sumi, whose ruling the Supreme Court had to vacate in order to allow Scott Walker’s collective-bargaining bill to stand.
Source:click here
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