What Do You Think?

[John.hergy]

I do not want to trivialize a possible sexual harassment case as it is a very serious matter. But after reading the post "Secrets of the CIA's Global Sex Slave Industry"
at http://bbs.troach.net/viewtopic.php?t=1766
if even a fraction of the post is true . . .


since Strauss-Kahn has often been reluctant to "play ball" with the United states at least not the way the US wants him to play the game
and since he is or was running for France's presidential office (and apparently was expected to win).

Then if we consider how fast government went after and had a hearing for this guy verse how long it would normally take to get just the paper
work processed by the police, I have to say I have a huge question mark in my mind that this wondering if he was set up. Cause even if everything he is accused of doing is proven to be 100% false his political career is ruined.

I will also say that if he is guilty of the assaults then he should be strung up by his privates but everything seemed to go to neatly, to quickly and to be blunt much to efficiently.

From what I have observed except when there has been a preplanned event the Us government is rarely that efficient.

He might be guilty and if he is he should be "strung up" but everything just seems much to convenient.




copied from:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13420440

Strauss-Kahn arrest: IMF head detained at Rikers Island

17 May 2011
BBC

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been remanded in custody at New York's notorious Rikers Island jail on charges of sexual assault.

The judge said Mr Strauss-Kahn, 62, was a flight risk. He was arrested on Saturday after boarding a plane and accused of trying to rape a hotel maid.

He faces seven charges and could be sentenced to up to 25 years in prison.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, who had been seen as a favourite in France's 2012 presidential elections, denies the charges.

His lawyer expressed disappointment at bail being denied, but said his client would be exonerated.

"This battle has just begun," defence lawyer Benjamin Brafman told the court.

Mr Strauss-Kahn had been due to attend an EU finance ministers' meeting in Brussels to discuss financial bail-outs.

The IMF has played a central role in organising rescue packages for the troubled economies of Portugal and Greece.

Click to play

Defence lawyer Benjamin Brafman spoke after the hearing

The BBC's Chris Morris in Brussels says the IMF chief has gained the trust of countries in Europe which are giving financial assistance, and those which are receiving it.

The European Union says the scandal should not affect bail-outs for eurozone countries.
Bail offer denied

Jean-Claude Junker, the Luxembourg prime minister said: "I am very sad and upset. He is a friend of mine... Mr Strauss-Kahn is in the hands of American justice, it's not up to us to comment on this, but it makes me deeply, deeply sad."

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde described Mr Strauss-Kahn's predicament was "crushing and painful".

The IMF said in a statement that it had been briefed on the charges against its managing director, and that it would "continue to monitor developments".

Prosecutors told the court it was not the first time Mr Strauss-Kahn had been involved in such an incident and argued he had been arrested attempting to flee the country.

Mr Strauss-Kahn's lawyer Benjamin Brafman contested this, saying the defendant had not tried to flee the scene and was actually rushing for a lunch appointment.

He added that Mr Strauss-Kahn later called the hotel to say he was at the airport and had left a mobile phone in his room.

However Judge Melissa Jackson denied the defence's offer to post $1m (£617,000) bail and agree to Mr Strauss-Kahn staying with his daughter in New York until the next hearing on Friday.

"When I hear your client was at JFK airport about to board a flight, that raises some concerns," Ms Jackson said.

The charges relate to an alleged assault at the Times Square Sofitel hotel in New York.

According to the New York Police Department, a 32-year-old maid told officers that when she entered his suite on Saturday afternoon, Mr Strauss-Kahn emerged from the bathroom naked, chased her and sexually assaulted her.

The woman was able to break free and alert the authorities, a NYPD spokesman added.

Later on Saturday Mr Strauss-Kahn was detained on board an Air France flight at New York's John F Kennedy airport minutes before take-off.

The IMF chief underwent medical examinations on Sunday. Police were looking for scratches or any other evidence of his alleged assault.

He was later charged with a "criminal sexual act, unlawful imprisonment and attempted rape". Police say the maid formally identified him in a line-up.

'Thunderbolt'

Until he was arrested, Mr Strauss-Kahn was considered a favourite to become the Socialist candidate for the French presidency next year.

Opinion polls gave him a good chance of defeating President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Socialist party president Martine Aubry described his arrest as a "thunderbolt" but called for Mr Strauss-Kahn to be presumed innocent.

Mr Strauss-Kahn's wife, French TV personality Anne Sinclair, has also protested his innocence.

Meanwhile, another allegation against Mr Strauss-Kahn has emerged. A French writer says she may file a complaint for an alleged sexual assault in 2002.

Tristane Banon, 31, says Mr Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her when she went to interview him for a book she was writing.

"We're planning to make a complaint," Ms Banon's lawyer told AFP news agency. Mr Strauss-Kahn's lawyers have so far not responded to the allegation.

[John.hergy]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1387621/Tristane-Banon-says-subjected-attempted-rape-IMF-chief-Dominique-Strauss-Kahn.html?ito=feeds-newsxml


'He was a rutting chimpanzee': French journalist says IMF boss held for hotel maid sex assault tried to rape her TOO

By Peter Allen

16th May 2011

Dominique Strauss-Kahn underwent forensic tests today following his arrest on sex attack charges in New York - as a second woman in Paris reported him for attempted rape.

The 62-year-old head of the International Monetary Fund, who was tipped to become the President of France next year, ‘vigorously’ denies the claims made by an unnamed American chamber maid.

But now Tristane Banon, the 31-year-old god-daughter of Strauss-Kahn’s second wife Brigitte Guillemette, said he attacked her almost a decade ago.

Ms Banon will now tell French detectives about the alleged attempted rape, which took place in an anonymous studio flat in Paris in 2002.

Strauss-Kahn lured the then 21-year-old trainee journalist to the property under the promise of an interview, and then started to rip her clothes off, it is claimed.

‘I kicked him, I called him a rapist, he didn’t seem to care,’ said Ms Banon in earlier interviews, in which she also described Strauss-Kahn as acting like a ‘rutting chimpanzee’.

Ms Banon’s mother, Anne Mansouret, said the only reason she did not press charges at the time was because 'she was just starting out in journalism' and was afraid of being 'defined by the story' of being attacked by a senior politician.

Mrs Mansouret has now confirmed that her daughter is making a report to Paris police, and may hold a press conference about an ordeal which left her 'traumatised'.

Lawyer David Koubbi said that his client, Ms Banon, is 'considering filing a complaint'.

Strauss-Kahn today appeared in court charged with performing a criminal sexual act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment.

He was arrested on an Air France jet as it sat on the runway at JFK just hours after the alleged attack took place at the luxury Sofitel New York.

One of the establishment's maids, a 32-year-old African American, claims she was dragged into Strauss-Kahn's £1,855-a-night suite on Saturday.

She told police she was forced to give him oral sex before he started to rip her clothes off and tried to rape her.

The alleged victim then claimed she managed to free herself and fled.

Strauss-Kahn, who is known in his home country as the ‘Great Seducer’, is said to have left the hotel in a hurry, forgetting a mobile phone and other items.

He was dramatically captured by plain-clothes detectives on-board the First Class cabin of Air France flight 23, which was 10 minutes from take-off.

Strauss-Kahn is said to have asked: 'What is this about?'.He was then bundled away in front of startled fellow passengers.

The maid, who is said to be slightly injured, identified Strauss-Kahn at an identity parade at the special victims unit in Harlem, and was later driven from the station in a police van with a blanket over her head.

If found guilty of the attack, Strauss-Kahn faces up to 15 years in prison. Even if he is acquitted, his political and financial career are in tatters.

As well as heading up the IMF, he was favourite to take the French presidency from the unpopular Nicolas Sarkozy.

The Frenchman's allies have claimed he may be the victim of a plot to discredit him. It emerged today that he had once said he feared political opponents would pay a woman more than $1million to say he had raped her.

He has, however, had a long held reputation as a ladies' man with voracious appetites. Three times married, he was forced to apologise in 2008 following an affair with a junior colleague at the IMF.

Aurelie Filipetti, a respected French Socialist MP, said in 2008 that she was groped by Strauss-Kahn and would 'forever make sure' she was never 'alone in a room with him'.

In the same year Strauss-Kahn admitted to a sexual relationship with one of his subordinates, Piroska Nagy.

He was cleared of harassment, favouritism and abuse of power following an inquiry - but kept his job, while Ms Nagy move on.

Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer Benjamin Brafman said: 'He intends to vigorously defend these charges and denies any wrongdoing.'

William Taylor, another member of his legal team, said: 'Our client willingly consented to scientific and forensic examinations at the request of the government. He’s tired, but he’s fine.'

Strauss-Kahn’s third wife, Anne Sinclair, 63, is also sticking by him, saying she 'does not believe for a second' the allegations, adding: 'I have no doubt that his innocence will be established.'

Some allies in the French Socialist Party even say that Strauss-Kahn is the victim of a ‘smear campaign’ orchestrated by President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Socialist politician Jean-Marie Le Guen said: ‘There is now a totally structured and orchestrated campaign, which has already been announced by Mr. Sarkozy and his closest allies, to attack the character of Strauss-Kahn.’

Strauss-Kahn’s official biographer, Michel Taubmann, said he was a well-known seducer, but added: ‘I can’t believe he would force himself on an unwilling woman. That doesn’t make sense.

‘If anything he was the one harassed, not the reverse — I’ve seen time and again women MPs, party workers, brazenly passing on notes, hoping he would notice them.’

Strauss-Kahn was due to go head-to-head against Mr Sarkozy in the 2012 presidential elections, with Elysee Palace sources indicating that Mr Sarkozy was ‘quietly delighted’ that his chief rival had ‘blown up before the campaign has even got underway’.

Pollster Stephane Rozes said: ‘Mr Strauss-Kahn’s political career is finished. He is, of course, presumed innocent until proven guilty, but even suspicion of attempted rape will make it impossible for him to stand.’

[John.hergy]

I really hate thinking this but it seems that now we know why the police clicked their heals and snapped to.

"Slate.fr, citing relatives of the accuser, said the woman was from the Fulani ethnic group and a Muslim."





copied from:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43073200/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/#fullstory



Hotel maid who accused IMF chief of attempted rape goes into hiding



32-year-old widow is 'very much afraid ... feels very threatened by this,' lawyer says

NEW YORK — The hotel maid who IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is accused of trying to rape has gone into hiding, and she was unaware of his identity until a day after the alleged attack, her lawyer said Tuesday.

The 32-year-old Sofitel hotel maid is a widow with a 15-year-old daughter, her lawyer Jeffrey Shapiro said.

They moved to New York from the West African nation of Guinea about seven years ago, he said.

"She didn't have any idea who he was or have any prior dealings with this guy," Shapiro, a New York City personal injury lawyer, told Reuters.

The attack is alleged to have happened about 12 p.m. (1600 GMT) on Saturday and the woman was unaware of Strauss-Kahn's identity until Sunday.

"A friend called her and said 'do you have any idea who this guy is?'" Shapiro said.

Prosecutors have accused Strauss-Kahn, 62, of attacking the maid when she entered his suite, apparently unaware it was occupied, at the luxury Sofitel hotel near Times Square.

During Strauss-Kahn's first appearance at Manhattan Criminal Court on Monday, prosecutors said he had sexually assaulted the maid, attempted to rape her and then, when unsuccessful, forced her to perform oral sex on him.


Strauss-Kahn's lawyers denied the charges of a criminal sexual act, attempted rape, sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching. He was denied bail on Monday and is due to reappear in court on Friday.

He faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted. Strauss-Kahn has been placed on suicide watch in jail on Rikers Island, where he is being kept apart from his fellow prisoners in a unit that normally houses inmates with contagious diseases.

'No agenda'
Shapiro said that after the woman "escaped from the room she reported it to security, the New York City police were called, they interviewed her, they investigated the scene."

"She is someone who respects the fact that the laws exist in this country. She came from a place where laws are few and far between and not readily enforced. She felt it was her obligation to report this," he said.

Shapiro said there was no truth to suggestions that she had fabricated her account, describing her as an honest woman.

"She has no agenda in this other than to answer the questions that are asked of her, to tell the truth," he said.


The woman, who is not a U.S. citizen but says she has a visa to work in the United States, has a limited education and experience, but had worked hard to obtain her job as a maid at the Sofitel, Shapiro said.

Shapiro, who was introduced to the woman by a friend on Sunday, said that since the incident, she had not returned to her home in the New York City borough of the Bronx and saw her daughter for the first time only on Tuesday.

"She's been the victim of a rape and physical assault, she hasn't had a chance to deal with that personally," he said, adding that he was organizing for her to see a counselor.

"Her life has now been turned upside down. She can't go home. She can't go back to work. She has no idea what her future will be, what she will be able to do to support herself and her daughter. This has been nothing short of a cataclysmic event in her life," Shapiro said. He said she "feels alone in the world."

Shapiro described his role as trying to help her sort out her life and to explain the legal proceedings to her.

"She wants to remain anonymous because she's very much afraid that something could happen to her physically, she feels very threatened by this," he said of all the global attention on the case.

Her identity has been withheld in U.S. media publications, in accordance with standard journalistic practice. But media outlets in France, where Strauss-Kahn is from, began reporting her name Tuesday.

Among the outlets to identify the woman by name are Paris Match, radio station RMC, Swiss newspaper Tribune de Genève and Slate.fr, according to Slate.com. (Slate.fr is a French website that is editorially independent from Slate, although Slate does own 15 percent of it.)

Story: IMF chief's arrest may speed up succession battle
Slate.fr, citing relatives of the accuser, said the woman was from the Fulani ethnic group and a Muslim.

"She is a good Muslim. She is really pretty, like many Fulani women, but in our culture, we do not accept this type of aggression," a cousin of the woman told slate.fr.

The New York Times reported she was granted asylum seven years ago and that she was a widow.

The woman phoned her older brother in New York about an hour after the alleged sexual assault and said, "Somebody has done something really bad to me. I've been attacked," the Daily Mail of London reported Tuesday.

"No family should have to go through this," the woman's brother told the Daily Mail. "She is a hard-working woman who is just a victim. She is a wonderful West African immigrant who just wants to work hard."

Wife, ex-wife back Strauss-Kahn
Strauss-Kahn's wife, Anne Sinclair, has only issued one brief statement since Strauss-Kahn's formal arrest early Sunday — but it was staunchly supportive.

"I don't believe for a single second the accusations of sexual assault by my husband. I am certain his innocence will be proved," she said.

Friends quoted in French media who have spoken with Sinclair since her husband's arrest describe her as "very strong, very determined to fight."

"She will do anything and everything for him," French daily Le Parisien quoted one anonymous friend as saying Tuesday.

Sinclair is known as the "quiet force" who gave up her career as a television journalist to clear the path for her husband's, and whose celebrity, ambition and drive helped propel him to international renown and the threshold of the French presidency.

Throughout her 20-year marriage, Sinclair has time and again marshaled her wealth and clout to defend her husband through political, financial and sex scandals, once saying she would fight "with tooth and nail" to protect him.

Strauss-Kahn's second wife — Sinclair is his third — also has come to his defense.

"He's someone very sweet, violence is not part of his character. He has a lot of faults, but not that one," Brigitte Guillemette told Le Parisien Tuesday.

Story: Questions, answers about Dominique Strauss-Kahn
Sinclairflew Monday to New York, along with Strauss-Kahn's spokeswoman.

In October 2008, Sinclair watched as her husband was forced to apologize and admit "a serious error of judgment" for an affair with an IMF employee in Washington, D.C.

The IMF board investigation concluded that Strauss-Kahn's behavior was "regrettable and reflected a serious error of judgment," but found that the fling was consensual and did not involve any type of sexual harassment, favoritism or abuse of authority.

Afterward Sinclair posted to her blog a short comment, saying that "these are things that can happen in any couple. For me, this one-night-stand is behind us, we've turned the page. And we still love each other like on the first day."

[John.hergy]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1387847/IMF-chief-Dominique-Strauss-Kahn-sex-attack-victim-told-brother-assault.html


'Somebody did something bad to me': What IMF boss 'sex attack' victim told horrified brother about 'assault' at New York hotel

By Daniel Bates
17th May 2011


The alleged rape victim of Dominique Strauss-Kahn told a relative in her first phone call after the attack: 'Somebody did something really bad to me', he revealed tonight.

The woman phoned her older brother an hour after the alleged assault took place and gave him a horrifying account what the head of the IMF allegedly did to her.

Crying uncontrollably, she said that she had been trapped inside the hotel bedroom while the Frenchman twice tried to force himself on her.

She told him he was the first member of family to whom she had revealed the alleged attack He said he told her not to talk to anybody and immediately contacted a lawyer to represent her.
The alleged victim's brother spoke out as Strauss-Kahn, 62, spent his first night in Rikers Island prison after being refused $1million bail.
His lawyers have indicated that the IMF chief will claim the sexual encounter was consensual, according to the New York Post.

Speaking exclusively to Mail Online, the alleged victim's brother said: 'No family should have to go through this.

'She is a hard-working woman who is just a victim. She is a wonderful west African immigrant who just wants to work hard.
'I love her, she is my little sister and she is doing better now she has had a chance to talk to a lawyer. She is somewhere very, very safe and will stay that way'.

The brother, 43, a restaurant manager from Harlem in New York, said his sister, 32, called him on Saturday in the afternoon, a mere hour or so after she claimed the attack took place.
He recalled: 'She rang me and she said: "Somebody has done something really bad to me. I've been attacked".
'She was crying all the time.'

The brother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said that he wanted to see Strauss-Kahn face a trial if he pleaded not guilty.

'I trust the American justice system and will let it do what it has to do,' he said.

'I want him to see justice. Justice will be served'.

Meanwhile Strauss-Kahn was spending his first night in an isolation cell at New York's notorious Rikers Island jail after he was denied $1m bail on charges that he raped the hotel maid.
Today prosecutors revealed graphic details of Strauss-Kahn’s alleged brutal sex attack on the maid at a bail hearing in front of a female judge at Manhattan's criminal court.

Police also reportedly found blood on bed sheets in the hotel suite where the assault allegedly took place and DNA samples on carpet and fabric that they removed for testing.

A rape kit is also said to have found DNA on the victim after she reported the attack.

Looking haggard and wearing the previous day's clothes, Strauss-Kahn, who should have been meeting European finance ministers in Brussels, stood at the bench next to his lawyer Benjamin Brafman as prosecutors outlined the severity of the charges against him.

These include two counts of a first degree criminal sexual act, two counts of sexual abuse, attempted rape, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching. He faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.

A one-page indictment provided further lurid claims, accusing Strauss-Kahn of forcing the maid to take part in both oral and anal sex.
The court papers claim he forcibly touched the woman’s breasts, twice 'forcibly made contact with his penis and the informant’s mouth' and 'engaged in oral sexual conduct and anal sexual conduct with another person by forcible compulsion'.
It took 20 minutes for Judge Melissa Jackson to refuse Strauss-Kahn's bail offer of $1million at the hearing this morning.

He had also offered that all his travel documents be confiscated in the potential deal, his lawyer Mr Brafman said.
Judge Jackson said she was a 'fair judge' but added: 'When I hear your client was at JFK airport about to board a flight that raises concern.' Strauss-Kahn was on an Air France flight minutes from take-off when he was arrested.

Assistant District Attorney John A McConnell had earlier called Strauss-Kahn an 'incurable flight risk' and voiced concerns that if he managed to flee to France the U.S. would not be able to extradite him.
He called the charges severe and said that 'the victim provided a very powerful and detailed account' of the alleged attack and had had a full sexual assault examination in hospital.
The maid, a Guinean immigrant, told authorities that when she entered Strauss-Kahn's suite to clean it on Saturday afternoon, he emerged naked from the bathroom and chased her down a hallway before pulling her back inside.
The maid claims she then briefly fought him off before he dragged her into the bathroom and forced her to perform oral sex on him.
The woman said she was able to break free again as he tried to remove her underwear and ran downstairs to tell hotel staff what had happened.

After Strauss-Kahn rang to recover his mobile phone, which he had left in his room, detectives were able to find him at John F Kennedy airport.


Indicating that there 'may be' forensic evidence in the suite supporting the maid’s claims, Mr McConnell added that he had seen CCTV video footage of Strauss-Kahn leaving the hotel.

He appeared to be 'a man who was in a hurry', he said.

Mr Brafman, who defended Michael Jackson from child molestation charges, and has also defended Sean 'P Diddy' Combs, argued that it was ‘simply wrong’ to disallow his client bail.

He has no previous criminal record and has a daughter in New York who he was prepared to stay with, he said.

He is not planning to leave New York city and was ‘probably the most easily identifiable person in the world today,' he added.
Mr Brafman also argued that if Strauss-Kahn had appeared in a hurry it was because he had a prior lunch engagement with his daughter - a graduate student at Columbia University - before his flight to Germany, which he added had been booked before the alleged incident.
Strauss-Kahn had co-operated ‘completely’ with police requests, Mr Brafman said, before adding that all of these aspects were not ‘consistent with someone who has something to hide'.

On top of offering to post a $1million bail, Mr Brafman argued that his client would give up all his travel documents and said he would be able to stay with his daughter in New York.
He added that Strauss-Kahn's wife, the French journalist and millionaire heiress Anne Sinclair, was due to arrive in New York and had wired the bail funds through to a U.S. bank account.

Outside court, Mr Brafman said they were 'disappointed' by the court’s decision.

‘Mr Strauss-Kahn is innocent of these charges,' he said. 'It is a very defensible case. It is his intention to try and clear his name. This case has just begun.'

Strauss-Kahn, dubbed the 'Great Seducer' by the French media, will now be housed in 'protective custody' at the West Facility on Rikers Island in a cell on his own, a spokesman for the prison told MailOnline.

He will eat eat his meals alone and spend his recreation time alone, he added.

The disgraced banker was supposed to appear in court yesterday but the hearing was postponed until today after Strauss-Kahn's lawyers said their client had agreed to undergo some 'scientific tests'.

He was reportedly being searched for scratches and traces of his accuser's DNA at the unit, where prisoners are served meals costing $1.80.

French author Tristane Banon, now 31, also spoke out today to claim that Strauss-Kahn forcefully tried to seduce her ten years ago in Paris, allegedly leaving her having to fight him off.

At the time, her mother, Anne Mansouret, a regional Socialist official in Normandy, said she advised her daughter against pursuing a claim at the time.
A French lawmaker from a rival political party also alleged, without offering evidence, that Strauss-Kahn had victimised several maids during past stays at the Sofitel near Times Square.

The hotel issued a statement calling conservative lawmaker Michel Debre's claims 'baseless and defamatory'.

Sofitel management 'has had no knowledge of any previous attempted aggressions', the hotel said, adding that it had set up a hotline for workers to report incidents more than a year ago.

Assistant District Attorney Mr McConnell said in court that New York authorities are working to verify at least one other case of 'conduct similar to the conduct alleged'.

When the judge asked whether the potential other incident occurred in the United States, McConnell said he 'believed that was abroad'.

Strauss-Kahn's lawyers said they had no immediate response to the allegations emerging from overseas.
The scandal involving the IMF boss has torn France's presidential race asunder and savaged the reputation of the suave and self-assured Strauss-Kahn.

He had been considered a leading contender to run on the Socialist Party ticket against President Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s French elections. He has topped opinion polls for months as the man most likely to become the nation's next president.

In France, for some, the arrest spells the end of his presidential ambitions and even his political career; others warned that it was too early to judge a man who denies wrongdoing; and still others suspect a plot to blacken his name just as the campaign heats up for the April 2012 first-round vote

French voters are famously tolerant of political leaders' extramarital affairs. The allegations against Strauss-Kahn are entirely different, and much more serious.

Many politicians have fallen after being caught in extramarital affairs and others have survived them, including former U.S. presidents John F Kennedy and Bill Clinton as well as former French President Francois Mitterrand.

Rarely have senior figures faced brutal assault charges like those filed against Strauss-Kahn.
Police made the revelations as Strauss-Kahn's wife said she ‘does not believe for a second’ the allegations made against her husband.
Miss Sinclair, 63, made it clear she would be sticking by him.

Calling for ‘decency and restraint’ in the coverage of the scandal, she said: ‘I don't believe for one second the accusations made against my husband. I have no doubt that his innocence will be established.’
It was not clear why Strauss-Kahn was in New York. The IMF is based in Washington DC and he was due in Germany yesterday.
The IMF said Strauss-Kahn had been in New York on private business.

Christine Boutin, president of the Christian Democrat Party, suggested Strauss-Kahn may have been set up.

'I think it's very likely a trap was set for Dominique Strauss-Kahn and he fell into it,' she told France's BFM television. 'It's a political bomb for domestic politics.'

On Saturday far-right presidential contender Marine Le Pen said that Strauss-Kahn's bid for the top job was now 'doomed'.

A French government spokesman said it was important to remain cautious and reserve judgment. 'We have to be extremely prudent in analysis, comments and consequences,' he told France 2 television.

The spokesman added that the government's position was to respect the presumption of innocence.

Strauss-Kahn has been dogged by scandal.

In 2008 he was embroiled in controversy over accusations that he had had a sexual relationship with one of his subordinates, Piroska Nagy, senior official in the IMF’s Africa Department.

The IMF hired a law firm to launch an investigation. Ms Nagy left the fund and joined the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

He was cleared of harassment, favouritism and abuse of power following an inquiry - and kept his job, though he later apologised for an ‘error of judgment’.

Strauss-Kahn, who was rejected by the French Socialists as their presidential candidate in 2006, gained international recognition as France’s finance minister from 1997-99.

He is credited with preparing France for the adoption of the euro by reducing its deficit and persuading then-Prime Minister Lionel Jospin to sign up to an EU pact of fiscal prudence.

A former economics professor, Strauss-Kahn joined the Socialist party in 1976 and was elected to parliament in 1986 from the Val-d’Oise district, north of Paris.

He went on to become mayor of Sarcelles, a working-class immigrant suburb of Paris.

Hours before Strauss-Kahn was pulled from the flight, a close Socialist Party ally claimed he was the target of a smear campaign by French President Sarkozy.

'There is now a totally structured and orchestrated campaign, which has already been announced by Mr Sarkozy and his closest allies, to attack the character of Strauss-Kahn,' Socialist politician Jean-Marie Le Guen told Europe 1 radio.

Formed at the end of World War II, the IMF provides low-cost loans to countries in financial crisis.

After 2008, it became increasingly significant after brokering rescue packages for countries like Greece, Pakistan, Iceland, Hungary and Ukraine.

France faces 'political earthquake' as DSK's presidential dreams are dashed... throwing elections into turmoil

France could face a 'political earthquake' after the arrest of presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
The brilliant economist was seen as the strongest potential challenger to the conservative President Sarkozy in next year's presidential elections, despite not announcing his candidacy.
Unless the charges are quickly dropped, they could destroy his chances in a presidential race that is just starting to heat up.

The allegations over his arrest in New York dominated special editions of Paris newspapers and there was also blanket coverage on TV and radio.
It is unclear how damaging the allegations could be. A poll for Le Parisien gave him 41 per cent of the votes among supporters of the Socialist Party.
'At the top of the polls,' Strauss-Kahn tweeted proudly in French last December, linking an article that showed him ahead in opinion polls when French voters were asked whom they would choose in a primary.
At a soccer game in a Washington suburb last September, he, his wife and others were seen wearing T-shirts that read, 'Yes we Kahn'.
Strauss-Kahn also noted that he trailed only Warren Buffett and Bill Gates on a list of 100 'global thinkers' compiled last November by Foreign Policy magazine.

He was cited for his 'steely vision at a moment of crisis' - for convincing Germany to help bail out Greece's debt-laden government, and for helping to put the brakes on defaults in Hungary, Pakistan and Ukraine.

The arrest could throw the long-divided Socialists back into disarray about who they could present as Sarkozy's opponent. Even some of his adversaries were stunned.

'It's totally hallucinating. If it is true, this would be a historic moment, but in the negative sense, for French political life,' said Dominique Paille, a political rival to Strauss-Kahn on the centre right, on BFM television.

Still, he urged, 'I hope that everyone respects the presumption of innocence. I cannot manage to believe this affair.'

Candidates need to announce their intentions this summer to run in fall primary elections.

'If he's cleared, he could return - but if he is let off only after four or five months, he won't be able to run' because the campaign will be too far along, said Jerome Fourquet of the IFOP polling agency.

'I think his political career is over,' Philippe Martinat, who wrote a book called DSK-Sarkozy: The Duel, said..

'Behind him he has other affairs ... I don't see very well how he can pick himself back up.'

What now for the Euro? How DSK is pivotal to Europe's debt woes

An economics professor and former French finance minister, Strauss-Kahn took over the IMF in November 2007 for a five-year term, and won praise for helping to galvanise leaders to inject billions of dollars into the world economy during the global financial crisis.

He introduced sweeping changes to ensure vulnerable countries swamped by the crisis had access to emergency loans, and others to give major emerging market countries such as China, India and Brazil greater voting powers in the IMF.

Witty, multi-lingual, a skilled public speaker and sharp back-room negotiator, Strauss-Kahn also weighed into thornier issues by urging China to let its currency rise in a dispute with the United States.
A crisis of leadership at the fund now will especially worry European nations given Strauss-Kahn's pivotal role in brokering bail-outs for Iceland, Hungary, Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

'The chances are the successor won't be a European, and will want to rebalance the IMF's priorities away from its massive commitment in Europe,' said Jean Pisani-Ferry, director of the Bruegel economic think-tank.

Strauss-Kahn had been due to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday and join euro zone finance ministers on Monday to discuss the bloc's debt crisis and how to handle Greece, which is struggling to meet the terms of a 110 billion euro European Union/IMF bailout last year.
'This might definitely cause some delays in the short term,' a Greek official said on condition of anonymity.

[John.hergy]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43059753/ns/world_news-europe/t/french-outraged-us-treatment-imf-chief/


French outraged by US treatment of IMF chief

Parading of Strauss-Kahn handcuffed and unshaven provokes 'horror' and 'disgust'

By Alexandria Sage and Paul Taylor
Reuters

2011-05-17

PARIS — French Socialist politicians voiced outrage on Tuesday at the parading of IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn handcuffed and unshaven in the United States before he has a chance to defend himself on charges of attempted rape.

Arrested on Saturday and charged with sexually assaulting a chambermaid at a luxury New York hotel, Strauss-Kahn was made by police to walk manacled in front of cameras on his way to a courthouse, and his appearance before a judge was televised.

Former Culture Minister Jack Lang described the treatment of the Socialist presidential frontrunner -- whose political career is now in tatters -- as a "lynching" that had "provoked horror and aroused disgust."

The U.S. justice system, he said, was "politicized" and the judge appeared to have been determined to "make a Frenchman pay" by denying the head of the International Monetary Fund bail even though his lawyer had offered to post a $1 million bond.

To many Americans, the handling of Strauss-Kahn reflected an egalitarian tradition that all crime suspects get the same treatment, regardless of their wealth or power.

Socialist Party leader Martine Aubry denounced "degrading images" and said France was lucky to have a law on the presumption of innocence that bars media from showing defendants in handcuffs before they are convicted.

Former Justice Minister Elisabeth Guigou, who drafted that law, called the pre-trial publicity "absolutely sickening."

"The power of these images of a Dominique Strauss-Kahn who hasn't been allowed to shave, tired, and not dressed properly, all that offends human dignity," she told Europe 1 radio.

Another respected former justice minister, Robert Badinter, who pushed through the abolition of the death penalty in France, said the IMF chief had been subjected to "death by media."

"Never forget it's not just judges that are elected (in New York), but prosecutors. And the chief of police is elected. And clearly, in public opinion, to exhibit a powerful rich man in the presence of a victim from a very poor background, electorally, it pays off."

'Perp walk'
Conservative politicians mostly refrained from commenting on the images of their political rival, heeding President Nicolas Sarkozy's call to show "restraint and dignity," according to a lawmaker who attended a private meeting with him on Tuesday.

Some media commentators and lawyers said that making Strauss-Kahn take a so-called "perp walk" — a U.S. tradition of obliging a suspected "perpetrator" to run a gauntlet of media cameras — appeared designed to humiliate him and perhaps soften him up for a plea bargain.

Previous suspects forced to take a "perp walk" included boxer Mike Tyson, pop star Michael Jackson and Kenneth Lay, the former boss of bankrupt energy trader Enron.

"I suppose there is an element of theater in it," U.S. attorney Graham Wisner of Patton Boggs in New York, told Reuters Television.

"For the most part in the United States it's a practice utilized by authorities to humiliate suspects... There is at least a perception in this case that a "perp" or suspect is guilty when he walks shamefaced in front of all of the cameras," Wisner said.

Judge Melissa Jackson ordered Strauss-Kahn to be detained in the Rikers Island prison after district attorney Daniel Alonso argued that the IMF chief could flee the United States and there was no legal way to force him to return.

In announcing her decision, the judge noted that Strauss-Kahn had been arrested aboard an Air France plane about to take off for Paris.

U.S. prosecutors cited the case of celebrity film director Roman Polanski, a French citizen whom Switzerland and France refused last year to extradite to the United States. He fled the United States while awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a minor in the 1970s.

One of Strauss-Kahn's lawyers, Dominique de Leusse, told France-Info radio that the French media were flouting the law by running footage of his client in handcuffs and in court.

"The press are having a field day with these images that are contrary to French law. They undermine visibly the dignity of Dominique Strauss-Kahn and his presumption of innocence," he said.

[John.hergy]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43069013/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/no-anonymity-france-strauss-kahns-accuser/

No anonymity in France for Strauss-Kahn's accuser

Name of NYC hotel maid who says IMF chief attacked her is published in Paris

msnbc.com staff and news service reports
2011-05-18T01:06:18

The hotel maid who accuses International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her is a 32-year-old immigrant from Guinea who told her brother, "somebody has done something really bad to me," according to media reports.

Her identity has been withheld in U.S. media publications, in accordance with standard journalistic practice. But media outlets in France, where Strauss-Kahn is from, began reporting her name Tuesday.

Among the outlets to identify the woman by name are Paris Match, radio station RMC, Swiss newspaper Tribune de Genève and Slate.fr, according to Slate.com. (Slate.fr is a French website that is editorially independent from Slate, although Slate does own 15 percent of it.)

Slate.fr, citing relatives of the accuser, reports that the woman is a legal immigrant from the west African nation of Guinea and is of the Fulani ethnic group. She is a Muslim who has been living in the U.S. since 1998, when she followed her then-husband to the United States. The pair later divorced, according to the report, and the woman is now a single parent of a 15-year-old daughter.

"She is a good Muslim. She is really pretty, like many Fulani women, but in our culture, we do not accept this type of aggression," a cousin of the woman told slate.fr.

The New York Times reported she was granted asylum seven years ago, is a widow and speaks French and some English.

Story: IMF chief a 'honey trap' victim? Conspiracy theories swirl
The woman phoned her older brother in New York about an hour after the alleged sexual assault and said, "Somebody has done something really bad to me. I've been attacked," the Daily Mail of London reported Tuesday.

Strauss-Kahn was under a suicide watch in jail at New York's Rikers Island. The 62-year-old managing director of the IMF was arrested Saturday and is being held without bail. Through his lawyers, he has denied any wrongdoing.

The woman has said through her lawyer that she had no idea who he was when she reported him to the police.

She told her brother in the phone call that her attacker twice tried to force himself on her inside a bedroom in a suite at the Sofitel hotel where she worked.

"No family should have to go through this," the woman's brother told the Daily Mail. "She is a hard-working woman who is just a victim. She is a wonderful West African immigrant who just wants to work hard."

The brother said that he wanted to see Strauss-Kahn face a trial if he pleaded not guilty. "I trust the American justice system and will let it do what it has to do," he told the newspaper.

Relatives of the woman strongly denied accusations that she was part of a larger scheme aimed at discrediting Strauss-Kahn, a prominent politician in France’s Socialist Party who had been considered a front-runner to unseat President Nicolas Sarkozy.

"No, no, no! People must understand that … [She] is part of the Guinean Fulani community, and she is not interested in politics,” a relative told Slate.fr. “She has no right to vote in the U.S. and does not even participate in our Guinean political associations."

The woman's attorney, Jeffrey Shapiro, said Tuesday that "her life has been turned upside down." The woman is in seclusion but cooperating with prosecutors and police, Shapiro said.

"She can't go home. She can't go to work," he said.

[John.hergy]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43073200/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/


IMF director resigns amid sex charges
Grand jury to hear testimony of hotel maid who says Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her


NBC News and news services
5/19/2011



NEW YORK — Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned as head of the International Monetary Fund, the IMF said in a statement issued Wednesday as he faced charges of sexual assault and attempted rape in New York.


"I deny with the greatest possible firmness all of the allegations that have been made against me," Strauss-Kahn said in his letter of resignation, released by the IMF.

He said the resignation came with "infinite sadness" but was needed to protect the IMF, "which I have served with honor and devotion."

"I think at this time first of my wife — whom I love more than anything-of my children, of my family, of my friends.

"I think also of my colleagues at the Fund; together we have accomplished such great things over the last three years and more."

He said he would "devote all my strength, all my time, and all my energy to proving my innocence."

The IMF said John Lipsky would remain the institution's acting managing director and that its executive board will soon reveal the process of replacing Strauss-Kahn.

The hotel maid accusing Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her "has not had a moment of peace" since their encounter made international headlines, her lawyer said Wednesday.

The woman, a 32-year-old immigrant from the west African nation of Guinea, was to testify before a grand jury sometime Wednesday about the incident at a penthouse suite at a luxury hotel in midtown Manhattan, lawyer Jeffrey Shapiro said on NBC's TODAY.

"This is a woman who is a rape victim — the victim of a physical assault — who since this has taken place and since she has reported it to security at the hotel, has not had a moment of peace. She's not been able to return home. She's not been able to seek any help," said Shapiro, a New York City personal injury lawyer.

She has gone into hiding amid fears for her family's safety, he said.

The woman is a widow with a 15-year-old daughter. They moved to New York from Guinea about seven years ago, Shapiro said.

"She came from a part of the world where laws were few and far between and that justice wasn't readily available, at least to people without means," Shapiro told TODAY. "When she found out that this encounter that she had had was with a man of great power and wealth, she fears not only for herself but maybe more importantly her daughter."

Prosecutors have accused Strauss-Kahn, 62, of attacking the maid Saturday afternoon when she entered his suite at the Sofitel Hotel, apparently unaware it was occupied, to clean it.

Prosecutors allege Strauss-Kahn attempted to rape her and then, when unsuccessful, forced her to perform oral sex on him.

Strauss-Kahn, one of France's most high-profile politicians who was a potential candidate for president in next year's elections, through his lawyers has denied any wrongdoing. He is being held under suicide watch in a jail at Rikers Island on charges of a criminal sexual act, attempted rape, sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching. He was denied bail on Monday and is due to reappear in court on Thursday for another bail hearing.

In court papers filed Wednesday, Strauss-Kahn's attorneys proposed posting $1 million cash bail and confining him to the home of his daughter, Camille, a Columbia University graduate student, 24 hours a day with electronic monitoring.

Strauss-Kahn "is a loving husband and father, and a highly regarded diplomat, politician, lawyer, politician, economist and professor, with no criminal record," his attorneys said in court papers.

The attorneys had proposed similar conditions at an earlier bail hearing but added the promise of home detention Wednesday. Manhattan prosecutors didn't immediately comment on the bail motion. The hearing was set for 2:15 p.m. Thursday. Another hearing had been set for Friday, the deadline for prosecutors to indict Strauss-Kahn.

He faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.

Shapiro said his client was told by a friend a day after the incident that the man she had accused of attacking her was Strauss-Kahn.

"She feels that she can't go home," Shapiro said, adding that his client felt "scared" and "incredulous" after learning his identity.

Shapiro dismissed suggestions that the woman had made up the charges or tried to cover up a consensual encounter.

"There was nothing consensual about what took place in that hotel room," he told TODAY.

Investigators on Wednesday cut out a piece of carpet in a painstaking search for DNA evidence that could
corroborate the maid's claim, law enforcement officials said.

New York detectives and prosecutors believe the carpet may contain Strauss-Kahn's semen, spat out after an episode of forced oral sex, the officials said, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Story: Questions, answers about Dominique Strauss-Kahn
In addition to examining the Sofitel Hotel suite for further potential DNA evidence, they were looking at the maid's keycard to determine whether she used it to enter the room, and how long she was there, officials said.

'No agenda'
Earlier, Shapiro told Reuters that after the woman "escaped from the room, she reported it to security, the New York City police were called, they interviewed her, they investigated the scene."

"She has no agenda in this other than to answer the questions that are asked of her, to tell the truth," he said.

The woman, who is not a U.S. citizen but says she has a visa to work in the U.S., has a limited education and experience, but had worked hard to obtain her job as a maid at the Sofitel, Shapiro said.

Her identity has been withheld in U.S. media publications, in accordance with standard journalistic practice. But media outlets in France, where Strauss-Kahn is from, began reporting her name Tuesday.

Among the outlets to identify the woman by name are Paris Match, radio station RMC, Swiss newspaper Tribune de Genève and Slate.fr, according to Slate.com. (Slate.fr is a French website that is editorially independent from Slate, although Slate does own 15 percent of it.)

Slate.fr, citing relatives of the accuser, said the woman was from the Fulani ethnic group and a Muslim.

"She is a good Muslim. She is really pretty, like many Fulani women, but in our culture, we do not accept this type of aggression," a cousin of the woman told slate.fr.

The New York Times reported she was granted asylum seven years ago.

The woman phoned her older brother in New York about an hour after the alleged sexual assault and said, "Somebody has done something really bad to me. I've been attacked," Britain's Daily Mail reported Tuesday.

"No family should have to go through this," the woman's brother told the newspaper. "She is a hard-working woman who is just a victim. She is a wonderful West African immigrant who just wants to work hard."

[John.hergy]

http://arabnews.com/world/article415520.ece


Ex-IMF chief gets $1M bail in NYC sex assault case


By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: May 20, 2011

NEW YORK: A judge agreed Thursday to free former International Monetary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn from a New York City jail on the condition that he post $1 million in bail and remain under house arrest, under the watch of armed guards, at a private apartment in Manhattan.

The 62-year-old banker and diplomat wore an expression of relief after Supreme Court Justice Michael J. Obus announced his decision in a packed Manhattan courtroom.

Later, he blew a kiss toward his wife.

The ruling didn’t free Strauss-Kahn immediately.

Authorities need time to review and approve the security arrangements involved in his home detention, which lawyers said would be at an apartment rented by his wife. They did not disclose the location of the home.

Strauss-Kahn will also have to take out a $5 million insurance bond. It’s not believed the wealthy banker will have any problem meeting the financial conditions of his release from the bleak Rikers Island jail complex on an island in the East River.

“He’s going back to Rikers tonight and we expect him to be released tomorrow,” said William Taylor, one of his attorneys.

His political career in shambles and his leadership of the IMF a memory, Strauss-Kahn was formally indicted at Thursday’s hearing on charges that he sexually abused a maid at a Manhattan hotel.

Prosecutors had opposed his release at his first bail hearing Monday, saying his wealth and international connections would make it easy for him to flee.

A prosecutor began Thursday’s hearing by announcing that a grand jury had found enough evidence for an indictment, a procedural step that elevates the seriousness of the charge. Without it, authorities would have been unable to detain him for longer than a week.

“The proof against him is substantial. It is continuing to grow every day as the investigation continues,” said Assistant District Attorney John “Artie” McConnell. “We have a man who, by his own conduct in this case, has shown a propensity for impulsive criminal conduct.” Strauss arrived for the hearing wearing a gray suit and an open blue shirt. As he entered, he turned to give a quick smile to his daughter and wife, the French television journalist Anne Sinclair, seated in the gallery.

Similar house arrest arrangements have been made for other high-profile defendants in the city, most notably Bernard Madoff, the Ponzi scheme mastermind who stole billions of dollars from his clients.

Taylor called the arrangement “restrictive,” although he suggested few precautions were necessary.

“In our view, no bail is required to confirm Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s appearance. He is an honorable man. He will appear in this court and anywhere else the court directs, and he has only one interest at this time, and that is to clear his name,” Taylor said.

Though the defense team’s initial request for bail Monday was denied, it made additional arguments before a new judge, Obus, for the first time. The judge oversees all criminal courts in Manhattan.

In France, a Socialist lawmaker and longtime ally, Francois Pupponi, expressed relief at the decision to allow Strauss-Kahn to leave jail.

“There’s finally a bit of good news in a terrible week,” he said on BFM-TV. “We were no longer expecting good news.” Strauss-Kahn resigned as managing director of the International Monetary Fund late Wednesday, saying he needed to focus on clearing his name.

Scores of reporters lined up outside the courtroom door before the hearing, with a huge crowd of journalists and cameras poised outside the building. State court system spokesman David Bookstaver said the media throng was one of the biggest at the courthouse since Mark David Chapman was arrested in the 1980 killing of John Lennon.

Sinclair emerged from a black town car shortly before the scheduled hearing time. As she was rushed into the courthouse by security officers, one of her shoes slipped off as she was being led up some stairs. She struggled for a moment to get it back on as court guards shouted at a jostling scrum of photographers.

“Are you confident?” One journalist shouted. Sinclair stared straight ahead and did not respond.

Strauss-Kahn is accused of attacking a 32-year-old housekeeper Saturday afternoon at his Manhattan hotel suite. The West African immigrant told police that he chased her down a hallway, forced her to perform oral sex and tried to remove her stockings.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. called the charges “extremely serious.” In his resignation letter, released by the IMF executive board, Strauss-Kahn denied the allegations against him, but said he would quit to protect the institution.

The political wrangling over who will succeed Strauss-Kahn at the IMF already has begun. European officials, including Germany’s chancellor, the European Commission and France’s finance minister, have been arguing that his replacement should be European.

Some authorities from China and Brazil have said it is time to break Europe’s traditional dominance over the position and appoint someone from a developing nation. US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has asked for an “open process,” without mentioning any specific candidates.

[John.hergy]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/seealso/2011/05/daily_view_furore_over_perp_wa.html


Daily View: Furore over 'perp walk'

Clare Spencer
19 May 2011



The parading of Dominique Strauss-Kahn in handcuffs by US police has caused a furore in France, which prohibits such pictures. The former IMF chief was given the so-called "perp walk" treatment after being arrested for alleged sexual assault of a hotel maid in New York. It has sparked debate in the US about the regularly used practice.

Reuters' Leigh Jones looks back at the history of the perp walk and what motivates the police to walk suspects past the press in handcuffs:

"Government officials as far back as FBI director Edgar Hoover in the 1920s have used perp walks to bolster public support for prosecutors. Hoover orchestrated photo opportunities for journalists to capture his arrests of mobsters Alvin Karpis and Harry Campbell.

"More recently, former U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani elevated both the term - and practice - in the public eye. Giuliani, who later became mayor of New York, knew the public relations value, for prosecutors anyway, of making defendants appear in handcuffs before the media on the way to arraignment."

Law.com analyses the debates about the fairness of the perp walk and said that while some clearly use it for entertainment, it also points out that it can be used to make the public aware of law enforcement efforts.

Ben Yakas jokes in the Gothamist that Americans "love a good perp walk" and asks if perp walks are unfair for defendants, or "just the right amount of schadenfreude".

Frederic Raphael says in the Telegraph that the French think judgement has been made without a trial:

"The press here in France concedes that whether or not DSK is eventually found guilty, the verdict has already been pronounced and the sentence as good as carried out. Did the lady judge in Manhattan yield to self-importance and the prospect of national fame when she denied him bail and insisted that he be paraded in handcuffs?... The truth is that it hardly matters. One moment of alleged madness is headlined as 'an earthquake for the euro, the International Monetary Fund and for the Left'."

In the New Yorker Richard Brody hits back at accusations that the French justice system is fairer than the American one:

"I consider the French system to be, pace Joly, a much more violent judicial system, because the defendant is subjected to judicial authority without mediation, and to direct, and unrefusable, questioning. Also, there's no jury: the defendant is tried by judges unless the accusation is of a major felony. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has recently proposed the generalized trial by jury, and it's proving very controversial...

"The reason why the courtroom drama is an American genre and not a French one is that the American trial is inherently a form of theatre; the French courtroom, with its judges questioning the accused, is inherently a display of power, a subjection, an infliction."

In Poynter Al Tompkins says giving a fair trial doesn't mean restricting press coverage:

"There is a way to assure that perp walk video will not come to define a suspect: Allow cameras inside the courtroom. If journalists can capture video of the accused in court, there is no need to chase him down the sidewalk. The courtroom video is likely to show the accused in a better light, the same setting in which a jury would see them."

Slate's Christopher Beam's predicts perp walks are here to stay:

"Despite French objections, perp walks aren't disappearing anytime soon. Police love them. The media love them. And by the time any of the perp-walked suspects are proved innocent, everyone else has moved on."

All, apart from Reuters, who list those who were pictured doing the perp walk and then found not guilty.

[John.hergy]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13450078

8 May 2011



Strauss-Kahn arrest: IMF boss faces new bail hearing
NYPD prisoner movement slip for IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn Dominique Strauss-Kahn was denied bail at a hearing on Monday



International Monetary Fund (IMF) head Dominique Strauss-Kahn will make a new plea for bail at a court hearing on Thursday morning, his lawyer says.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, 62, faces a number of charges in the alleged sexual assault of a hotel maid in New York and was denied bail on Monday.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, on suicide watch at New York's infamous Rikers Island prison, denies all the charges.

The maid, 32, has said she is "scared" but will testify against him.

Mr Strauss-Kahn's lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said the new bail hearing would be in Manhattan on Thursday morning.

The IMF chief faces charges of committing a criminal sexual act, attempted rape, sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching.

On Monday a judge in New York denied Mr Strauss-Kahn bail - despite the offer of a $1m (£618,000) guarantee - saying there was a risk the IMF chief would flee the country. France and the US have no extradition agreement.

The BBC's Laura Trevelyan in New York says the defence will offer a new package that they hope will convince the judge that Mr Strauss-Kahn will not try to flee while he prepares his defence.

That could include Mr Strauss-Kahn offering to wear an electronic ankle tag, surrendering his passport and living under very restrictive conditions, our correspondent says.
'Scared and incredulous'


Earlier on Wednesday the maid's lawyer, Jeffrey Shapiro, said that his client feared for herself and her daughter when she discovered Mr Strauss-Kahn's identity a day after the incident on 14 May.

He said she had only become aware of Mr Strauss-Kahn's identity "a day later when a friend called her to tell her, 'do you have any idea who this man is who did this to you?'".

Mr Shapiro said his client was "scared and incredulous".

"When she found out this encounter was with a man of great power and wealth she feared not only for herself but more importantly for her daughter."

The woman had now been reunited with her 15-year-old daughter in a "safe place", he added.

Mr Shapiro said she had tried to return to her home - a sub-let flat in the Bronx - but had found about 30 people waiting outside.

He said: "She has been in a whirlwind since this has taken place... She has not had a moment of peace, has not been able to return home or seek help.

"She doesn't know what her future will bring."
Carpet examined

Mr Strauss-Kahn's lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said on Monday that the defence believes the forensic evidence "will not be consistent with a forcible encounter".

However, Mr Shapiro said there was "nothing consensual about what took place in that hotel room" in New York.

Police have removed a piece of carpet from the Sofitel hotel, in search of evidence to support the maid's allegation she was forced into an act of oral sex.

Mr Shapiro told NBC television that his client was expected to testify before a grand jury later on Wednesday.

The maid, from the West African nation of Guinea, told police that when she entered the hotel room, Mr Strauss-Kahn came out of the bathroom naked, chased her down and sexually assaulted her before she broke free and fled.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, one of France's most high-profile politicians, has been seen as a front-runner in next year's presidential elections. His arrest has shocked France.

His wife, former French TV interviewer Anne Sinclair, is thought to be visiting him in the next two days.

Public opinion in France appears still to be backing Mr Strauss-Kahn, with polls suggesting many people believe he was the victim of a conspiracy - an accusation strongly denied by the accuser's lawyer, Mr Shapiro.

[John.hergy]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/9491877.stm

Saturday, 21 May 2011

By Hugh Schofield
BBC News, Paris


French newspapers with headlines about Dominique Strauss-Kahn, May 2011

The Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair has brought back to mind that most hoary of cliches, that it is the British who have the sex scandals, while for the French the problem is money.

What has happened in New York with the IMF chief, supposedly is the exception to this rule: a sex scandal involving a French politician - except of course, in this case it is not just sex - it is also crime.

I have always thought the British-French dichotomy to be hokum of the highest order. The basis of the idea is that while the British are prudish and repressed about sex, the French are triumphantly open about it.

Therefore it would be impossible to conceive of a French sex scandal, because no-one would find it shocking if prominent people were engaged in extra-marital affairs. It would just be perfectly normal behaviour. But I think this view of the French is wrong.

'Pernicious lie'

It is the same lazy stereotyping that perpetuates the notion that the French are extraordinary lovers. They have no hang-ups about sex, so they cut to the chase and perform the act with all the fiery passion of their frenetic Gallic genes.

The difference between the cultures is not sex, it is politics and power.

Of course it suits everyone to keep this nonsense going.

British newspapers and foreigners in general thrive on cliches about the French, so they happily churn out the pathetic surveys about how more condoms are used per male in France than in any other nation, or how Paris hotels are block-booked by middle-aged civil servants taking two hours off in the afternoon to cheat on their wives.

And if you are French - well, if the rest of the world persists in thinking you are amazing lovers, can you blame them for going along with the lie?

But it is all a lie, and a pernicious lie at that - as, I think, the latest events have shown.

The difference between the cultures is not sex, it is politics and power.

Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn inside of a New York State Supreme Courthouse during a bail hearing in New York May 19, 2011.


Let us imagine a powerful, charismatic former minister, the lode-star of his party, an intellect, a wit - but a man also with a passionate interest in sex.

Let us imagine that in the course of his career, he becomes known as someone who uses both his political position and his physical strength to get women into bed.

His friends warn him that his behaviour amounts to harassment, not to say abuse, but he keeps going.

'In-crowd'

What happens in one society is that the man is exposed by the press. Intrusive, tabloid, exploitative they may be - but newspapers find out the secrets, report them, and the man is forced to change or quit.

But what happens in France? In France, the politician's aggressive sexual antics are ignored by the press.

Privacy laws stop them publishing, but in any case journalists and politicians inhabit the same metropolitan in-crowd - and "well, it's just old so-and-so; we all know how he's the 'great seducer'.. ha-ha; and no-one's ever complained, have they?"

Those in the know, know. But they don't say. And so old so-and-so begins to think he can get away with anything… anywhere.

In France - this revolutionary Eden - all life, political and cultural, revolves around elites.

These people are spared serious intrusion into their lives - so some of them do end up acting like some "fin de siecle" flaneur in a Guy de Maupassant short story, collecting mistresses and perpetuating the myth about the great Gallic lover.

But I can assure you most people do not live that kind of life.

And if there appears to be in France a kind of ultra-sophisticated, oh-so modern tolerance of the sexual habits of the people in power - it's mainly because the rest of us simply don't know what's going on.

[John.hergy]

http://story.parisguardian.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/fab36d240e1883d4/id/792774/cs/1/

Strauss-Kahn expected to claim 'police irregularities' over arrest 'like a chicken thief'

Paris Guardian
Monday 6th June, 2011



Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is expected to claim his arrest was marred by irregularities, and that he was detained "like a chicken thief" inside a Paris bound Air France jet.

He was arrested on May 14 after a hotel maid in New York claimed that she was sexually assaulted by him.

A source close to Strauss-Kahn, however, criticised the move to arrest him over fears that he might flee the country.

"The conditions of Mr Strauss-Kahn's arrest pose a problem. It appears the prosecutor glossed a little fast over the question of his personal status, and his computer and telephones," the Daily Mail quoted the source, as saying.

"They had the IMF director arrested like a chicken thief. To justify it, they brought up (the risk of) flight, but the plane was booked some time ago (and changed the previous day)," he added.

The former IMF chief is currently being held under house arrest at his apartment in Tribeca. (ANI)

[John.hergy]

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/06/06/new.york.imf.case/index.html?eref=edition_us&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fedition_us+%28RSS%3A+U.S.%29


Ex-IMF chief Strauss-Kahn pleads not guilty at arraignment
By the CNN Wire Staff
June 6, 2011



New York (CNN) -- Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former chief of the International Monetary Fund, pleaded not guilty Monday to seven charges involving a May 14 incident in which a housekeeping employee at New York's Sofitel hotel accused him of sexual assault.

Strauss-Kahn, who was considered a front-runner in France's next presidential race before his arrest, faces charges including criminal sexual acts and sexual abuse.

His attorney, Ben Brafman, declined to comment on details of the case in a brief statement to reporters outside the courtroom following the plea.

"We intend to defend this case and defend it vigorously, but we are going to do so in the courtroom," Brafman said, renewing earlier statements that evidence in the case will reveal his client is innocent.

According to New York police, the alleged attack happened soon after the housekeeper entered Strauss-Kahn's suite to clean it.

Strauss-Kahn allegedly emerged naked from a room, ran down a hallway, shut a door to prevent the woman from leaving and attacked her, according to police and prosecutors.

According to court documents and prosecutors, Strauss-Kahn grabbed the woman's chest, tried to take off her pantyhose and forcibly grabbed her between her legs.

The criminal complaint against Strauss-Kahn alleges that he forced the woman to engage "in oral sexual conduct and anal sexual conduct" and tried to force her to engage in sexual intercourse.

The next court date for Strauss-Kahn is July 18, according to Erin Duggan of the district attorney's office. No date for a trial has been set, Duggan said.

The alleged victim, who has not returned to work, intends to testify against Strauss-Kahn, said her attorney, Ken Thompson.

"She is going to come into this courthouse, get on that witness stand and tell the world what Dominique Strauss did to her," Thompson said.

He declined to discuss specifics of any possible settlement negotiations with Strauss-Kahn, saying his focus is preserving the good name of his client.

She was described by a former attorney as a 32-year-old single mother living in the New York borough of the Bronx who moved to the United States from the West African country of Guinea.

At the hearing, defense lawyers formally requested that Manhattan prosecutors provide discovery materials -- copies of scientific reports as well as police reports and formal statements made by the hotel employee.

Prosecutors have not yet turned over the information to defense attorneys, Duggan said.

The defense has said that some of that information has already been leaked to the media.

"Our client's right to a fair trial is being compromised by the public disclosure of prejudicial material even before these materials have been disclosed to counsel," Strauss-Kahn's attorneys wrote prior to the hearing in a letter to the judge presiding over the case.

They said if they chose to, they could "release substantial information that in our view would seriously undermine the quality of this prosecution and also gravely undermine the credibility of the complainant in this case."

In response, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon wrote in a letter that the request for the materials would be addressed if the request was made in writing.

Illuzzi-Orbon told the defense she agreed with the need to safeguard information from leaks, but was "troubled that you chose to inject into the public record your claim that you possess information that might negatively impact the case and 'gravely' undermine the credibility of the victim."

If the defense does possess such information, it should be forwarded to prosecutors, she said.

Strauss-Kahn was released from jail on bond, but is under house arrest in a luxury townhouse in New York's Tribeca neighborhood, according to a source with knowledge of his whereabouts.

He is under court-ordered watch as part of the terms of his $6 million bail agreement, and must pay for 24-hour armed guards posted at the door, as well as electronic surveillance.

[John.hergy]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/06/ex-imf-chief-due-to-answer-charges-in-nyc-sex-case/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fnational+%28Internal+-+US+Latest+-+Text%29



Ex-IMF Chief Pleads Not Guilty in Alleged Sex Attack on Hotel Maid

Published June 06, 2011

FoxNews.com


Ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn pleaded not guilty Monday to sexually assaulting and attempting to rape a maid at a New York City hotel.

The former head of the International Monetary Fund pleaded not guilty in a strong voice at the brief proceeding while standing between his defense team as his wife Anne Sinclair.

State Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus went through the formality of telling Strauss-Kahn he needed to appear in court and had a right to be present at his trial, to which the economist said "yes."

The French diplomat appeared in court for the first time since he was released on $6 million in cash bail and bond last month. He has been under house arrest that includes 24-hour monitors and armed guards, first in a downtown Manhattan apartment and now in a deluxe, $50,000-a-month Tribeca townhouse.

About 50 hotel workers bused in by their union gathered outside the courthouse to jeer Strauss-Kahn, many wearing their work uniforms. They shouted "shame on you" as he arrived, and again as he left in a black sport-utility vehicle.

The accuser "is a hard-working woman who was just doing her job," said Wendy Baranello, a hotel union organizer. "It's outrageous."

The protesters wanted to send the message that "New York is the wrong place to mess with a hotel worker," said Aissata Bocum, a Ramada Inn housekeeper.

After the brief court appearance, Strauss-Kahn's attorney Ben Brafman said by the end of the case, "it will be clear that there was no element of forcible compulsion in this case whatsoever. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply not credible."

Brafman's similar comments at an earlier court hearing have led to speculation that the defense will argue the encounter was consensual. He repeated again Monday that he and co-counsel William Taylor would not be commenting on the specifics of the case.

"We will defend this case in the courtroom," he said, urging there not be a rush to judgment.

But the maid's attorney, Kenneth Thompson, said she would testify in court and condemned speculation that she either made up the attack or exaggerated the claims.

"The victim wants you to know that all of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's power, money and influence throughout the world will not keep the truth about what he did to her in that hotel room from coming out," Thompson said.

The Associated Press generally does not identify accusers in sex crime cases unless they agree to it.

Thompson said the 32-year-old woman has not worked since the encounter because she is traumatized. And she will not settle the case or back down.

"She is standing up for women around the world sexually assaulted who are too afraid to come forward," he said.

The hearing, which lasted about five minutes, was an arraignment, a standard proceeding in U.S. courts where the defendant is formally advised of the charges and is given the chance to plead. The attorneys also briefly discussed the handing over of potential evidence in the case. They said in a court filing that they wanted access to police reports, forensic tests, and any statements made by the prosecution to any prospective witness in the case. The also asked for details on any promises made by prosecutors to prospective players in the case, and whether any civil action has been taken. Often the accuser will sue the suspect in civil court for monetary damage. The woman's attorney did not comment Monday on whether a civil suit was planned.

After Strauss-Kahn's arrest, authorities seized several cell phones, his iPad and Apple computer, and defense attorneys were worried about "sensitive and confidential" material on the gadgets, plus phone messages left since his arrest that the district attorney's office should not hear, they said.

Prosecutors have several weeks to answer the defense demands, and the defense requests do not mean the prosecution has made any deals or promises. Strauss-Kahn's next court date was set for July 18.

The case has been intensely followed around the world, spawning news reports even about food deliveries to the home where Strauss-Kahn is staying. His arrest rocked France, where he had been considered a potential contender in next year's presidential elections, and shook up the IMF. He resigned amid the scandal, and proclaimed his innocence in a letter to staff. The powerful lending organization has yet to name his replacement.

The hearing was the top story on French front pages and broadcasts Monday.

"DSK: D-Day" headlined French newspaper Le Figaro, suggesting the routine hearing was a pivotal moment in the case. It was also a reference to Monday's 67th anniversary of the U.S.- and British-led invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, known as D-Day, which helped free France from the Nazi grip in World War II.

French media published primers about the U.S. legal system, which differs in many aspects from France's -- including the American jury trial or the condition of "beyond a reasonable doubt" for any conviction in the case.

Strauss-Kahn was arraigned on charges of attempted rape, sex abuse, a criminal sex act, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching. The most serious charge carries a maximum term of five to 25 years in prison.

The 62-year-old had been staying at the Sofitel, near Times Square in Manhattan, in a $3,000-a-night suite. He was scheduled to check out the day of the encounter.

The maid, a West African widow and mother of a 15-year-old girl, told police Strauss-Kahn chased her down a hallway in his Sofitel hotel suite May 14, tried to pull down her pantyhose and forced her to perform oral sex.

Prosecutors said last month that evidence against Strauss-Kahn was building by the day. Tests have found Strauss-Kahn's DNA matched material on the woman's uniform shirt, people familiar with the investigation told the AP.

But Brafman told a judge May 16 that the defense believed any forensic evidence "will not be consistent with a forcible encounter."

And in a letter to prosecutors last month, Brafman and fellow Strauss-Kahn lawyer William W. Taylor said they had -- but wouldn't yet release -- information that "would seriously undermine the quality of this prosecution and also gravely undermine the credibility of the complainant in this case."

The woman's attorneys said outside court that an attempt to smear her name would not be tolerated.

[John.hergy]

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/29/nation/la-na-strauss-kahn-20110529

Ex-IMF chief hires top legal guns in sex case

May 29, 2011|By Geraldine Baum, Los Angeles Times

In some breathless quarters of the New York media, Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been all but convicted.

The former head of the International Monetary Fund, who is charged with trying to rape a hotel maid, has been characterized as an arrogant satyr and dubbed "Le Perv" by the tabloids. Nearly every day, new incriminating details are leaked anonymously to the media. In one report, Strauss-Kahn had the victim pinned to the bed while she begged him to leave her alone, only to be told, "Don't you know who I am?"

May 29, 2011|By Geraldine Baum, Los Angeles Times

In some breathless quarters of the New York media, Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been all but convicted.

The former head of the International Monetary Fund, who is charged with trying to rape a hotel maid, has been characterized as an arrogant satyr and dubbed "Le Perv" by the tabloids. Nearly every day, new incriminating details are leaked anonymously to the media. In one report, Strauss-Kahn had the victim pinned to the bed while she begged him to leave her alone, only to be told, "Don't you know who I am?"
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Even Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg seemed to overlook the presumption of innocence momentarily when asked why a handcuffed Strauss-Kahn was paraded before a ravenous news pack: "It think it's humiliating, but if you don't want to do the perp walk, don't do the crime."

Though the public may think it knows what happened May 14 around noon in that luxury suite of the Sofitel Hotel, it has yet to hear much from the defense. Strauss-Kahn, 62, has been assembling a well-credentialed team to counter prosecutors with the venerable Manhattan district attorney's Sex Crimes Unit.

A tiny preview of the coming bout between the legal heavyweights was revealed Thursday in a motion Strauss-Kahn's attorneys filed in Manhattan Supreme Court attempting to stop the police from releasing information about the investigation.

In a two-page letter to the judge, defense lawyers indicated that they too could be spewing information to the media — which they said would "gravely undermine the credibility of the complainant" — but they didn't want to prejudice a potential jury pool.

Prosecutors fired back that they were unaware of anything that could "gravely" hurt her credibility, deadpanning, "If you really do possess the kind of information you suggest that you do, we trust you will forward it immediately to the district attorney's office."

Those who have observed Benjamin Brafman, one of Strauss-Kahn's lawyers, say they had never known him to be shy about talking to the press. The letter to the judge from Brafman and attorney William W. Taylor III was seen as part of a strategy — yet another hint — that Strauss-Kahn would insist the 32-year-old woman consented to have sex with him.




http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/29/nation/la-na-strauss-kahn-20110529/2


May 29, 2011|By Geraldine Baum, Los Angeles Times

Among the first calls Strauss-Kahn made after police escorted him off a Paris-bound jet shortly before takeoff was to Taylor, a soft-spoken Southerner and Washington insider. Taylor represented Strauss-Kahn a few years ago when he was facing an internal investigation by the Washington-based IMF over an affair with a woman who worked for him there. Though he was reprimanded for bad judgment, he was cleared of any wrongdoing.

When Strauss-Kahn was arrested in New York, he again reached out to Taylor, who quickly contacted Brafman, with whom he had worked defending a white-shoe law firm accused of fraud.

"If you're in New York and you're in a heap of trouble, Ben's the guy you call," said Los Angeles attorney Mark Geragos, who teamed up with Brafman in the early stages of defending Michael Jackson against child molestation charges. Brafman's other famous clients include Sean "Diddy" Combs, Jay-Z, former NFL receiver Plaxico Burress and a roster of New York gangsters.

Geragos and Charles Ross, Brafman's former partner, each described him as a savvy cross-examiner with a wily manner and a engaging sense of humor — he was once a Catskills stand-up comic.

"He has very few peers in the courtroom, and it comes from very hard work," Ross said. "He'll get every shred of discovery that the DA will provide … and then some."

Attorneys who have worked with and opposed Brafman say his technique is often to pick one or two factual issues and, starting with the pretrial publicity, hammer away at them. In this case, they predicted he would mold his defense around Strauss-Kahn's accuser, homing in on any weakness in her story or character he could dig up.

Brafman and Taylor have engaged a platoon of investigators, including former prosecutors and ex-police officers who are reportedly ferreting out such things as data recorded on electronic room keys used to open the hotel doors and details of the victim's life in Guinea, a former French colony in West Africa where she lived before she came to New York seven years ago.

In addition, the defense has brought on Marina Ein, a Washington-based public relations advisor who worked for former Rep. Gary Condit (D-Calif.) when he was questioned during the investigation into the disappearance of slain Washington intern Chandra Levy.





http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/29/nation/la-na-strauss-kahn-20110529/3


May 29, 2011|By Geraldine Baum, Los Angeles Times

This is all adding up to a multimillion-dollar defense bill for a man who, before he got into trouble, had been negotiating the economic crisis in Europe and weighing a run for the presidency of France. Now, he and his wife, Anne Sinclair, an heiress and former French television journalist, who has been by her husband's side, are managing an expensive campaign to keep him out of prison.

When Sinclair arrived from France, she reportedly was accompanied by his French publicist and by Jean Veil, who is defending former French President Jacques Chirac in a corruption trial. It is unclear whether he too is on the defense team.

If this case goes before a jury, however, the challenge of pulling together a convincing argument is likely to rest with Brafman.

Even when there is physical evidence and a victim willing to testify, the outcome of sex crime cases is often unpredictable. The Manhattan Sex Crimes Unit lost a high-profile case last week in which two New York police officers were accused of rape.

Lisa F. Jackson, a filmmaker who recently spent two years shadowing the unit's prosecutors for a documentary being shown next month on HBO, said they are used to difficult cases, though few bring as much attention as the one involving Strauss-Kahn.

"They face big-gun lawyers all the time," Jackson said. "They'll be completely unintimidated by whatever the defense brings to the table in terms of reputations of the lawyers or new information or who-knows-what surprises they'll arrive at trial with."

Strauss-Kahn's next court appearance is expected on June 6; in the meantime, he is living under house arrest in a luxury Tribeca townhouse. Last week, television satellite trucks jammed the Manhattan neighborhood's narrow streets, and photographers, many of them French, were canvassing the neighborhood trying to find a doorman who would take $500 in cash to let them up on the roof to take pictures through the skylight of Strauss-Kahn's townhouse.

By week's end, there was no evidence they'd found any takers.