IMF Chief arrested for Rape

[DrinkingHarp]

IMF chief jailed without bail in NY hotel-sex case

REUTERS/Mike Segar
ShareretweetEmailPrint AP – Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, is arraigned Monday, May 16, 2011, in ...
NEW YORK – Haggard and unshaven after a weekend in jail, the chief of the International Monetary Fund was denied release on bail Monday on charges of trying to rape a hotel maid as allegations of other, similar attacks by Dominique Strauss-Kahn began to emerge.

In France, a lawyer for a novelist said the writer is likely to file a criminal complaint accusing Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her nine years ago. A French lawmaker accused him of attacking other maids in previous stays at the same luxury hotel. And in New York, prosecutors said they are working to verify reports of at least one other case, which they suggested was overseas.

Strauss-Kahn's weekend arrest rocked the financial world as the IMF grapples with the European debt crisis, and upended French presidential politics. Strauss-Kahn, a member of France's Socialist party, was widely considered the strongest potential challenger next year to President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Making his first appearance on the sex charges, a grim-looking Strauss-Kahn stood slumped before a judge in a dark raincoat and open-collared shirt. The 62-year-old, silver-haired Strauss-Kahn said nothing as a lawyer professed his innocence and strove in vain to get him released on bail.

The judge ruled against him after prosecutors warned that the wealthy banker might flee to France and put himself beyond the reach of U.S. law like the filmmaker Roman Polanski.

"This battle has just begun," defense attorney Benjamin Brafman told scores of reporters outside the courthouse, adding that Strauss-Kahn might appeal the bail denial.

Strauss-Kahn is accused of attacking a maid who had gone in to clean his penthouse suite Saturday afternoon at a luxury hotel near Times Square. He is charged with attempted rape, sex abuse, a criminal sex act, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching. The most serious charge carries five to 25 years in prison.

Strauss-Kahn, who has headed the international lending agency since 2007, was in New York on personal business and was paying his own way, so he cannot claim diplomatic immunity, the IMF said. He could seek that protection only if he were conducting official business, spokesman William Murray said. The agency's executive board met informally Monday for a report on the charges against Strauss-Kahn, its managing director.




The French newspaper Le Monde, citing people close to Strauss-Kahn, said he had reserved the $3,000-a-night suite at the Sofitel hotel for one night for a quick trip to have lunch with his daughter, who is studying in New York.

The 32-year-old maid told authorities that she thought the suite was empty but that Strauss-Kahn emerged from the bathroom naked, chased her down a hallway, pulled her into a bedroom and dragged her into a bathroom, police said.

He grabbed her breasts, tried to pull down her pantyhose, grabbed at her crotch and forced her to perform oral sex on him during the encounter at about noon, according to a court complaint. She ultimately broke free, escaped the room and told hotel staffers what had happened, authorities said. She was treated at a hospital for minor injuries.

"The victim provided a very powerful and detailed account of the violent sexual assault," Assistant District Attorney John "Ardie" McConnell said. He added that forensic evidence may support her account. Strauss-Kahn voluntarily submitted to a forensic examination Sunday night.

Brafman said defense lawyers believe the forensic evidence "will not be consistent with a forcible encounter." Defense lawyers wouldn't elaborate, but Brafman said "there are significant issues that were already found" that make it "quite likely that he will be ultimately be exonerated."

Prosecutors asked the judge to hold Strauss-Kahn without bail, noting that he lives in France, is wealthy, has an international job and was arrested on a Paris-bound plane at Kennedy Airport. He had left the Sofitel hotel before police arrived, leaving his cellphone behind, and appeared hurried on surveillance recordings, authorities said.

At one point, Strauss-Kahn called the hotel "in a panic" about the phone, a law enforcement official said Monday.

Hotel security officers hadn't found a phone. But they were instructed by NYPD investigators to set a trap by informing him they had it and asking where they could get it to him, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation had not been completed.

Strauss-Kahn told them he was about to board a flight — unknowingly tipping off authorities to his whereabouts, the official said.

Prosecutors said they couldn't force Strauss-Kahn's return from France if he went there.

"He would be living openly and notoriously in France, just like Roman Polanski," said Chief Assistant District Attorney Daniel Alonso, referring to the film director long sought by California authorities for sentencing in a 1977 child sex case. Swiss police arrested him in 2009, but he was freed last year when Switzerland declined to extradite him to the United States.

Defense lawyers suggested bail be set at $1 million and promised that the IMF managing director would remain in New York City. His lawyers said Strauss-Kahn wasn't trying to elude police Saturday: The IMF head rushed out of the hotel at about 12:30 p.m. to get to a lunch date with a family member, then caught a flight for which he had long had a ticket, according to Brafman and fellow defense lawyer William W. Taylor.

"This is not a case of someone who commits a crime, runs to the airport and jumps on the first available plane," Brafman said.

Still, Criminal Court Judge Melissa C. Jackson, who was an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn for nearly 22 years before being appointed to Manhattan Criminal Court in 2003, said the fact that Strauss-Kahn was on a plane when arrested "raises some concerns." She ordered him jailed at least until a court proceeding on Friday.

Strauss-Khan will be held in protective custody in the city's Rikers Island jail because of his high profile, said city Correction Department spokesman Stephen Morello. Unlike some inmates, who share 50-bed barracks, Strauss-Kahn will have a single-bed cell and eat all his meals alone there. Also, when he is outside his cell, he will have a guard escort.

Strauss-Kahn makes an annual tax-free salary as head of the IMF of $420,930, plus an annual "scale of living" allowance of $75,350, according to a 2007 IMF press release.

According to the 2000 biography "Les Vies Cachees de DSK" by Vincent Giret and Veronique Le Billon, Strauss-Kahn's wife, Anne Sinclair, was one of France's highest-paid TV journalists before she gave up her job to avoid a possible conflict of interest when her husband became a government minister in 1997. The biography says Sinclair is also a wealthy heiress, whose grandfather Paul Rosenberg was a prominent modern art dealer before the Second World War.

French newspapers have inventoried the couple's real estate holdings, which reportedly include a six-room apartment in Paris' chic 16th arrondissement; a 240-square-meter apartment on the luxurious Place des Vosges; a home in Marrakech, and a house in Washington.

Meanwhile, a lawyer for 31-year-old French novelist Tristane Banon said she will probably file a complaint alleging Strauss-Kahn sexually attacked her in 2002. Lawyer David Koubbi told French radio RTL that Banon hadn't pressed her claim earlier because of "pressures" but would do so now because "she knows she'll be taken seriously."

The Associated Press is identifying Banon as an alleged victim of sexual assault because she has gone public with her account.

Banon's mother, Anne Mansouret, a regional Socialist official in Normandy, said she had advised her daughter at the time against pursuing her claim.

A French lawmaker from a rival political party also alleged, without offering evidence, that Strauss-Kahn had victimized 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.

McConnell, the assistant district attorney, said in court Monday 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.

In France, defenders of Strauss-Kahn, a former finance minister who had topped the polls as a possible candidate in presidential elections next year, said they suspected he was the victim of a smear campaign.

The 187-nation IMF provides emergency loans to countries in severe distress and tries to maintain global financial stability.

___

Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Paris, Chris Rugaber in Washington and Tom Hays in New York contributed to this report.

[Capt Pat]

He raped the Irish economy as well.

[screenmachine]

I bet he wished he had used the w**k bank instead...

[Orior]

I watched an Australian film last night called The Square.

A quote from it was "there's always trouble when you point your dick in the wrong direction"

[seafoid]

I love the phrase that is used in East Galway and probably in Connemara  for these cases-  boidín foolish .  Bod is "penis" in Irish and the ín  at the end adds that extra something.   

[johnneycool]

He raped the Irish economy as well.

That was Bertie and his mates, the IMF just picked over the bones.

[Bogball XV]

How does a man like this make it to the top position in the IMF?  Listening to Lara Marlowe on the radio last night and she said that female journos knew that if you wanted to meet him it should be arranged in a public place!!!
I don't know if these new allegations are true, but there appears to have been enough in the past that should have precluded him from this office or indeed a run at the french presidency.

[Tony Baloney]

Convicted of nothing yet chaps.

[seafoid]

How does a man like this make it to the top position in the IMF?  Listening to Lara Marlowe on the radio last night and she said that female journos knew that if you wanted to meet him it should be arranged in a public place!!!
I don't know if these new allegations are true, but there appears to have been enough in the past that should have precluded him from this office or indeed a run at the french presidency.

There was a thing on the grauniad yesterday about all the anky panky that goes on within the French elite.
Mitterand had a child by a mistress and I can't remember the rest. 

[Tony Baloney]

How does a man like this make it to the top position in the IMF?  Listening to Lara Marlowe on the radio last night and she said that female journos knew that if you wanted to meet him it should be arranged in a public place!!!
I don't know if these new allegations are true, but there appears to have been enough in the past that should have precluded him from this office or indeed a run at the french presidency.

There was a thing on the grauniad yesterday about all the anky panky that goes on within the French elite.
Mitterand had a child by a mistress and I can't remember the rest.

You should take up after-dinner speaking!

[HiMucker]

I watched an Australian film last night called The Square.

A quote from it was "there's always trouble when you point your dick in the wrong direction"

What was that like was going to watch it myself but opted for the bone collector on fiver.  Sorry for straying of topic 

[nrico2006]

I watched an Australian film last night called The Square.

A quote from it was "there's always trouble when you point your dick in the wrong direction"

What was that like was going to watch it myself but opted for the bone collector on fiver.  Sorry for straying of topic 

I followed your lead HiMucker, even though I have seen the Bone Collector before.

[NAG1]

To me this case raises again the question of anonymity in these cases, he is convicted of nothing yet and yet he is already being deemed and judged as a rapist.

Serious issue here along with a serious allegation

[Bogball XV]

Convicted of nothing yet chaps.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/18/imf-chief-embroiled-in-se_n_135865.html

This is just the latest in a long line of incidents, the link above goes back to his 'inappropriate relationship' with a subordinate.  A journalist made attempted rape allegations in 2003 but withdrew them on her mother's advice that he was too powerful. 

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/146663/20110516/dominique-strauss-kahn-imf-sexual-assault-sex-scandals-charges-rape.htm

There appear to have been several other scandals too.  Whether true or not, I would have thought that the controversy alone would be enough to preclude him from consideration for a post like this?

[Cold tea]

To me this case raises again the question of anonymity in these cases, he is convicted of nothing yet and yet he is already being deemed and judged as a rapist.

Serious issue here along with a serious allegation

Exactly, yet celebs ride all round them cheating on their partners and the person they are riding can't even name them - if this man is innocent his life is ruined because of this.