Is the Head of the IMF a Sex Criminal?

there is no evidence that she is telling the truth either. The tie goes to the accused in our system.

No, a tie goes to a trial. That's the purpose of a trial.

We don't know in this case. Now I figure it was a set up, but yet again I don't know.

But, given the fact that this woman was not completely truthful on her asylum application, and the fact that she has also apparently been involved in some shady stuff, it seems to me that the last thing she would want to do is get involved with the police and law enforcement-

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there is no evidence that she is telling the truth either. The tie goes to the accused in our system.

No, a tie goes to a trial. That's the purpose of a trial.

Brand New Details Show How The Maid In The DSK Case Had Her Credibility Destroyed
Joe Weisenthal | Jul. 2, 2011,

Starting late on Thursday, the DSK case turned surreal.

First the NYT dropped a bombshell, reporting that the sex crime case against the former IMF chief was on the verge of collapse, as inconsistencies were appearing all over the place in the maid's story. Key, however, was the fact that almost all of the inconsistencies seemed to be away from the actual incident itself. They were more about her background, her alleged underworld connections, and lies she made on her application for asylum in the US.

Then yesterday, after DSK saw his bail get eliminated (but not the charges dropped), the maid's lawyer gave a stunning and graphic press conference, accusing DA Cy Vance of being afraid to take the case, while going on to list in (an extremely graphic manner) the alleged assault on his client.

So the observer was left with two different observations: 1) Her background is not helpful and makes her a horrible witness and 2) she maintains the details of the rape, and her lawyer claims that physical evidence would back her up (vaginal bruising, a torn ligament, torn stockings, etc.).

Today the NYT is back with more details filling in the first piece, and through it you can see how difficult of a situation the prosecution would find itself if it decided to go through with the case.

Some key details:

In a call with an acquaintance in a jail, right after the alleged incident, she made clear she knew who DSK was, and thus the opportunity to personally profit from the incident. She said something like 'Don’t worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I’m doing,'

Originally, the maid was cooperative with investigators and attorneys, but became less so overtime, not showing up for long stretches, and also crying when her lawyer was not there (Note: We're not sure whether that's damning in any way).

At another time, the woman threw herself on the floor in response to questions.
When confronted with her (apparent) lie that the Sofitel was her only form of income (remember, prosecutors discovered evidence of large bank accounts, and multiple phones) she was stunned, ask her lawyer for direction on how to proceed, but he was also speechless (remember, in Thompson's press conference yesterday he said that was entirely a lie).

And most damning: Her version of events at the Sofitel changed from originally finding her supervisor right after the event to going to and finishing another room. And yet, apparently key card says the new version is a lie.

Still one big question remains: What of the vivid physical evidence claimed by the lawyer yesterday? Do the prosecutors think it's compelling and if so, is this a manager of the central witness basically being impossible to use?
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-maid-in-the-dominique-strauss-kahn-case-lost-her-credibility-2011-7

CNN) -- Well, I have to admit, there was a rush to convict.
Not that we weren't assured that this was a slam-dunk case. But even beyond that, there was a certain satisfaction in believing that because Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the now-former head of the International Monetary Fund, had a checkered past with women, and because of course New York prosecutors would have done their due diligence, that this was one powerful guy who wasn't going to get away with sexual harassment and assault.
Of course the truth is not yet clear, but what is clear is that the story is complicated and may include a woman who had sex willingly and was not forced.
Here's the rub in these kinds of cases. Not all women who report assault are honest; not all accused are guilty. It is hard not to have a runaway train on these stories when the facts seem, on their face, damning, and when the crime involves the powerful over the powerless. Most of us are champions of civil rights and personal liberty. How can we not seethe at the idea of a maid being overpowered in a hotel room by a man who is used to taking what he wants -- and getting it one way or another.
We still don't know what the situation is (hence the hypnotic power of high-visibility trials). Is this a woman who is being tarnished by an expensive legal machine's clever PR? Is she a woman with a criminal past with monetary motives? Or is she simply a woman with an unstable and unsavory life, with less than high motives, who was nevertheless a victim? The problem with these cases is that they become a "she-said/he said" struggle and getting past female stereotypes ("helpless maid," conniving slut," "egomaniac power broker") isn't easy. We don't really know if the guy was set up, or the woman abused.
So we have to do what we should have done in the first place. Wait. See what the facts are and hope that those involved in the legal proceedings are honest and diligent.
What I do think is progress is that there's reason to believe that justice will be done, whoever the culprit or victim is. Not too many years ago, this woman could not have made the charge and be taken seriously. She has been taken seriously this time. Howeve -- and just as important -- if she is lying, then Strauss-Kahn will be freed and she will be in a heap of trouble.
One last thought: Lawyers have been very careful in framing the issue of whether or not there was sex. Strauss-Kahn's lawyer, for example, maintains there was "no element of compulsion in this case."
Still, let me just say this to Mr. Strauss-Kahn or other horny men who think a quickie with someone they don't know at all seems like a good idea: Be careful who you have sex with. Be careful who you are with in a room, alone.
Whatever the facts of this matter, having sex with someone you don't know, can't trust, and who may have motives you haven't even dreamt of, is extremely risky.
When will we learn this simple lesson: It's not just your flesh you expose when you take off your clothes. It's your safety, health, reputation, primary relationship -- and yes, even you prospects for the presidency of France .

SO what’s the moral of this Manhattan immorality tale?


That the French are always right, even when their hauteur is irritating?

They were right about Iraq and America’s rush to war. And they may be right about Dominique Strauss-Kahn and America’s rush to judgment.

In both cases, French credibility was undermined, so we resisted seeing things from their point of view.

France tried to block W.’s spun-up attack on Iraq, but we knew that the French government had a history of making special oil deals with Saddam Hussein, and of favoring expediency over principle.

France refused to believe that DSK could force himself on a Sofitel maid, but we knew that French society had a history of shielding powerful and talented men accused of scandalous behavior with young women.

W. created a fake deadline and casus belli on Iraq, but New York prosecutors had a real deadline before Strauss-Kahn flew away to France, which does not have an extradition treaty with the United States.

Seven weeks after DSK, then the chief of the International Monetary Fund, was struck by a coup de théâtre — getting hauled off an Air France plane by the police, who charged him with raping a 32-year-old maid — he basked in a more pleasant coup de théâtre, getting released on his own recognizance. As he left the downtown courtroom, he gave his first public smile and put his arm around Anne Sinclair, his attractive wife, who has financed the high-powered legal team and high-priced TriBeCa detention.

In an exquisitely embarrassing moment for Cyrus Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, the prosecutors wilted upon learning that their victim had victimized them — repeatedly lying to the government.

To get political asylum in America, the woman, an African immigrant, lied that her husband had died by torture at the hands of police officers and soldiers in Guinea. She told investigators, falsely, that she had been gang-raped there. To get a bigger break on her taxes, she claimed a friend’s child as her own. To impress the grand jury, she said that after the attack by DSK, she had waited in a hall for him to get an elevator before reporting it to her supervisor.

But as the red-faced apologia filed by the D.A.’s office on Thursday revealed: “The complainant has since admitted that this account was false and that after the incident in Suite 2806, she proceeded to clean a nearby room and then returned to Suite 2806 and began to clean that suite before she reported the incident to her supervisor.”

She was involved with a drug dealer jailed for possessing 400 pounds of pot; she talked to him about whether she could profit from pursuing charges against DSK, noting that he had a lot of money. Prosecutors say she may have links to people also involved in money laundering.

Law enforcement officials say privately that they still think DSK sexually assaulted the maid. But the case relied on her credibility, and that’s gone.

They say it is roughly analogous — not in terms of the maid’s sexual history but her record of veracity — to a case in which a prostitute is raped. It’s hard to prosecute, and the perp can often get away with it.

The upright-looking Vance is not like the scoundrel prosecutor in the Duke lacrosse case. He did not ignore evidence that was contrary to the case prosecutors were trying to build. It just took several weeks, after they tried to deny DSK bail and after they indicted him, to do a thorough investigation.

In France, his Socialist colleagues — and rivals to run for president — defended him. Ségolène Royal howled about how the American justice system had thrown the Socialists’ star to the wolves. Royal’s former partner, François Hollande, said that, once cleared, DSK could still run in the party primary — although he would have to explain his lascivious manner toward the help and his lavish home-arrest lifestyle.

In New York, Kenneth Thompson, the accuser’s lawyer, howled about how the justice system had thrown the maid to the wolves. He said the young Muslim woman was “traumatized” and would speak out on the case.

Her evidence, he said, includes stockings with holes ripped in them, a torn shoulder ligament, a hospital picture of a bruise on her vagina, and the DSK DNA in the room — all, she claims, from the violent attack.

“Until today, it was white versus black, rich versus poor, man versus woman, Jew versus Muslim,” said Elaine Sciolino, a Times correspondent in France and the author of “La Seduction,” assessing the French reaction and the fraying of the Gallic Anita Hill moment. “Now it’s going to be this man who would have been president taken down by this nogoodnik who has a druggie boyfriend in prison and who lied from the moment she tried to get into the United States.”

When a habitual predator faces off against a habitual liar, the liar will most likely lose, even if it is the rare case when she is telling the truth.

No, the purpose of a criminal trial is to see if the DA is right that he has overwhelming evidence of guilt. If he does not, and more importantly if he knows that he does not, there should not be a trial.

I hope to hell that you did not go to law school, as you dont even know the basics of how the American system is supposed to work.

When a habitual predator faces off against a habitual liar, the liar will most likely lose, even if it is the rare case when she is telling the truth.

The Politician, the Maid, and Presumptions of Guilt
7/1/11

It was, or so it seemed, a familiar story: the lecherous, power-drunk old man who’s used to getting away with taking advantage of women, until he doesn’t. But with the news that the sexual-assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is crumbling in the face of the accuser’s own checkered past, the narrative has taken an abrupt about-face. Suddenly, the Sofitel maid has gone from helpless immigrant suffering life’s latest cruel blow to a different stock character: the dodgy gangster’s girlfriend who knows an opportunity when she sees one. Prosecutors, once certain the details were on their side, have discovered they are dealing with an unreliable narrator. But then again, so are we all.

We Americans pride ourselves on the presumption of innocence, when in fact everything about our culture works to spin the arrow the other way around. In the court of public opinion, what matters is not facts but story lines, and especially with a defendant like DSK, it is easy to see signs of guilt....When the history emerged of the terrible way DSK has treated women — as if he were a Duke lacrosse player all grown up and handed the keys to one of the world’s elite institutions — we built the case a little more in our heads. This was imperious entitlement at its very worst, a modern-day morality play. Also: He’s French...

Now that we know this hardworking immigrant mother is at the very least a more complicated figure, the presumption of guilt plays out in the opposite direction. DSK has been released on his own recognizance. Even if an otherwise duplicitous witness is telling the truth about the alleged attack, the district attorney’s job may have just become impossible. But really, the central mystery endures. On May 14, a rich, well-connected white man had sex in a hotel suite with a younger, poorer, black woman who is not his wife. We can conjure all sorts of narratives to fill in the blanks, but that fact may be the only aspect of this affair that we’ll ever be sure of.
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/07/dsk_the_sofitel_housekeeper_an.html

Despite all the media speculation to the contrary, the DSK case isn't quite dead yet. Vance and his office may still be able to prove that the encounter in the Sofitel hotel suite between the former IMF managing director and the Guinean-born housekeeper was less than "consensual," as his lawyers are now arguing. But the initial momentum they had after DSK's arrest was first reported? Yep, all that's gone. From here on out, it's going to be a hard slog to the trial room. http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/07/dsk_backlash_throws_das_office_1.html

That just about sums this situation up. Maureen Dowd has the right fix on it.

The main thing is that the Libbies have put more terror into innocent men . He is innocent still, isnt he ? Will the woman be recompensing him for his losses ?

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When a habitual predator faces off against a habitual liar, the liar will most likely lose, even if it is the rare case when she is telling the truth.

That just about sums this situation up. Maureen Dowd has the right fix on it.

Will the woman be recompensing him for his losses ?

in that case charges should have been dropped on or about May 20....how do you explain that they have not been?