Is the Head of the IMF a Sex Criminal?

This dramatic turn of events is no less than a meltdown for the New York District Attorney's Office. Prosecutors have apparently committed glaring errors in judgment, making a mockery of their proud American tradition of "innocent until proven guilty" -- of publicly trying suspects, regardless of their rank in society, and demonstrating their guilt in a court of law. If the reports turn out to be true, prosecutors have maneuvered themselves into a scandal that will likely itself become the subject of investigations. Indeed, perhaps without due justification, they may have ruined the professional and personal reputation of one of the world's most powerful financial managers and a potential French presidential candidate.

Right from the start, New York prosecutors presented their case with a forceful persuasiveness. They didn't leave a shred of doubt about the credibility of the alleged victim or the substance of her allegations. The chambermaid was described to the world as a devout Muslim woman and the hard-working, single mother of a teenage daughter. They said that this immigrant from the West African country of Guinea had never done anything wrong and had led a modest and honorable life. That was how the state, and its prosecutors, portrayed her. The prosecution drew on the victim's pitiful weakness to muster strength against Strauss-Kahn.

The chambermaid was described to the world as a devout Muslim woman and the hard-working, single mother of a teenage daughter. They said that this immigrant from the West African country of Guinea had never done anything wrong and had led a modest and honorable life. That was how the state, and its prosecutors, portrayed her. The prosecution drew on the victim's pitiful weakness to muster strength against Strauss-Kahn.

Pop the champagne, DSK.
Prosecutors will agree to drop the charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn -- either on his next court date in two weeks or even sooner, according to a top investigator in the case who called the eventual dismissal "a certainty."
"We all know this case is not sustainable," the source told The Post exclusively yesterday.
"Her credibility is so bad now, we know we cannot sustain a case with her," the source said, referring to the Guinean hotel maid who accused Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her in his plush Midtown hotel suite -- shocking charges that got the international banker bounced as head of the IMF and also derailed, at least for now, his bid to become president of France.
"She is not to be believed in anything that comes out of her mouth -- which is a shame, because now we may never know what happened in that hotel room," said the source, who is at the center of the investigation and would speak only on the condition of anonymity.
"Did [Strauss-Kahn] use force? Was there actually a crime? I don't think we'll ever know."
Meanwhile, defense sources described a different scenario, in which DSK admittedly engaged with the maid in a consensual, sex-for-money exchange in his Sofitel suite, with no force involved -- and she turned against him only when he stiffed her.
"In the past, guests have left stuff for her," meaning money, one source close to the defense investigation said last night. "She goes back to look for the money," and is disappointed, the source said. Also likely irking the maid? "His dismissive nature," said the source.


Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/da_set_to_drop_charges_vs_dsk_RWftbQcr6Xw3clMsm6zNWJ#ixzz1RD9RdYlu

The best we can hope for I guess is that this woman get fired

After all if DSK did not rape that woman surely he had raped the reporter ten years ago and or others women and gotten away with it.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn "a pris connaissance de l'intention de Mme Tristane Banon de déposer plainte à son encontre". Il évoque des faits "imaginaires" et a chargé ses avocats français Me Henri Leclerc et son associée Me Frédérique Baulieu "de rédiger une plainte en dénonciation calomnieuse".

. He's already fired the assistant DA who created this mess

NY Post 1/25/10

The assistant district attorney at the helm of multiple prosecutions in the fatal 2007 fire at the former Deutsche Bank Building will retire next month -- throwing the future of the high-profile cases in doubt, a source said.

Patrick Dugan -- who was stripped of his position as chief of the investigations division by newly sworn in Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. -- will step down in February.

Dugan, a 36-year veteran of the DA's office, ran the investigation into the August 2007 blaze at the condemned Ground Zero eyesore that claimed the lives of two firefighters.

Although the city itself escaped indictment, three construction supervisors and the contracting firm, John Galt Corp., face manslaughter and other charges in connection to the blaze.

"Pat ran that show," one former prosecutor said. "He didn't share everything with the others working on the case, and cases often suffer when such a hands-on, lead prosecutor is replaced so close to trial."

Dugan confirmed his impending retirement but declined to comment.

Vance spokesman Erin Duggan said, "The Deutsche Bank fire case is a priority case for the district attorney."

Prosecutions are like that - win some, lose some. You don't know the man, I do, and (even though he's a Democrat) I support him and think he does a good job. I wish this French concept of "calumnious denunciation" (see above) was available to us as well, btw - it would save the DA from prosecuting for perjury.

A young immigrant woman, lacking privilege and money, alleges that she was raped while on the job. She reports the incident soon after it takes place. There is semen on her clothes and bruises on her body. She tells her story with such conviction that, according to The Times, seasoned investigators cry when they hear it.

The man she says raped her — wealthy, famous and powerful — is on an airplane about to depart for his native land. This is the same country that, for decades, helped shield Roman Polanski from being prosecuted for statutory rape in the United States. The man in the current case appears to have left the hotel where the rape allegedly occurred in some haste. He even forgets to take one of his cellphones.

With no time to spare, detectives lure him off the plane and arrest him. When he is questioned, he refuses to talk about the incident, having already “lawyered up.” He is forced to do the “perp walk,” and spends the next five days in jail, at which point he is indicted. (Under New York law, if prosecutors don’t indict him within five days, they have to release him on his own recognizance.) Once out on bail, he is placed under house arrest, in a $200,000-a-month TriBeCa townhouse. The New York tabloids mock him mercilessly.

Now that the man can’t flee, prosecutors turn their attention to the alleged victim. They begin investigating her background, knowing that the case hinges on her credibility. In just six weeks — an extraordinarily short time, as these things go — they put together a devastating profile of her past, filled with troubling inconsistencies, outright lies and the possibility that she hopes to profit from her alleged ordeal.

The prosecutors waste no time divulging these exculpatory facts to the man’s lawyers. Then, in open court, they tell the judge what they’ve found. He releases the man from house arrest. Though the case is not yet abandoned, it almost surely will be.

You know what I’ve just described, of course: l’affaire D.S.K. In the days since Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s stunning reversal of fortune, many Frenchmen have howled at the injustice of it all: “This vision of Dominique Strauss-Kahn humiliated in chains, dragged lower than the gutter,” as the French writer (and D.S.K. friend) Bernard-Henri Lévy put it — all because Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan district attorney, chose to believe “a hotel chambermaid” over an esteemed member of the French political establishment.

In America, meanwhile, the case’s collapse has brought sniping from former prosecutors and white-collar defense attorneys, who have criticized Vance for indicting Strauss-Kahn before he knew more about the victim’s background.

For the life of me, though, I can’t see what Vance did wrong. Quite the contrary. The woman alleged rape, for crying out loud, which was backed up by physical (and other) evidence. She had no criminal record. Her employer vouched for her. The quick decision to indict made a lot of sense, both for legal and practical reasons. Then, as the victim’s credibility crumbled, Vance didn’t try to pretend that he still had a slam dunk, something far too many prosecutors do. He acknowledged the problems.

Lévy, himself a member of the French elite, seems particularly incensed that Vance wouldn’t automatically give Strauss-Kahn a pass, given his extraordinary social status. Especially since his accuser had no status at all.

But that is exactly why Vance should be applauded: a woman with no power made a credible accusation against a man with enormous power. He acted without fear or favor. To have done otherwise would have been to violate everything we believe in this country about no one being above the law.

As for Strauss-Kahn’s humiliation, clearly something very bad happened in that hotel room. Quite possibly a crime was committed. Strauss-Kahn’s sordid sexual history makes it likely that he was the instigator. If the worst he suffers is a perp walk, a few days in Rikers Island and some nasty headlines, one’s heart ought not bleed. Ah, yes, and he had to resign as the chief of an institution where sexual harassment was allegedly rampant, thanks, in part, to a culture he helped perpetuate. Gee, isn’t that awful?

The point is this: We live in a country that professes to treat everyone equally under the law. So often we fall short. The poor may go unheard; the rich walk. Yet here is a case that actually lives up to our ideal of who we like to think we are. Even the way the case appears to be ending speaks to our more noble impulses. Vance didn’t dissemble or delay or hide the truth about the victim’s past. He did the right thing, painful though it surely must have been.

To judge by his recent writings, Bernard-Henri Lévy prefers to live in a country where the elites are rarely held to account, where crimes against women are routinely excused with a wink and a nod and where people without money or status are treated like the nonentities that the French moneyed class believe they are.

I’d rather live here.

ne other comment our laws are out of balance where any woman can go for the gold and falsely charge any high profile man with sexual assault with the up side of perhaps winning a great deal of $$$$$$ and almost zero downside as they are seldom charge with a crime for doing so and when they are the punishment is mostly a slap on the wrist.

POint one we dont know that anything happened in that hotel room other than a sex worker did not get paid so she got pissed and tried to jam up the John