Is the Head of the IMF a Sex Criminal?

The man has a track record of poor sense, particularly when women are involved--as the scandal and legal difficulties over his past affair revealed

What is your point in posting this topic? No one knows whether the man is a sex criminal or not--no evidence has yet been presented. Why do you want to encourage people to judge him prematurely--he is innocent until proved guilty.

and what's with the girl name

He is presumed innocent until proved otherwise--you do remember that, don't you?

There could be many, many origins," she said. "It could come from the IMF, it could come from the French right, it could come from the French left. But if it is the case, playing like that with France's image is not acceptable. Mr Strauss-Kahn's image is very compromised, but that is nothing next to the damage to France's image today

We shall see, we need to know who the woman is, and what political groups if any that she is connected to (or if she suddenly has more cash in her bank account). I am sure there is a bus load of journalists out there on the case. The police well many not get to the bottom of this, but somebody likely will.

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn identified in police line-up by maid accusing him of sexual assault
BY Alison Gendar, Simone Weichselbaum, Rocco Parascandola and John Lauinger
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Sunday, May 15th 2011

The Frenchman who heads the International Monetary Fund was identified in a police lineup early Sunday night by the Manhattan maid who claims he sexually assaulted her, cop sources said.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, 62, once seen as a legitimate contender to be France's next President, was due to be arraigned Sunday night on charges of a criminal sexual act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment.

His 32-year-old victim, described by a co-worker as a single mother of African descent, stared down the political star during a police lineup at the Manhattan office of the NYPD's Special Victims Unit.

The maid told cops Strauss-Kahn was naked when he attacked her as she went to clean his $3,000-a-night room at the Sofitel hotel on W. 44th St. Saturday afternoon, police said.

She said she tried to run away from the randy Frenchman nicknamed "The Great Seducer," but he chased her down a hallway and yanked her into a bedroom.

He then dragged her into a bathroom and forced her to perform oral sex on him, police said.

"I heard she's shaken up, but doing okay," one of her co-workers said Sunday.

Police sources said investigators have no reason to doubt the victim's story. She has no criminal record and no ties to the silver-haired financial bigshot, who had been running well ahead of French President Nicolas Sarkozy in recent polls.

She's well-mannered. Quiet," her hotel co-worker said. "It's crazy. It's horrible. Stuff like this shouldn't happen."

Strauss, a lawyer and an economist who is married to a New York-born journalist, was collared late Saturday afternoon on an Air France jet that was about to take off from Kennedy Airport.

"He is going to enter a plea of not guilty, and he denies the charges," said his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman.

NYPD officials said Strauss-Kahn does not have diplomatic immunity. IMF officials only enjoy such a privilege for acts performed during their official duty, documents show.

Police sources said they believe Strauss-Kahn will be granted bail, but will have to turn over his passport so he can't flee to France.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/05/15/2011-05-15_imf_head_dominique_strausskahn_identified_in_police_lineup_by_maid_accusing_him_.html

Two law-enforcement sources said Strauss-Kahn was trying to flee authorities. Police said he left his cellphone and other personal items in the room.

"It looked like he got out of there in a hurry," Browne said.

Strauss-Kahn, who had a meeting planned for today with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, has an arrangement with Air France that allows him to get on any flight and sit in first class, the sources said. He was traveling alone.

Browne said Strauss-Kahn does not have diplomatic immunity. He was expected to be brought to court today.

The victim was taken to Roosevelt Hospital, where she was treated for trauma.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/imf_boss_strauss_kahn_arrested_in_Kbd7uAi594vbej3oORXfcJ

Dominique Strauss-Kahn faces further claim of sexual assault

Socialist party official says her daughter was left traumatised after alleged attack by Strauss-Kahn in 2002
Kim Willsher in Paris-- The Guardian, Monday 16 May 2011

By this time next year, Dominique Strauss-Kahn might well have been president of France. The 62-year-old was by far the most popular choice to be the Socialist presidential candidate, and he was the only contender seen as capable of unseating Nicolas Sarkozy.

But now his plan to run for the Elysée Palace appears to be in ruins, even without resolution of the New York case, after further allegations against him were broadcast on French television on Sunday night.

A local official of the Socialist party claimed that Strauss-Kahn had attacked her daughter, who is goddaughter to Strauss-Kahn's second wife, in 2002.

Tristane Banon was in her 20s and writing a book when she approached Strauss-Kahn for an interview in 2002. In a TV programme in 2007, in which Strauss-Kahn's name had been bleeped out, Banon allegedly described him as a "rutting chimpanzee" and described how she was forced to fight him off. "It finished badly … very violently … I kicked him," Banon said. "When we were fighting, I mentioned the word 'rape' to make him afraid, but it didn't have any effect. I managed to get out."

Banon consulted a lawyer, but did not press charges. "I didn't want to be known to the end of my days as the girl who had a problem with the politician."

Banon's mother, Anne Mansouret, told journalists on Sunday night she had dissuaded her daughter from legal action because she believed Strauss-Kahn's behaviour had been out of character and because of close links with his family. "Today I am sorry to have discouraged my daughter from complaining. I bear a heavy responsibility," she said.

She said Strauss-Kahn was "an otherwise warm, sympathetic and extremely talented man", but the attack left her daughter depressed and traumatised. "My daughter, despite the passing years, is still shocked by these facts. Her life was completely upset by this affair and she was depressed for a long time." She added that it was clear Strauss-Kahn had "difficulty controlling his urges". She said: "I'm not a doctor or psychiatrist, but there is something violent in this predatory move."

Of the half-a-dozen candidates expected to seek the Socialist party nomination in the autumn, Strauss-Kahn was the frontrunner. A poll for the Parisien newspaper, before the furore erupted, gave him 41% among members of his party, way ahead of his nearest rival. With Sarkozy's popularity at a record low, "DSK" was on track to get to the Elysée Palace in the two-round election next year.

However, supporters warned him the fight would be dirty. Last week he claimed to be victim of a "smear campaign" orchestrated by the French president after details emerged of his luxury lifestyle, with photos of him climbing into a friend's £87,000 Porsche outside his £3.5m Paris home. Another paper claimed he had a penchant for suits costing anything up to £22,000, an allegation he denied and over which he threatened legal action. His supporters dismissed the stories as mud-slinging.

But in 2008, after a well-documented affair with Piroska Nagy a Hungarian economist and a junior colleague at the IMF, he was forced to publicly apologise for "an error of judgment", but was cleared of abusing his position. He insisted the relationship was consensual, but when his wife, journalist Anne Sinclair, described it as a "one-night stand", an indignant Nagy wrote to investigators saying: "I was not prepared for the advances of the IMF director general. I didn't know what to do … I felt damned if I do, damned if I don't." Nagy left her job at the IMF after the affair, and hinted at harassment of female staff, adding that her boss had "without question" used his position to seduce her.

Sinclair, Strauss-Kahn's third wife, told journalists she had forgiven her husband: "We love each other as much as before."

Strauss-Kahn's alleged womanising appears to have been an open secret in French political circles for years. Thierry Saussez, a former adviser to Sarkozy, who took part in the TV show with Banon, said: "All this stupefaction from people is sheer hypocrisy. Everyone in Paris has known for years he had something of a problem. Not many female journalists are prepared to interview him alone these days."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/16/dominique-strauss-kahn-tristane-banon

I was in shock that his age is listed at 62 as he look decades older.

Why not wait till all the facts emerge in a proper court of law?

If this is not put to bed with in the next 72 hours the world will be deprived of one of our best economists as we try to fix the deeply ill global economy. There is no time to allow the criminal justice system to work, we need journalist to look into the evidence and give us a read with-in hours.

Why shouldn't he be treated like any other person facing similar charges?

MF chief and potential French presidential candidate Dominique Strauss-Kahn was just arrested for allegedly assaulting a hotel maid.
This is far from the first sexual allegation concerning "DSK", as he is known. Relatively well known is the story of his affair with an IMF subordinate in 2008.
But perhaps the most serious one, especially in light of what just happened, is the allegation that he tried to rape, or at least sexually assault, a French journalist, Tristane Banon, in 2002, and then covered it up.
The story comes via the French online citizen media Agora Vox.
Banon spoke in a TV show of the encounter with a high-ranked official, whose name was beeped out (!) in the program. Reached by Agora Vox, she confirmed that the official was indeed Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Here's her story as told on TV, via Agora Vox's transcript, translated and lightly edited by us (emphasis ours):
He asked for us to meet, and gave me an address I didn't know. That was surprising because I know a little bit about his life, more or less, where he lives, where his offices are. ... But this was nothing of the sort.
I came up in front of the building, parked my car, went up, and it was an empty apartment, completely empty, with a VCR, a TV and a bed. A very beautiful apartment, for a Gentleman of good taste. ... He wanted me to hold his hand while he answered, he said "I can't do it if you don't hold my hand." After the hand, it was the arm, and after the arm it was a bit further, so I stopped him. ...
It ended very badly, because we ended up fighting ... I told him clearly. ... We fought on the ground, it was more than a couple of slaps, I kicked him, he opened my bra, tried to open my jeans. ... It finished very badly. ...
I got out of there and he immediately sent me a text message saying "So, are you scared of me?" ... I had said the word "rape" when we were struggling to scare him, and it didn't seem to scare him, as if he was used to it. After [the incident] he wouldn't stop sending me text messages saying "Are you scared of me?"
These are very serious allegations, and it's striking that they were little picked up by the French media. (Your writer, who tends to follow news pretty closely, had missed the report until it was tweeted in the wake of DSK's New York arrest.)
Banon further alleges that the story was covered up in the media. She decided not to press charges. Her publisher took out the chapter on Strauss-Kahn from the book for which she had tried to interview him. A segment on another talk show where she mentioned the incident was cut out during editing.
She alleges that another talk show host was pressured to cancel an invitation for her to appear, because the show is live.
Agora Vox quotes Banon, explaining why she decided to not press charges and move on (emphasis ours):
Who is to say half the people I'll meet won't believe me? So I told myself I had to live with it. And what would I gain? Money? I don't want his money. … And there is the fact that I live alone in Paris. … He doesn't have the most refined methods. … I don't think he would have had me killed, but possibly roughed up.
Welcome to France, where power, sex, dirty tricks and cozy unaccountability are one nexus.
This is perhaps the most serious allegation, after last night's, against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, but DSK's voracious sexual appetite has been an open secret in French political and media circles for many years.
French actress Danièle Evenou said on another TV show: "Who hasn't been cornered by Dominique Strauss-Kahn?"
Thierry Ardisson, the host of the show where Banon first made her allegations, later commented: "Everyone knew. I have fourteen female friends who told me 'He tried it with me.' … I think this guy is sick. … He needs to go to rehab."
French pundit Sylvie Pierre-Brossolette wrote: "His indiscretions are legendary, but are not reported in the press, because of the French tradition. His taste for the fairer sex has made him take many risks. He was almost sued for harrassment several times."
When DSK was nominated for the IMF, French journalist Jean Quatremer wrote a widely-quoted blog post noting DSK's qualifications for the job (economics professor, highly regarded finance minister of France) but warning that his taste for women might be his undoing: "He is too pressing, often on the edge of harassment. This quirk is well known in the media, but no one will talk about it (this is France). But the IMF is an international institution with Anglo-Saxon mores. One inappropriate gesture, one all-too specific innuendo, and it's a media firestorm."
Quatremer was fiercely criticized for infringing on Strauss-Kahn's privacy, until the affair with his subordinate in 2008 came out. During that time, it was also alleged that DSK acted improperly by working to get a prestigious IMF internship for a female former campaign aide.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/dominique-strauss-kahn-attempted-rape-allegations-2011-5#ixzz1MTYyliNR

I find it hard to believe that any genuine socialist believes that some people are "more equal than others" under the law.