The New York Times
May 20, 2011
Luxury Building Blocks Strauss-Kahn for House Arrest
By JOHN ELIGON
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, must find another place to stay when he leaves his Rikers Island jail cell because the Upper East Side building where his wife had rented an apartment will not accept him, a court official said on Friday.
Instead, Mr. Strauss-Kahn will be staying at a corporate-housing building used by the security company, Stroz Friedberg, which has been hired to guard him while he remains under 24-hour home confinement, according to the official at State Supreme Court in Manhattan. He had been expected to leave on Friday from Rikers, where he has been held after being arrested last Saturday on sexual assault charges.
But by midday, it was clear that the arrangements for the apartment — arrangements that figured in a judge’s decision to grant bail and approve his release — had fallen apart. Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s wife, Anne Sinclair, had rented two apartments in the building, the Bristol, at 210 East 65th Street, according to real estate executives, where some apartments rent for about $14,000 per month.
In the meantime, officials with the city’s Department of Correction were working to come up with a plan to take Mr. Strauss-Kahn off of Rikers Island to his ultimate destination and avoid the phalanx of media waiting outside in a caravan of vehicles.
The judge set bail at $1 million on Thursday, saying that Mr. Strauss-Kahn could leave Rikers if he stayed under 24-hour home confinement in the apartment with an armed guard posted outside — presumably to see that he stayed inside. The judge, Michael J. Obus, also ordered that Mr. Strauss-Kahn would have to wear a monitoring ankle bracelet.
Some residents of the building said they were unhappy at the prospect of having Mr. Strauss-Kahn as a neighbor.
“I think it’s an inconvenience for all of us,” said one resident, Michele Smith, who spoke outside the Bristol. “I don’t want that kind of publicity in my building.”
Another resident, Barry Schwartz, echoed the idea that the residents did not want the publicity Mr. Strauss-Kahn would bring. “He’s not a convicted felon yet,” Mr. Schwartz said, “but he’s very high profile, and it’s upsetting to tenants to have all of that.” He gestured in the direction of the throng of reporters waiting outside the building.
“They just don’t want all that,” he said of his neighbors. “They just don’t want 40,000 reporters. It could be for a movie star for all they know.”
Judge Obus had said on Thursday that if there was the “slightest problem with your compliance,” he could change the conditions of the bail or even withdraw it. It was not immediately clear what the problem with the apartment would mean for the deal he had approved.
Before the judge gave his decision, prosecutors announced that a grand jury had indicted Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who has been in protective custody on Rikers Island since Monday, on charges that he sexually assaulted a hotel housekeeper at the Sofitel New York.
The charges included several first-degree felony counts, including committing a criminal sex act, attempted rape and sexual abuse; the most serious charges carry 25-year prison terms.
Mr. Strauss-Kahn is due back in court on June 6.
Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers argued that the proposed bail package was comprehensive enough to allow his release from Rikers. One of his lawyers, William W. Taylor III, noted that the defense had hired a security team that would provide video monitoring, an ankle bracelet to monitor his movements and an armed guard at the entrance and exit of the building.
As part of the arrangement for release, the defense hired Stroz Friedberg, a respected investigative consulting firm that focuses primarily on computer forensics and cybercrime investigations, to handle the security measures for Mr. Strauss-Kahn. The firm provided similar monitoring for Bernard L. Madoff.
Justice Obus said he would leave it up to Stroz Friedberg to determine how many people had to stand guard at Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s apartment, how many visitors he could have and the limited circumstances under which he could leave the apartment.
The decision on Thursday was a victory for the defense, which made the unusual and risky move of filing a new application on Wednesday, before Mr. Strauss-Kahn knew whether he would be indicted. Typically, if a defendant is held without bail after appearing in Criminal Court, that person’s lawyer waits until after an indictment, when all the charges are clear, to ask for new bail.
But it spoke to the urgency with which Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers wanted him released after images circulated of him in handcuffs, looking unshaven, glum and tormented. The French have expressed dismay over those images.
Getting Mr. Strauss-Kahn released will help the defense portray an image of him on their own terms — as a clean-cut businessman. That image is at odds with the portrait that prosecutors have tried to depict...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/21/nyregion/strauss-kahn-still-seeking-a-home-after-he-leaves-jail.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
