New York v. Strauss-Kahn
[5][6] At the time of the alleged attack, Strauss-Kahn was the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and a leading candidate in the 2012 French presidential election.
On 14 May 2011, Strauss-Kahn was arrested and charged with the sexual assault and attempted rape of 32-year-old Nafissatou Diallo, a housekeeper at the Sofitel New York Hotel in the Manhattan borough earlier that day.
[18][19] Judge Jackson denied his bail request stating that the fact that Strauss-Kahn was apprehended on a departing airplane "rais[ed] some concerns".
[21] On that date New York Supreme Court Justice Michael J. Obus granted Strauss-Kahn's bail request,[22][23] which was set at $1 million with the additional restrictions of 24-hour home detention and an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet.
[24][25] After Strauss-Kahn turned over his passport and posted an additional $5 million bail bond,[26] he was placed under house arrest in a residence[27] in Lower Manhattan.
That evening The New York Times reported the case as being on the verge of collapse and quoted law-enforcement officials as saying investigators had uncovered major holes in the housekeeper's credibility.
[34][35][36] In addition, the prosecution learned that, the day following the alleged assault, the housekeeper had made a phone call in her native Fula language to her boyfriend in an immigration detention center.
[37][38] The New York Times quoted a law enforcement official as saying that a translation of the call revealed she had used words to the effect of "Don't worry, this guy has a lot of money.
Prosecutors said that the conversation, one of at least three they recorded, raised "very troubling" questions about the credibility of the accuser "because she discussed the possible benefits of pursuing charges against a wealthy man.
[41][42] The morning after the prosecution's disclosures, in a brief court hearing in which prosecutors said they had reassessed the strength of their case, Strauss-Kahn was released from house arrest on his own recognizance without bail.
[48][49] On 15 May 2012, a few days after the French election for president, Strauss-Kahn filed a countersuit against Diallo for making "baseless accusations that had cost him his job as managing director of the International Monetary Fund and 'other professional opportunities'.
[59] Their decision to drop the case was based on a number of facts outlined in a 25-page document: Consequently, prosecutors stated they could no longer believe Diallo beyond a reasonable doubt, and could not expect any jury to do so either.
[70] In an interview with Libération on 28 April 2011, Strauss-Kahn stated he was "worried his political opponent, Nicolas Sarkozy, would try to frame him with a fake rape".
[75][76] On 15 May, Strauss-Kahn's political opponent Henri de Raincourt, a minister for overseas co-operation in the ruling UMP party, stated, "one cannot exclude thinking about a setup.
An analysis of hotel door key and phone records tracing links to Strauss-Kahn's potential political rivals appeared to suggest the possibility that he had been set up.
[80][81] However the hotel where the alleged assault took place firmly rebuffed Epstein's suggestions of a conspiracy theory, denying a number of assertions in the report.
[83][84] Epstein later wrote that Strauss-Kahn now accepts that his enemies might not have set up his encounter with Diallo, but believes they did play a role, through intercepted phone calls, in making sure that the hotel maid went to the police, turning a private tryst into a public scandal.
[88] While he was considered a womanizer and described by Le Journal du Dimanche as un grand séducteur ("a great seducer"),[89] a number of close friends said the allegations were out of character.
"[95] Journalist and essayist Jean-François Kahn apologized for initially characterizing the allegations as a troussage de domestique (literally, stripping or having casual, forced sex with a servant) and said he would retire from journalism.
[96][97] Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National, said "I am utterly unsurprised...everyone in the Paris political village knew of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's pathologic relations with women",[98] and criticised both the ruling UMP and Socialist parties for ignoring his flaws.
When Strauss-Kahn appeared in court on June 6, a group of room attendants, members of the New York Hotel Trades Council (NYHTC), arrived on a bus arranged by the union and demonstrated in front of the courtroom.
[108][109] CBS News noted that a media circus had begun because the case involved three elements of viewer interest: sex, politics, and money.
[114] On 14 June, The New York Times followed the lead begun by other anglophone media in running an "unusually extensive" story on the housekeeper's background, while continuing to withhold her name.
[116] Former French justice minister Élisabeth Guigou, architect of a 2000 law on the presumption of innocence, said she found the televised images of Strauss-Kahn prior to the preliminary bail proceedings absolutely disgusting and described the coverage as a pre-trial indictment.
[121][122] In France, Michèle Sabban asked that the ongoing French Socialist Party presidential primary be suspended to discuss the possibility of Strauss-Kahn's participation.
Because of the original charges and the maid's allegations, a campus women's group opposed his visit, with 750 students signing a petition to withdraw his invitation.
[132][133] Preliminary polling suggested he was favored to defeat the incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy,[134] but his arrest left the party unsure how to proceed.
The case also inspired the 2014 French film Welcome to New York, co-written and directed by Abel Ferrara and starring Gérard Depardieu and Jacqueline Bisset.
