IMF boss is caught with his pants down (?)

[TotallyOz]

Fountainhall, while I would like to believe the New York Post, I believe about as much from that piss rag as I would the National Enquirer.

 

Maybe it is true. Did they say that she was an alien sent to find Glen Beck? (outer space and not immigrant)

[Guest fountainhall]

Did they say that she was an alien sent to find Glen Beck?

Now I have it on the best authority, someone who knows someone who told my friend who would never dream of lying about anything, that this is in tomorrow's edition - almost certainly!

[Guest fountainhall]

Another interesting article in the New York Times today which outlines three possible theories. It also provides the layout of the 1,100 sq. ft. Presidential Suite #2806 plus more facts about the times the maid was on that floor.

 

Hotel records show that she used her electronic keycard to enter Room #2820 several times that morning. #2820 seems to be a good 10 - 15 second walk away from the Presidential Suite #2806 where DSK was staying. Between 10:30 and 11:30 am, she entered this room #2820 three times. After DSK had returned to #2806, she entered his suite at 12:06 pm. At 12:26 she used her keycard to enter once again Room #2820. Yet in less than 60 seconds, she had returned and entered suite #2806 once again. DSK had left the suite by that time as it seems he checked out at 12:28pm.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/nyregion/what-happened-in-room-2806-three-possibilities.html?_r=1&hp

 

So whatever happened between them clearly took place between 12:06 and 12:25ish. Yet, in the state of distress which she exhibited to all who saw her thereafter, I can't help wondering what she was doing entering #2820 - a room that is some walk away - and staying there for what can only have been a few seconds? And why then, distressed as she was, did she once more return only a few seconds later to #2806, the scene of the alleged crime?

 

We don't know - and may never know. Perhaps it was simply to collect an article of clothing that had been left behind as she hurried out of #2806. But others might think that returning to the scene of an alleged crime, which opens up the possibility of tampering with evidence before reporting it, must surely cast further doubt on the her motives.

[TotallyOz]

The time frame really worries me. I don't know what to make of it. But, if I was on a jury, it would give me doubts about her story.

[Guest fountainhall]

And so the DSK case hits the newstands once again, with the hotel maid telling the world via Newsweek and a TV interview all about what happened. At least, her version of what she says happened. I must say she's a big woman. I'm not sure how fit DSK is, but I'd have thought she'd be able to hold her own in a fair fight - which, of course, what happened in that hotel suite probably was not.

 

The obvious question though is: why tell all now? No doubt part of the reason is to push the DA into going ahead with a case which seemed dead in the water just a few weeks ago. Equally, the seeds are being sown for the civil case in which she and her aggressive lawyer will sue for zillions. I guess I should withhold judgement till I have seen the full interview. In the meantime, having viewed clips and watched her eyes and facial gestures, I still have major doubts that the whole truth is being told.

[KhorTose]

. I guess I should withhold judgement till I have seen the full interview. In the meantime, having viewed clips and watched her eyes and facial gestures, I still have major doubts that the whole truth is being told.

 

I saw the ABC TV interview. It was very astute of you to notice that she is no small lady. I too thought that, and DSK is no he man by far. What really stuck me about the interview was how well rehearsed she was. So well rehearsed that I quickly decided that I would not buy her story if I was on a jury. The emotions were portrayed but I never quite felt she was for real.

[Guest fountainhall]

I still haven’t seen the video, but I read the Newsweek article this morning. That initial encounter somehow totally fails to ring true.

 

“She was standing facing the bedroom in the small entrance hall when the naked man with white hair appeared. “Oh, my God,” said Diallo. “I’m so sorry.” And she turned to leave. “You don’t have to be sorry,” he said. But he was like “a crazy man to me.” He clutched at her breasts. He slammed the door of the suite.”

When you look at the layout of the suite (see below), there is a long walk from the bathroom through a dressing room area, into the bedroom and then into the lobby. So DSK had been showering, but why was he naked making that long walk from the bathroom into the living room? I find that odd. Sure, I frequently walk without a towel once I have dried off. But if I am in a bit of a hurry - as he at least might have been, since he had to check out and then have a lunch with his daughter – I will immediately get on some underwear and start to dress. If he had done that, there is no way he could have been naked. If, on the other hand, he had actually thought there was someone in his suite, I can see no way he would not have grabbed a towel or a bathrobe - unless, perhaps - and I accept this is a fanciful theory - he was expecting a prearranged tryst. Otherwise he would not have appeared naked, in my view. Small point, but it makes me curious.

 

Another ‘this does not fit’ question. Back to Newsweek –

 

“I got up,” Diallo told NEWSWEEK. “I was spitting. I run. I run out of there. I don’t turn back. I run to the hallway. I was so nervous; I was so scared. I didn’t want to lose my job.”

 

Diallo says she hid around the corner in the hallway near the service lobby and tried to compose herself. “I was standing there spitting. I was so alone. I was so scared.” Then she saw the man come out of 2806 and head for the elevator. “I don’t know how he got dressed so fast, and with baggage,” she said. “He looked at me like this.” She inclined her head and stared straight ahead. “He said nothing.”

You’ve just been raped. Your "attacker" is in a suite only seconds away. Why do you stay there on that same floor until he leaves? Not only that, why do you not seek refuge inside the service lobby? Why do you stay in the open hallway where it is obvious your "attacker" will see you as he leaves? Did you in fact want to make sure he left? If so, what did you plan to do after he had left? For he must have taken - how long? - close to ten minutes to dress himself, finish his packing and get out of that suite. That is a long, long time to cower in a hotel hallway.

 

OK, here’s another.

 

The maid had left her cleaning supplies in room 2820 when she went to check on Strauss-Kahn’s suite. Now she retrieved them and returned to the suite in which, she says, she had just been attacked. Disoriented, she seems to have sought some kind of solace in resuming her routine. “I went to the room I have to clean,” she explained. But she couldn’t think how or where to start. “I was so, so, so—I don’t know what to do.”

It's unbelievable that she actually left her cleaning supplies “in” Room 2820! We know she used her keycard to go into Room 2820 and was there for not more than about 30 seconds. But have you ever heard of a maid in a deluxe hotel leaving her cleaning supplies “in” a room? What would happen if the guest returned to find them there? In all my many years staying in hotels, some fairly pricey ones, cleaning trolleys and equipment are always left outside a room door – never ever inside.

 

Unless, of course, she was aware that the guests in that room had checked out, that she had already cleaned the room but not reported it to reception - so guests would not be allocated that room. That is only likely if she was expecting a tryst in the suite. If her supervisor happened to come on to the floor, it would look suspicious if her trolley was outside a closed room and she was nowhere to be found. On the other hand, she had to do something with that trolley! Indeed, why was it not outside the suite, I wonder?

 

That part of the story I just do not believe.

 

Of course we know DSK’s history of womanising. A French journalist is at this moment taking him to court about an alleged rape some 9 years ago. But have you seen photos of that young lady? She is slim and beautiful. With all respect to the accuser in the Sofitel case, the maid is neither. Back to Newsweek’s description –

 

“Nafi” Diallo is not glamorous. Her light-brown skin is pitted with what look like faint acne scars, and her dark hair is hennaed, straightened, and worn flat to her head, but she has a womanly, statuesque figure.

The magazine also reports on other alleged trysts or attempted trysts whilst he was a the Sofitel -

 

Prosecutors have identified a hotel concierge who says DSK made an unwanted advance to her the previous night. They have also identified a blonde American businesswoman observed going into the same elevator as Strauss-Kahn at 1:26 a.m. in what appears to have been a consensual relationship

With respect to the writer, an unwanted sexual advance is harassment, not rape. And the blonde American businesswoman was presumably entering into a consensual act, not a rape. Indeed, from what little we know, blonde and caucasian seems much more to be DSK’s type. Why therefore, having had sex at around 2:00 am that morning and being in a rush to check out and meet his daughter, would he be bothered raping a relatively unattractive hotel maid ten hours later? Sexist though that statement may seem, DSK does, as far as we presently know, seem to fit the traditional French lothario mould – seeking out pretty, beautiful women whom he could chat up and seduce, where his Gallic charm would conquer all. There are few actual examples, other than the French journalist – who, we must consider, might be raising the issue 9 years after the event only because she has books to sell and whose mother “is often identified with Strauss-Kahn’s rivals in the French Socialist Party.”

 

To be fair, the article does suggest “One French magazine calls him ‘Dr. Strauss and Mr. Kahn.’” Yet, the very next sentence adds “He also has long enjoyed a reputation as being hugely charming and seductive.” And I suppose it is also possible that one who is the latter can indeed be a violent abuser. Perhaps time will tell. Yet, the more I hear and read, the greater my doubts about this maid’s allegations.

 

Newsweek article in full

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/07/24/dsk-maid-tells-of-her-alleged-rape-by-strauss-kahn-exclusive.html

 

Floor layout from The New York Times

[Guest fountainhall]

And so, after three months, Part 1 of the DSK saga is about to come to its expected end. Yesterday, the Manhattan DA

[Guest fountainhall]

As predicted, the case against DSK has been dismissed, with the New York Appeals Court refusing a defence plea for a special prosecutor to be appointed. In papers presented to the Court, the DA's office made more damning statements -

 

"In virtually every substantive interview with prosecutors, despite entreaties to simply be truthful, she has not been truthful on matters great and small," the document said. The document said the cumulative effect of Diallo's misleading statements would be "devastating" at a jury trial on the case

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/23/dominique-strauss-kahn-charges-dropped

 

Presumably, such evidence is likely to be equally damning if the defence attorney instigates a civil action.

[Bob]

Although the Defendant might not buy this, I look at the outcome here as a fair result and I congratulate the prosecutor for doing what he's required to do (make non-emotional judgments about whether he can prove his case and turning over to the defense all possibly exculpatory material). I also don't blame the cops as, other than the "perp walk", they did what they were supposed to do. As ugly as the case was, the system worked.

 

In spite of all that, I happen to believe DSK is a slime ball and it sounds like he just may have a similar bit of trouble when he gets back home.

[Guest fountainhall]

As ugly as the case was, the system worked.

That’s the conclusion some others have come to. Frankly, I don’t think I had ever heard of DSK before this affair, but who he was and the position he held should not affect one’s judgment in a case like this.

 

It certainly seems very clear there was a sexual encounter of some description. But in such cases, it’s almost always a “he said/she said” affair. In this particular case, I do not agree that the police handled it well. To my mind there was undoubtedly a rush to justice, what with the alleged race to leave the hotel, pulling the guy off the plane, the perp walk, the leaking of so-called irrefutable evidence – and so on.

 

My view is that the Polanski case hugely influenced the authorities – the fear that DSK, if he reached France, would never return to the US. When you take into account the man’s high-profile position and the very possibility that he might one day be President of France, that to me is a farcical notion. And just as the police seemed perfectly happy to portray DSK as a “criminal” instead of an “alleged criminal”, I also consider the DA’s office were far too willing to forget that Ms. Diallo was merely an “alleged victim”, whereas from day 1 she was portrayed as a “victim”. Remember the “compelling” statement and “very powerful details”? Much of it clearly lies.

 

I am the last person to judge European straight men with an eye for a pretty skirt and perhaps an over-healthy sex drive. (As a gay man, I look at some European visitors to Thailand’s shores and am amazed at how much sex they can pack into a couple of weeks!). I have no idea if American straight men behave differently (not gay tourists, it would seem), but there is no question in my mind that Americans in general take a less tolerant view to open flirtation that may develop into a casual sexual encounter than some Europeans (especially those from the ‘Latin’ nations). The element of prudery on the surface in the USA is often absent in these European countries.

 

When that crosses the boundary and becomes rape, though, it is a very serious offence. But I get a strong feeling that the rush to justice was motivated by more than merely a possibility of rape. It was as much a moral issue, one that would appeal to the groundswell of US public opinion – and it was this which led to the over-jealous actions of the DA and the police.

 

Equally, some of the statements made after DSK's release, clearly reveal that surface morality I mentioned earlier.

 

Michael Greys, co-founder of the group 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement, was furious at the dismissal. "American justice is not blind," he said. "Race and class still play a part. This was a case of a millionaire against a poor black woman with no education." Rudy Dent, another Diallo supporter said the decision was down to "plantation politics."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/23/dominique-strauss-kahn-charges-dropped

 

"A poor black woman?" A woman with several bank accounts with a lot of money in them, a woman who lied consistently to get into the country illegally and then again consistently to the police, a woman considerably bigger than her alleged attacker with the strength to push away him away and flee? No way. "Plantation politics?" Well, I guess you can fool some of the people some of the time!

[Guest fountainhall]

Just read this in the New York Times. It gives another fascinating glimpse into the extent of hte maid's lying and her ability to convince people that lies were fact - and consequently why the maid's case crumbled.

 

Take, for instance, the story of the gang rape that the hotel housekeeper, Nafissatou Diallo, told and retold, and that seemed to have been associated with her application for asylum.

 

Many people might have been inclined to write off the gang-rape tale as the sort of tactical fiction that people deploy to gain entry to the United States. Such a lie would make sense in Darwinian terms, conferring an advantage on her and her child, but seem to have little bearing on her credibility about Mr. Strauss-Kahn.

 

It may come as a surprise to learn that Ms. Diallo did not, in fact, tell the gang-rape lie on her asylum application.

 

What happened was this: Two days after the encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn, Ms. Diallo was asked by prosecutors if she had been the victim of other assaults. Indeed she had been, she told them: she had been gang-raped by soldiers who invaded her home in Guinea.

 

Next, at a meeting two weeks later, “she offered precise and powerful details about the number and nature of her attackers and the presence of her 2-year-old daughter at the assault scene, who, she said, was pulled from her arms and thrown to the ground,” said the motion, which referred to Ms. Diallo as the complainant.

 

“During both interviews, she identified certain visible scars on her person, which she claimed were sustained during the attack. On both occasions, the complainant recounted the rape with great emotion and conviction: she cried, spoke hesitatingly and appeared understandably distraught, and during the first interview, even laid her head face down on her arms on a table in front of her.”

 

The prosecution team pressed harder. She hired a new civil lawyer, Kenneth P. Thompson, who, prosecutors said, urged her to come clean.

 

“In subsequent interviews conducted on June 8, 2011, and June 9, 2011, the complainant admitted to prosecutors that she had entirely fabricated this attack,” the prosecutors stated.

 

Why had she told a false tale to the very prosecutors who begged her to be honest with them?

 

Initially, Ms. Diallo said she had included the gang rape in her asylum application, and wanted to stick with her story.

 

“She also stated that at the time she told prosecutors this account, she was not under oath,” the prosecutors said.

 

Oh.

 

The investigation continued.

 

“When confronted with the fact that her written asylum application statement made no mention of the gang rape, she stated that she had fabricated the gang rape, as well as other details of her life in Guinea, in collaboration with an unnamed male with whom she consulted as she was preparing to seek asylum,” the court papers state. “She told prosecutors this man had given her a cassette tape that included an account of a fictional rape, which she had memorized. Ultimately, she told prosecutors she decided not to reference the rape in her written application.”

 

So the gang rape was not a piece of her history, not even a fictitious piece adopted for the sake of the asylum application. Whatever logic, if any, drove her to recount it to the district attorney’s staff, they could see it only as a stunning demonstration of her ability to weep over a sexual assault that had never taken place, and then to quickly pile another falsehood on top of it.

 

“Most significant is her ability to recount that fiction as fact with complete conviction,” the prosecutors wrote.

 

Having been tricked by Ms. Diallo, none of the seasoned lawyers or investigators could ask a jury to convict Mr. Strauss-Kahn based on those very tools of dramatic persuasion. Her gang-rape performance, they wrote, was “fatal.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/24/nyregion/housekeepers-false-tale-undid-strauss-kahn-case.html?_r=1

 

Again I have to question: "A poor black woman?" "Plantation politics?" No Way! A calculating, determined woman out to gain something for herself. Sadly, we do not yet know if that was money - or what!

[Bob]

In this particular case, I do not agree that the police handled it well. To my mind there was undoubtedly a rush to justice, what with the alleged race to leave the hotel, pulling the guy off the plane, the perp walk, the leaking of so-called irrefutable evidence

[Guest fountainhall]

In the oft-used phrase in Britain’s long-running satirical magazine Private Eye: “So farewell, DSK.”

 

But the man himself is not immediately returning to France, with the media assuming he will go to Washington where he has a town house to settle up some matters before boarding another Air France flight to Paris. There, of course, he will meet head-on another rape case allegation brought by a much younger (dare I add, much prettier) lady. This case, however, dates from 2003, the accuser is a journalist and writer with, many have added, books to sell. I have no sympathy for anyone who sexually molests anyone of either gender. But bringing charges a full nine years after the event and only after a similar case in another country does seem to me to smack of opportunism. But that’s for another day.

 

In the meantime, the French media has been weighing in with its usual mixture of pro and con. Inevitably the ‘pros make more interesting reading.

 

"Sex, lies and a case dismissal," wrote the tabloid France Soir.

 

Many French papers have contrived to portray Strauss-Kahn as the victim of a mendacious, money-grabbing woman and a foreign legal system. A front-page cartoon in the respected Le Monde after Diallo's lawyers launched a civil suit against Strauss-Kahn showed her vacuuming bank notes from DSK's pockets.

 

In an extraordinary interview with Nice Matin newspaper (France's national philosopher, Bernard-Henri Lévy,) described the chambermaid's defence as "a masquerade" and said her lawyer had "reached the summits of obscenity".

 

Equally dismissive of the American justice system is the editorial in Le Monde by essayist Pascal Bruckner. "The DSK affair reveals a sad image of America", highlighted the cultural chasm between French views of sex and relationships and those of "Les Anglo-Saxons". Bruckner described a sheriff on a Florida beach ordering him to cover his naked two-year-old daughter, as an example of the US's "problem with sex", which he described as "twisted puritanism" resulting from the alliance of "feminism and the Republican right".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/24/dominique-strauss-kahn-france-divided

 

I tend to agree with the “twisted puritanism” bit; less so with the reason for it. The very bedrock of the United States was surely always a burning desire for religious freedom and, in Middle America at least, those biblical flames still light up the night skies, although mercifully no longer at KKK rallies. From Charlemagne, the French papacy, the protestant Huguenots, periods of wars totaling well over 250 years, the storming of the Bastille and the Revolution, monarchical heads rolling, Napoleon, et al, France has been both more inward and far more outward looking. France, warts and all, is to my view a more tolerant, cultured and refined country. Again, that is no excuse for criminal rape to be unpunished. But it helps to explains why many Europeans believe, contrary to Bob’s view, that Mr. Vance and the New York police did indeed rush to justice, and that there is something abhorrent in a justice system which subjects one party to public indignity and utter humiliation whilst the other is protected by total anonymity. As was said earlier, in the UK, at least, the law protects the privacy of both parties in such cases.

 

And as we have seen, in this case it was the supposed ‘victim’ who manipulated the system and the ‘accused’ is free. But, no! The case has not been disproved; merely dismissed. So, like him or loathe him, DSK is not in fact a ‘free’ man, for the stains on his character made blatantly public by the US justice system can never be erased. And that, to me, is a huge stain on American justice.

[Bob]

Yes, poor, poor, DSK. The bottom line to me is that he had extraordinary luck in picking this particular victim. We'll see how lucky he is with the other case in France.

[Guest fountainhall]

The bottom line to me is that he had extraordinary luck in picking this particular victim.

The fact is neither you, nor I, nor virtually everyone on the planet knew of DSK's reputation as a womaniser. Rape cases are generally "he said/she said" affairs. Had DSK been protected with the anonymity he'd have been granted in other countries, in theory none of us would be any the wiser about his alleged philandering (even, in the UK at least, with such a high profile personality involved). So suggesting he had "luck" with this "victim" can be stated only because the American justice system lets the world know the name of the accused at the moment of arrest - however flimsy or untrue the evidence against him. That, to me, is an odd form of justice.

[Bob]

So suggesting he had "luck" with this "victim"

 

The "luck" he had was the previously unknown history of this particular woman. But for that prior history, he'd still be in jail awaiting trial.

[Guest fountainhall]

And the "bad luck" is that he was portrayed as a criminal around the world and thus presumed guilty whereas no properly examined evidence could support that at the time of arrest (certainly not the DNA testing which takes quite some time to process - more than a few short hours). How is it possible to suggest that anyone is innocent until proven guilty if their names, their persons, their faces, virtually their entire life's history and their alleged crimes are splashed over the world's press at the time a charge is made? It isn't! Not only does it presume guilt, it leads those groups who were protesting outside the court the other day to believe in that guilt and consequently to conclude that justice has not been served. 'Fair' treatment is to protect the identities of alleged attacker and alleged attacked person until the court's judgement has been pronounced.

[Guest fountainhall]

Well, it is beginning to seem as though the DSK New York affair is still not over, with a conspiracy theory re-emerging as a possibility. Repeating allegations made earlier, an exhaustively researched article in the New York Review of Books has cast fresh doubt on exactly what happened in the Sofitel hotel room on 14 May between Strauss-Kahn and his accuser, Guinean-born maid Nafissatou Diallo.

 

In passages sure to delight Strauss-Kahn supporters and conspiracy theorists, (veteran American investigative journalist Edward Jay) Epstein's lengthy article studied hotel door key and phone records and traced links to Strauss-Kahn's potential political rivals, appearing to suggest the possibility that he had been set up . . .

 

Epstein's article does appear to raise some odd questions about the case. It points out numerous holes and discrepancies in the accounts of those who portrayed Strauss-Kahn as an attacker, identifies a missing BlackBerry which may contain warnings to the Frenchman that he was being set up, and examines possible links between Sofitel staff and Strauss-Kahn's political opponents.

 

The most unusual evidence described by Epstein is a security video of the hotel's engineer, Brian Yearwood, and an unidentified man apparently celebrating the day's events. Earlier, Yearwood had been communicating with John Sheehan, a security expert at Accor, which owns Sofitel, and whose boss, René-Georges Querry, once worked with a man now in intelligence for Sarkozy.

 

The unidentified man with Yearwood had been spotted previously on hotel security cameras accompanying Diallo to the hotel's security office after the alleged attack. The video shows the men near the area where Diallo is recounting her story and, less than two minutes after police have been called, they seem to congratulate each other. "The two men high-five each other, clap their hands, and do what looks like an extraordinary dance of celebration that lasts for three minutes. They are then shown standing by the service door … apparently waiting for the police to arrive," Epstein writes.

 

Epstein meticulously pieces together the movements of hotel staff and Strauss-Kahn by examining the electronic records left by their room keys and phones. These show Diallo entered the room between 12.06 and 12.07pm. At 12.13pm, Strauss-Kahn called his daughter about having lunch. During those six or seven minutes, Diallo said she was brutally sexually attacked and dragged around the room . . .

 

. . . the records show that at 12.26pm Diallo entered a nearby room – number 2820 – which she had visited several times that morning before its guest had checked out . . . Sofitel has refused to name the occupant of room 2820. During her account to investigators, Diallo did not reveal that she had visited 2820, so the room was not searched by police.

 

Another potentially odd fact turned up by the room-key records Epstein examined was that another hotel employee, room service worker Syed Haque, also entered Strauss-Kahn's hotel room just one minute before Diallo, apparently to pick up dishes. The keys only record entries, not exits, so it is not known when Haque left. Haque has refused to be interviewed by Strauss-Kahn's lawyers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/26/dominique-strauss-kahn-hotel-maid

 

Britain's FInancial Times also makes another point. From the time of Diallo re-entering room 2820 -

 

16 minutes passed before the head of housekeeping notified the security staff and hotel management of the alleged assault. Almost 90 more minutes passed before the police were called. For much of this time she was seated on a bench in a service area, often accompanied by the hotel’s chief engineer, Brian Yearwood.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/23d10868-177d-11e1-b00e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1etQTRAD4

 

16 minutes before housekeeping notified security? 90 minutes before police were called? Hmmmnn! Where these ‘facts’ will take the case, who knows? But they are, at least, interesting - except to those who dismiss conspiracy theories!