Strauss-Kahn free from house arrest; charges stand

For­mer Inter­na­tional Mon­e­tary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn lis­tens to pro­ceed­ings in New York State Supreme court Fri­day, in New York.

JENNIFER PELTZ

Asso­ci­ated Press

NEW YORK — For­mer IMF leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn walked out of court with­out bail and free from house arrest Fri­day after pros­e­cu­tors acknowl­edged there were ques­tions about the cred­i­bil­ity of the hotel house­keeper who accused him of sex­ual assault.

Strauss-Kahn had been con­fined for weeks to a ritzy Man­hat­tan loft on $6 mil­lion in cash and bond. The charges, which include attempted rape, have not been reduced, but the changes sig­nal that pros­e­cu­tors do not believe the accu­sa­tions are as iron­clad as they once seemed.

The 32-year-old hotel maid accused Strauss-Kahn of chas­ing her through his lux­ury suite in May, try­ing to pull down her panty­hose and forc­ing her to per­form oral sex. Author­i­ties have said they have foren­sic evi­dence of a sex­ual encounter, but defense lawyers have said it wasn’t forced.

“It is a great relief,” said Strauss-Kahn’s attor­ney, William Tay­lor. “It is so impor­tant in this coun­try that peo­ple, espe­cially the media, refrain from judg­ment until the facts are all in.”

After his arrest, Strauss-Kahn resigned from his post lead­ing the Inter­na­tional Mon­e­tary Fund and watched his pres­i­den­tial ambi­tions seem­ingly crumble.

The stark turn in the case came after the woman admit­ted to pros­e­cu­tors she had made up a story of being gang raped and beaten in her home­land to enhance her appli­ca­tion for polit­i­cal asy­lum, pros­e­cu­tors said in a let­ter to defense lawyers.

She also mis­rep­re­sented what she did after the alleged attack — instead of flee­ing to a hall­way and wait­ing for a super­vi­sor, she went to clean another room and then returned to clean Strauss-Kahn’s suite before telling her super­vi­sor that she had been attacked, pros­e­cu­tors said.

She also mis­rep­re­sented her income and claimed some­one else’s child as her own depen­dent on tax returns, they said.

The details speak to the maid’s cred­i­bil­ity and whether her story would stand up under oath in a pros­e­cu­tion that would rely heav­ily on her testimony.

The woman’s attor­ney, Ken Thomp­son, fired back out­side court, say­ing the dis­trict attorney’s office was back­ing away from the case because it was too scared to pros­e­cute it. He said she would come out in pub­lic to tell her story but didn’t spec­ify when.

Thomp­son said the woman went to the dis­trict attor­ney with infor­ma­tion that her asy­lum appli­ca­tion was flawed, but that she exag­ger­ated on it because she was scared she would be sent back to Guinea. He said she came to the U.S. because she was a vic­tim of female gen­i­tal muti­la­tion, and she wor­ried her daugh­ter, now 15, would be vic­tim­ized as well. He also said she had been raped by sol­diers there, but that attack did not occur as it was writ­ten in her asy­lum application.

Thomp­son did not back down on the seri­ous­ness of the charges, deliv­er­ing inti­mate and spe­cific details from her per­spec­tive on a vio­lent attack, say­ing Strauss-Kahn bruised her vagina, tore a lig­a­ment in her shoul­der and ripped her stockings.

“When she was fight­ing to get away, when she was on her knees and he was sex­u­ally assault­ing her, after he fin­ished, she got up and started to run to the door and started spit­ting Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s semen out of her mouth in dis­gust all over that hotel room,” he said.

Inves­ti­ga­tors have said they found traces of his semen on her uniform.

“From day one she has described a vio­lent sex­ual assault that Dominique Strauss-Kahn com­mit­ted against her,” Thomp­son said. “She has described that sex­ual assault many times, to pros­e­cu­tors and to me, and she has never once changed a sin­gle thing about that encounter.”

Thomp­son also referred to media reports that his client was involved with a drug dealer, call­ing them lies.

The New York Times, quot­ing law enforce­ment offi­cials it didn’t name, reported that the woman was recorded on the phone with an incar­cer­ated man around the day she made the alle­ga­tions, dis­cussing whether to press her case in court.

The news­pa­per said the man had been arrested on mar­i­juana pos­ses­sion charges and had deposited cash in the woman’s bank account.

“It is clear that this woman made some mis­takes, but that doesn’t mean she’s not a rape vic­tim,” Thomp­son said.

Strauss-Kahn arrived at the cour­t­house Fri­day morn­ing in a Lexus SUV and strode con­fi­dently up the gran­ite steps with his wife, French jour­nal­ist Anne Sin­clair, at his side.

After the hear­ing, he slowly walked out the build­ing with his arm on her shoul­der, smil­ing at the throng gath­ered outside.

His pass­port remained sur­ren­dered, and he will not yet be allowed to leave the coun­try. His other attor­ney, Ben­jamin Braf­man, said Strauss-Kahn would be free to travel within the United States.

Pros­e­cu­tors offered few details inside court on the turn in the case. Assis­tant dis­trict attor­ney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon said a fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion caused them to reassess it.

“At the time this case came to the dis­trict attorney’s office, we were faced with a cred­i­ble claim of a seri­ous sex­ual assault,” she said, not­ing the accuser had promptly reported the alleged attack and had a “solid work history.”

State Supreme Court Jus­tice Michael Obus, in releas­ing Strauss-Kahn, said there would be no rush to judg­ment either way.

Illuzzi-Orbon said, “Although it is clear that the strength of the case has been affected by the sub­stan­tial cred­i­bil­ity issues regard­ing the com­plainant, we are not mov­ing to dis­miss the case at this time.”

If the case col­lapses, it could once again shake up the race for the French pres­i­dency. Strauss-Kahn, a promi­nent Social­ist, had been seen as a lead­ing poten­tial chal­lenger to con­ser­v­a­tive Pres­i­dent Nico­las Sarkozy in next year’s elec­tions — until the New York alle­ga­tions embar­rassed his party and led to his res­ig­na­tion from the IMF.

“Those who know Dominique Strauss-Kahn will not be sur­prised by this evo­lu­tion of events,” one of his French lawyers, Leon Lef Forster, told the AP in Paris. “What he was accused of has no rela­tion to his per­son­al­ity. It was some­thing that was not credible.”

New doubts about Strauss-Kahn’s accuser would also revive spec­u­la­tion of a con­spir­acy against Strauss-Kahn aimed at tor­pe­do­ing his pres­i­den­tial chances. Within days of his arrest, a poll sug­gested that a major­ity of French think Strauss-Kahn, who long had a rep­u­ta­tion as a wom­an­izer and was nick­named “the great seducer,” was the vic­tim of a plot.

Social­ist Party chief Mar­tine Aubry announced her own pres­i­den­tial bid this week, after hav­ing long been expected to throw her weight behind a Strauss-Kahn can­di­dacy. French politi­cian Michele Sab­ban said Fri­day that the Social­ists should sus­pend the pres­i­den­tial pri­mary cal­en­dar because of the new developments.

In argu­ing against his release in May, pros­e­cu­tors cited the vio­lent nature of the alleged offenses and said his wealth and inter­na­tional con­nec­tions would make it easy for him to flee.

Strauss-Kahn was in New York on a per­sonal trip when the maid made her accu­sa­tions. Pros­e­cu­tors have said in court that Strauss-Kahn appeared on sur­veil­lance tapes to be in a hurry as he left the hotel, though his lawyers have said he was merely rush­ing to lunch.

Strauss-Kahn was held with­out bail for nearly a week after his May arrest. His lawyers ulti­mately per­suaded a judge to release him by agree­ing to exten­sive — and expen­sive — con­di­tions, includ­ing an ankle mon­i­tor, sur­veil­lance cam­eras and armed guards. He was allowed to leave for only for court, weekly reli­gious ser­vices and vis­its to doc­tors and his lawyers.

The secu­rity mea­sures were esti­mated to cost him about $200,000 a month, on top of the $50,000-a-month rent on the town house in trendy TriBeCa.

Under New York law, judges base bail deci­sions on fac­tors includ­ing defen­dants’ char­ac­ters, finan­cial resources and crim­i­nal records, as well as the strength of the case against them — all intended to help gauge how likely they are to flee if released.

Posted by AP News on Jul 1 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.