It certainly is sensational.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn denied $1m bail on rape chargeIMF chief Strauss-Kahn held in New York jail cell after bail denied over alleged rape and other charges against a hotel maid
The Guardian, Tuesday 17 May 2011
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, is in Rikers Island prison in New York after he was refused bail on charges of attempting to rape a hotel maid, as prosecutors said they were looking into reports he had engaged in a similar attack before.
Looking tired and gaunt in a badly-fitting black rain-coat, the unshaven 62-year-old was led into the New York criminal court hearing in handcuffs to face charges over a brutal sexual assault which have left the IMF in disarray and sent shockwaves through French politics, almost certainly ending the presidential hopes of the man tipped as the clear winner against Sarkozy in 2012.
Strauss-Kahn's defence lawyers denied the charges against him, but failed in a bid for $1m bail. "This battle has just begun," his defence attorney, Benjamin Brafman, told dozens of reporters gathered outside the court. "Mr Strauss-Kahn is innocent of these charges."
After the hearing, Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance set out the case against Strauss-Kahn. He is charged with seven crimes, including attempted rape, sexual abuse, forcible touching and unlawful imprisonment, against a 32-year-old hotel maid who had entered his suite at the Sofitel hotel near Times Square at around midday to clean. Conviction carries a prison sentence of up to 74 years.
According to the criminal complaint, Strauss-Kahn shut the door of his hotel room, trapping his alleged victim inside, before grabbing her chest without her consent.
John McConnell, an assistant district attorney said: "He sexually assaulted her and attempted to forcibly rape her," and when that failed, he forced her to perform oral sex. He said the US authorities were now investigating whether Strauss-Kahn "engaged in conduct similar to the conduct alleged in this complaint on at least one other occasion". Asked to clarify by the judge, McConnell said the incident took place "in Europe".
In France, writer and journalist Tristane Banon was preparing to file a legal complaint relating to an alleged sexual attack in Paris in 2002. Her lawyer, David Koubbi, said: "We're planning to make a complaint."
Strauss-Kahn did not enter a plea and was remanded to stay in prison until a hearing on Friday after prosecutors argued that the IMF head, who had been detained in the first-class cabin of an Air France jet about to take off for Paris hours after the alleged attack, was a flight risk "like Roman Polanski". District attorney Daniel Alonso compared Strauss-Kahn to the French-Polish film director who fled the US after having sex with an underage girl and has avoided extradition ever since. Alonso said France had no extradition treaty with the US and Strauss-Kahn was a wealthy man who had been arrested attempting to flee the country.
Brafman, who previously successfully defended Michael Jackson against child molestation charges, said it was "quite likely" his client would be "exonerated" and disputed he was trying to flee. Instead, Brafman said his client had a lunch meeting near the hotel and that his lunch partner would be able to testify. He said hotel security found out he was at the airport only after they called him and he told them where he was. He said Strauss-Kahn had been booked on to the Air France flight to Paris for some time.
The IMF is holding talks on how to react to the court hearing.
Strauss-Kahn's wife, the millionaire former TV presenter Anne Sinclair, who has declared she believes he is innocent, was expected to fly to New York. She had offered to pay bail.
In Paris, the ruling rightwing UMP said the allegations had seriously damaged France's image abroad. The environment minister, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, said: "In addition to the presumed victim – the chambermaid – there is another proved victim, that is France. It must be reiterated that these charges are very serious, in France there is a tendency to treat this somewhat lightly." She brushed aside the growing suggestions among some French politicians that this could be a plot or trap to bring down the 2012 presidential frontrunner. She had "confidence in the American justice system". She added: "It's so French to see conspiracies everywhere, it's something in our culture I think."
Images of Strauss-Kahn with his hands handcuffed behind his back and escorted by police shocked France, where famous figures are usually allowed to leave unseen by underground passageways.
The Socialist party leader, Martine Aubry, said the pictures, which dominated all news bulletins, were "profoundly humiliating". The Socialist MP and Strauss-Kahn supporter Manuel Valls said the images were "of an unbearable cruelty" and were so staggering that "for French political life, there will be a before and an after" this moment.
Giving more details of the allegations Strauss-Kahn is to face in France, David Koubbi, Banon's lawyer, told French radio: "There are a number of elements, facts, which prove what she is saying. So, to the question that some people might legitimately ask – 'Is she making it up?' – the answer is no." Banon had previously made the allegation on TV in 2007 and in an interview with a news website, but had not gone to police. She said on TV she had gone to interview Strauss-Kahn, who had first insisted on holding her hand, then made sexual advances. "It ended really badly. We ended up fighting," she said. "It finished really violently. We fought on the floor. It wasn't a case of a couple of slaps. I kicked him, he unhooked my bra, he tried to open my jeans." She said he had acted like a "rutting chimpanzee".
On radio, Strauss-Kahn's political ally, Socialist Jean-Marie Le Guen, dismissed the Banon case as ill-founded.
Under French law, sexual assault charges must be filed within three years but attempted rape charges can be brought up to 10 years after the alleged attack. Banon did not file charges at the time of the alleged assault after her mother, Anne Mansouret, a local Socialist party councillor and Strauss-Kahn's friend, persuaded her against it. She says she now regrets that decision.
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