Sex case against former IMF head nears collapse

NEW YORK—The sexual assault case against former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is near collapse, sources said on Thursday, raising the prospect of his dramatic return to France’s presidential election race.

Strauss-Kahn, 62, was a steward of the world economy and a leading candidate for the French presidency when he was arrested on May 14 and charged with assaulting a hotel maid in New York.

Defense lawyers challenged the claim of a violent assault, suggesting a defense built on consensual sex.

Prosecutors now do not believe much of what the accuser has told them about the circumstances or about herself. Since her initial allegation on May 14, she has repeatedly lied, one of the law enforcement officials said, the New York Times reported.

The arrest forced Strauss-Kahn’s resignation from the IMF and appeared to end his presidential ambitions, but his political career could be revived if prosecutors drop their case against him.

Strauss-Kahn has been under armed guard in a Manhattan townhouse after posting a total of $6 million in cash bail and bond. He denies the allegations.

A source familiar with the case said prosecutors now had their doubts about the maid’s credibility as a witness. “The credibility is in question,” the source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.

Consensual sex

From the start, the case hinged on the purported victim, a 32-year-old Guinean immigrant who cleaned the $3,000-a-night suite at the Sofitel hotel in Manhattan, where Strauss-Kahn was staying.

Police and prosecutors believed her story that she was sexually assaulted. Evidence showed that semen was found on the collar of her maid’s uniform, a source close to the investigation said.

A separate law enforcement official told the AP the issue was not necessarily about the rape accusation itself, but about troubling questions surrounding the alleged victim’s background that could damage her credibility on the witness stand.

The woman told the authorities she had gone to Strauss-Kahn’s suite to clean it and that he sprang naked from the bathroom and attacked her. The formal charges accused him of ripping her pantyhose, trying to rape her and forcing her to perform oral sex.

Links to criminals

Senior prosecutors met with lawyers for Strauss-Kahn on Thursday and provided details about their findings.

Among the discoveries, one of the officials said, are issues involving the asylum application of the housekeeper and possible links to people involved in criminal activities, including drug dealing and money laundering.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers will return to State Supreme Court on Friday morning, when Justice Michael J. Obus is expected to consider easing the extraordinary bail conditions he imposed on Strauss-Kahn.

Indeed, Strauss-Kahn could be released on his own recognizance, and freed from house arrest, reflecting the likelihood that the serious charges against him will not be sustained.

Prosecutors from the office of the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who initially were emphatic about the strength of the case, plan to tell the judge that they “have problems with the case” based on what their investigators have discovered. The woman still maintains she was attacked, the officials said.

“It is a mess, a mess on both sides,” one official said.

Bank deposits

According to the Times’ sources, the woman had a phone conversation with an incarcerated man within a day of her encounter with Strauss-Kahn in which she discussed the possible benefits of pursuing the charges against him. The conversation was recorded.

That man, the investigators learned, had been arrested on charges of possessing 180 kilograms of marijuana. He is among a number of individuals who made multiple cash deposits, totaling around $100,000, into the woman’s bank account over the last two years. The deposits were made in Arizona, Georgia, New York and Pennsylvania.

The investigators also learned she was paying hundreds of dollars every month in phone charges to five companies. The woman had insisted she had only one phone and said she knew nothing about the deposits except that they were made by a man she described as her fiancé and his friends.

In addition, one official said, she told investigators that her application for asylum included mention of a previous rape, but there was no such account in the application.

She also told them she had been subjected to genital mutilation, but her account to the investigators differed from what was contained in the asylum application.

Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers have made it clear they would make the credibility of the woman a focus of their case.

“Just about everything that was reported on this woman early on was untrue but no one checked or wanted to believe anything else,” the Reuters’ source said. Reports from Reuters, New York Times News Service and AP