Dominique Strauss-Kahn set to walk free as New York rape case collapses
NEW YORK—Dominique Strauss-Kahn was set to walk free on Tuesday after New York prosecutors formally moved to dismiss the three-month-old sexual assault case against the powerful Frenchman, filing a 25-page motion that serves as their intricate and devastating anatomy of a case collapsing.
The document, which the district attorney’s office filed on Monday in the State Supreme Court, asked Justice Michael J. Obus to dismiss the seven-count indictment against Strauss-Kahn in connection with the alleged sexual assault on a hotel maid on May 14.
Justice Obus was expected to comply with the request on Tuesday.
The document laid out how prosecutors went from characterizing Strauss-Kahn’s accuser as a credible woman whose account was “unwavering” to one who was “persistently, and at times inexplicably, untruthful in describing matters of both great and small significance.”
Because eventually prosecutors could no longer believe the alleged rape victim, they wrote, they could not ask a jury to do so.
Prosecutors said they had accumulated enough evidence to show that Strauss-Kahn, who resigned as managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after his arrest on May 14, “engaged in a hurried sexual encounter” with his accuser, a housekeeper at the Sofitel New York, a hotel near Times Square.
Because none of the evidence established force or a lack of consent, the motion said, the case would hinge on the testimony of the woman, Nafissatou Diallo, an immigrant from Guinea.
Inconsistencies
Diallo’s account of what happened during and after the alleged assault began to develop inconsistencies, however. Even more troubling to prosecutors was what they said was a “pattern of untruthfulness” about her past.
That included a convincingly delivered story of being gang raped by soldiers in her native country; she later acknowledged that she had fabricated the story, and prosecutors characterized her ability to recount a fictionalized sexual assault with complete conviction as being “fatal” to her credibility.
Another issue was that Diallo had denied that she was interested in making money from the case, despite a recorded conversation that prosecutors said captured her discussing just that with her fiancé, a detainee in an immigration jail in Arizona, shortly after the encounter in the hotel.
The recommendation for dismissal ends a tumultuous relationship between Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. and Diallo, a 33-year-old immigrant who said the 62-year-old Strauss-Kahn attacked her and forced her to perform oral sex when she went to clean his suite.
‘Hatchet job’
The woman’s lawyer, Kenneth P. Thompson, said the motion was “a hatchet job on Ms Diallo’s credibility.”
“The prosecutors have basically adopted the defense arguments,” Thompson said. “They appear to bend over backward to try to excuse their decision to run away from this case.”
Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers, William W. Taylor III and Benjamin Brafman, said in a statement that they had maintained that their client was innocent.
“We also maintained that there were many reasons to believe that Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s accuser was not credible,” the statement said. “Mr. Strauss-Kahn and his family are grateful that the district attorney’s office took our concerns seriously and concluded on its own that this case cannot proceed further.”
Wider audience
The prosecutors’ treatise on the case seemed meant for an audience beyond Justice Obus.
The case has attracted worldwide attention, largely because of Strauss-Kahn’s stature as the leader of the IMF and the front-runner for the Socialist Party’s nomination for French president, and the lurid story line of a privileged man being accused of taking advantage of a hotel housekeeper.
In laying out the circumstances in such detail, Vance also was giving a domestic audience, including Manhattan voters, an explanation for his decision.
He may also have sought to address criticism from black leaders and women’s groups that he should proceed to trial.
Lack of confidence
In the 25-page document, prosecutors said they did not necessarily shy away from using as a witness someone who had lied or committed crimes in the past.
But they said “the nature and number of the complainant’s falsehoods leave us unable to credit her version of events beyond a reasonable doubt, whatever the truth may be about the encounter” at the hotel.
“If we do not believe her beyond a reasonable doubt,” they added, “we cannot ask a jury to do so.”
In a footnote, the assistant district attorneys handling the case, Joan Illuzzi-Orbon and John McConnell, wrote that the motion explained the basis for their request that the charges be dismissed, but made no factual findings.
“Rather,” they said, “we simply no longer have confidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty.”
Lack of evidence
The motion noted the lack of physical and medical evidence to support a claim of a forcible or nonconsensual attack.
Diallo and Strauss-Kahn did not have the other’s DNA underneath their fingernails; its presence could have supported the notion of a struggle.
Prosecutors also said that presenting the case to a jury, despite their own growing doubts, would violate the custom in their office: that prosecutors must themselves be convinced of a defendant’s guilt before bringing a case to trial.
The two assistant district attorneys and a third prosecutor met with Diallo and Thompson on Monday afternoon to inform them of the decision to drop the case.
The meeting lasted 20 or 30 seconds, and the prosecutors accused Diallo of lying but would not answer her questions, Thompson said.
He immediately held a news conference, saying Vance had denied the right of a woman to get justice in a rape case.
Thompson has filed a lawsuit for Diallo against Strauss-Kahn, seeking unspecified damages. The lawyer also filed a motion on Monday seeking the appointment of a special prosecutor in the case.
Under fire
Vance’s office has come under criticism for the decision shortly after Strauss-Kahn’s arrest on May 14 to reject an agreement that would have freed him on bail and allowed them more time to investigate, and to learn more about Diallo, before bringing an indictment.
While that more deliberative course might have had the same ultimate result, it could have helped avoid the early pronouncements that she was credible and “unwavering.”
The new motion shed no light on the bail decision.
‘Appalling’
After the brief meeting between prosecutors and the accuser’s team, a chaotic scene unfolded outside, with reporters and onlookers mixing with representatives from women’s groups and elected officials.
Sonia Ossorio, the executive director of the New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women, said Diallo had presented a complicated case that had been “mishandled by many people, including the victim’s lawyer.”
“The prospect of Dominique Strauss-Kahn simply walking away scot-free is appalling,” Ossorio said.
Another probe
Reaction in France to the news on Monday was mixed, with many expressing pleasure with Vance’s decision but noting that Strauss-Kahn’s reputation had been damaged, especially among female voters.
Strauss-Kahn faces another investigation in France. A writer, Tristane Banon, claims he attempted to rape her in 2003. French prosecutors are investigating the charge. Reports from the New York Times News Service and AFP
