Pricey house arrest for ex-IMF chief
NEW YORK—With armed guards and cameras watching his every move, resigned IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn remained holed up on Sunday in a pricey high-rise while he awaits a more permanent location for house arrest in his sexual assault case.
The onetime French presidential contender and former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been living in the lower Manhattan skyscraper since his release on Friday from Rikers Island prison on $1-million cash bail.
The 62-year-old Strauss-Kahn has been accused of trying to rape a 32-year-old housekeeper in his $3,000-a-night hotel suite last weekend but has denied the allegations. He is scheduled for arraignment on June 6.
He was initially set for a tony apartment complex on the Upper East Side, but tenants in the building complained about the throng of police and media gathered outside.
So instead, Strauss-Kahn was ensconced in the 21-story Empire Building within the New York Police Department’s ring of steel, a network of private and police cameras.
He is guarded by Stroz Friedberg, the same security firm that kept disgraced financier Bernard Madoff under surveillance in his own penthouse.
$200K a month
Even with the severe restrictions, Strauss-Kahn’s family wealth has afforded him one of the cushiest bail agreements possible. But it won’t come cheap.
The cost to secure the former IMF director general was estimated at $200,000 a month—and he must foot the bill for armed surveillance, the installation of cameras and a special bracelet shackled to his ankle that will set off an alarm if he travels too far.
In comparison, it costs the city about $6,500 a month to house an inmate at a facility like Rikers Island, where he had been held nearly a week.
Right now, he is not allowed out at all, but after he is moved to a more permanent location he may leave for the court, doctor visits and weekly religious services.
Prosecutors must be notified at least six hours before he goes anywhere. He can’t be out between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
But he won’t be lonely: Strauss-Kahn may have visitors up to four at a time in addition to members of his family.
Indictment
Strauss-Kahn was indicted by a grand jury last week on charges including criminal sexual abuse and attempted rape in the alleged attack last weekend at Sofitel hotel near Manhattan’s Times Square.
The accused was held at the jail initially because a judge sided with prosecutors who believed he was a substantial flight risk, given his wealth and international status.
Prosecutors also were worried that if Strauss-Kahn was simply released he would flee to France, which has extradition laws that favor its residents.
His lawyers initially requested his release on $1-million bail, but they revised the plan later in the week to add stricter house arrest restrictions.
State Supreme Court Justice Michael J. Obus signed off on the plan and ordered Strauss-Kahn’s release from Rikers Island on Friday.
Stroz Friedberg
A spokesperson for Stroz Friedberg had no comment on the security firm’s latest client.
The company has a history of high-stakes, high-wealth clients: It secured Mahender and Varsha Sabhnani, a rich Long Island couple convicted of enslaving two domestic servants whom they brought from Indonesia by keeping their travel documents while having them perform forced labor.
Over the course of the couple’s home detention, the firm was chastised by a judge for allowing Mahender Sabhnani to stay out at business meetings in Manhattan until 1 a.m.
And then there was Madoff, who was under house arrest for over a year before he began serving a 150-year prison term in 2009 for swindling investors of billions.
In a case study posted on its website on its involvement with Madoff, Stroz Friedberg said round-the-clock monitoring was done by retired federal and high-ranking New York City officers who kept tabs on everything, from deliveries in and out of the building to recording his every move.
3 guards needed
Security experts say it would take at least three experienced guards to do the job well in Strauss-Kahn’s case—two working at all times and one on reserve.
“You can’t go to sleep. You need fresh guys all the time,” said Beau Dietl, a longtime former detective of the New York Police Department, who now does security work and serves as a private detective. “You can’t let the guy out of your sight.”
Nick Casale, who guarded Madoff initially, said the prisoner’s wealth must be taken into account.
“For the average person, a $1-million cash bail is astronomical. But you have to look at how this would impact his wealth, is it substantial, or is it trivial?”
Lawyers said in court that Strauss-Kahn was worth about $2 million, but that his wife, journalist Anne Sinclair, was substantially wealthy. She helped secure the $5-million bond that the judge added to the bail agreement.
Madoff case
Experts say such bail agreements are becoming increasingly common for well-heeled defendants—the most high-profile being Madoff, who was under private guard and had cameras trained on him 24 hours a day.
Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers cited the case—in which Madoff posted a $10-million bail—as a reason to release the economist.
Some other white-collar bail agreements make Madoff’s look puny.
In 2008, David Brooks, formerly the top supplier of body armor to the US military, was released on $400-million bond under a house arrest term that called for electronic monitoring and an armed guard in his apartment.
His bail was revoked in 2010 when a federal judge ruled that he had schemed to hide assets from the court.
Caste system
Raj Rajaratnam, a one-time billionaire hedge fund founder convicted of insider trading, is currently free on $100-million bail, but he is under house arrest at his Manhattan home while he awaits sentencing on July 29.
It’s just a fact, experts say, that money can buy you a sweeter deal while you wait for your criminal case to go to trial.
“So now what we’re saying is that people of status and class and power can perpetrate these type of crimes, hire an expensive legal team, and meet the conditions of bail to satisfy the court to secure their freedom,” said Nick Casale, a security expert who guarded Madoff. “Are we going to this caste system of defendants?”
But freedom from jail meant dealing with the press—and lawyers in Strauss-Kahn’s case said the international media frenzy over his case changed the house arrest plans.
Strauss-Kahn decided not to move to the Upper East Side luxury building “out of respect for the residents” who objected to the international media converging on the complex. Associated Press
