August 23, 2011
Charges dropped against Dominique Strauss-Kahn
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Benjamin Brafman lawyer for former IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn leaves Strauss-Kahn's residence in New York Aug. 23. Photo from REUTERS/Allison Joyce
A New York State Supreme Court judge has closed the sexual assault case against Dominique Srauss-Kahn.
On Tuesday, Judge Michael Orbus dismissed all charges against the former head of the International Monetary Fund following an official request Monday from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
Afterward, Strauss-Kahn issued a statement calling the three months since his arrest for sexually assaulting a New York hotel maid “a nightmare for me and my family.” He thanked the judge, his family and other supporters.
Strauss-Kahn was arrested on May 14 while boarding a flight to France for sexually assaulting Nafissatou Diallo, a housekeeper at his hotel. It was a dramatic fall for the IMF chief, a Jew who once was seen as a leading candidate for the French presidency.
While Strauss-Kahn did admit to a sexual encounter with Diallo, he maintained it was consensual.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s decision not to pursue the case against Strauss-Kahn turned on Diallo’s reliability as a witness. Although Vance earlier had proclaimed her a credible witness, a pattern of falsehoods emerged in her statements, he 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 between the complainant and the defendant,” the prosecuters wrote in their recommendation for dismal. “If we do not believe her beyond a reasonable doubt, we cannot ask a jury to do so.”
