IMF managing director arrested, accused of sexual attack

[Nordic]

the wife's lover was probably staying at the wife's apartment. it's sort of s.o.p. with this class of frwench people. the men have mistresses, the women have lovers.

[Canadian_watcher]

The American “left” and the Strauss-Kahn affair
By David Walsh - World Socialist Web Site - 23 May 2011


...
The American media has set about poisoning the atmosphere against Strauss-Kahn. The New York Times, the liberal newspaper of record, has been at the front of the pack, treating the French politician’s guilt as an accomplished fact.

Not so. Here's just one bit of just one article making points in Strauss-Kahn's favor:

But it is a grave and dangerous mistake, with particularly baleful consequences for women, to argue that Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s history as a seducer, including in the workplace, makes him a more plausible rapist — even if, in the end, he does turn out to be guilty.

Yet that is what many of us are doing in the stunned aftermath to the Saturday arrest. The loudest culprits are an unlikely alliance of triumphant Anglo-Saxon puritans, feminists and the tabloid wing of the press. All of them are drawing a connecting line between Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s documented promiscuity and the allegation that he attempted rape and committed sexual assault last Saturday.(A Dangerous Blurring of Distinctions
By CHRYSTIA FREELAND | REUTERS
Published: May 24, 2011)

If you're so interested in the truth, why are you only looking for and posting op ed pieces that essentially say that Strauss-Kahn is being unjustly treated?

[crikkett]

the wife's lover was probably staying at the wife's apartment. it's sort of s.o.p. with this class of frwench people. the men have mistresses, the women have lovers.

Bzzzzt - wrong.
I read here yesterday morning that the building mgt wouldn't let him in.

[JackRiddler]

Most problematic, the post arrest perp walk etc. Would this be enough in the USA to disqualify the trial as unfair?

Oh you! Now that's funny. I love your youthful idealism.

No, it would make it very routine, though challenges along these lines can be tried to disqualify jurors if it gets that far. I posted at length about being arrested in New York:

Everyone in their loving hands is dirt, by definition.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=32082&p=403164&hilit=arrest+nypd#p403164

.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Yeah, why are some people only objecting to perp walks now, when some rich prick gets busted for something.

[Peachtree Pam]

Strauss-Kahn May Use Tried, Tricky Consent Defense

Published May 25, 2011 | Associated Press

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/E ... php#page-2

Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has shed little public light on his account of what happened between him and a hotel housekeeper who accused him of sexually attacking her. But in a potentially revealing hint, one of his lawyers has said he doesn't expect the evidence will show a forcible encounter.

If Strauss-Kahn's lawyers are planning to argue there was a consensual liaison, they would be using a common sex-crime defense argument -- but one that has both succeeded and failed in other high-profile cases. It sets up a "he-said, she-said" confrontation that can pose challenges for defense lawyers and prosecutors alike, legal experts say.

"They're really difficult cases because, by their very nature, nobody else is there," said Brenda Smith, an American University Washington College of Law professor who has studied sexual violence. Even DNA or other forensic evidence might establish sexual contact but still not prove an attack, "so it really is the credibility of the complainant and the defendant, and also the facts and information that each side can marshal to support their version of what occurred."

For now, Strauss-Kahn is under house arrest in a Manhattan apartment on a total of $6 million in bond and cash bail, facing attempted rape and other charges. At the time of his May 14 arrest, the 62-year-old economist and diplomat led the powerful, loan-making IMF and was considered a leading contender to challenge French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Prosecutors say he chased down the cleaner in a penthouse suite, groped her, tried to pull down her pantyhose and forced her to perform oral sex.

The 32-year-old woman immediately told hotel staffers and then police, providing "a compelling and unwavering story" supported by findings from a physical exam, Manhattan assistant district attorney John "Artie" McConnell told a judge last week. Strauss-Kahn's DNA was matched Monday with material on the maid's uniform shirt, two people familiar with the investigation told The Associated Press.

The woman's attorney, Jeffrey Shapiro, has said "there is no way in which there is any aspect of this event which could be construed consensual in any manner."

But Strauss-Kahn lawyer Benjamin Brafman has suggested that might be exactly how his camp construes it.

"The forensic evidence, we believe, will not be consistent with a forcible encounter," he said in court last week. He and Strauss-Kahn's other attorneys have declined to elaborate and wouldn't comment on the case Tuesday.

Strauss-Kahn insists he is innocent, telling colleagues in his IMF resignation letter last week he would "devote all my strength, all my time, and all my energy" to proving it.

In general, consent is legally defined as positively cooperating in and understanding the act in question, said Robin Sax, a former Los Angeles sex-crimes prosecutor now in private practice.

There have been some famous defense successes. Accused of raping a woman in 1991 at his family's estate in Palm Beach, Fla., William Kennedy Smith was acquitted of sexual battery. He'd met his accuser at a nightclub during a night out on the town with an uncle, the late U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy.

Smith testified that the sex was consensual. He said he "felt sorry" for his accuser and acknowledged it was "foolish and irresponsible" for him to have unprotected sex with a woman he barely knew, but said she was equally foolish. Jurors took about an hour to acquit him.

To some, such arguments can look like trying to sully the accuser, a potential pitfall for a defense if jurors find it objectionable.

"That's always the classic claim, that you're blaming the victim, but that's said by people who don't understand," Smith's lawyer, Roy Black, said in an interview Tuesday. "The victim may not be on trial, but her testimony, her accusation, is on trial."

A claim of consensual sex failed for boxer Mike Tyson, convicted in 1992 of raping an 18-year-old beauty pageant contestant. Tyson acknowledged having sex with the woman in an Indianapolis hotel room but said he didn't force her. His lawyer argued that the woman filed charges out of anger at how Tyson had treated her after the encounter.

"It was a tough case," the lead prosecutor, J. Gregory Garrison, recalled Tuesday. Especially in acquaintance-rape cases, with no third parties who can describe what happened, "it's a question of persuasion."

The woman's torn clothes were shown during the trial, and a medical expert testified that the woman had sustained internal injuries that were inconsistent with consensual sex. But some of the key moments Garrison remembers were less about what was said than what was seen, as when audible gasps arose in the courtroom as the petite woman entered the courtroom to face the chiseled heavyweight champ. Tyson ultimately served about three years in prison.

It is usually difficult, if not impossible, to make a case without the accuser's testimony, and "victims often don't want to go through the nightmare that may result," said Corey Rayburn Yung, a professor at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago who studies sex crimes.

The sexual assault case against NBA star Kobe Bryant was dropped after the woman told prosecutors she couldn't take part in a trial. She had accused Bryant of raping her in a hotel room in Vail, Colo. Bryant apologized for his "behavior that night and for the consequences she has suffered," while insisting the sex was consensual.

Prosecutors there said they were confident they could convict Bryant, but only with her cooperation.

"There are a lot of misconceptions by people. They think women make up sex assaults," Mark Hurlbert, the prosecutor in Bryant's case, said Tuesday. "I don't know why ... because it's such a traumatic process, not only the attack but what the system does to these victims. The person who comes forward to testify is pretty sure of herself."

Prosecutors and defense lawyers will scour for other evidence and indicators to back their side's version of events. They might look at forensic evidence and injuries, if any; whether the accuser reported the alleged incident immediately, and how consistently he or she related it; how the defendant behaved in the immediate aftermath; whether the accuser is seeking money in a lawsuit.

"He says he didn't do it, she says he did, so now whom do you believe?" said Black, Smith's lawyer. "The only thing you can do is look at all of the little pieces of information, all the disparate things that at first don't look important."

[Nordic]

the wife's lover was probably staying at the wife's apartment. it's sort of s.o.p. with this class of frwench people. the men have mistresses, the women have lovers.

Bzzzzt - wrong.
I read here yesterday morning that the building mgt wouldn't let him in.

bzzzzzt - it was a bit of a joke.

[crikkett]

the wife's lover was probably staying at the wife's apartment. it's sort of s.o.p. with this class of frwench people. the men have mistresses, the women have lovers.

Bzzzzt - wrong.
I read here yesterday morning that the building mgt wouldn't let him in.

bzzzzzt - it was a bit of a joke.

(cue sad trumpet)
So was my response
Don't take it personally

[blanc]

I love your youthful idealism.

I love it that you imagine I have youth and idealism JackR. I did read your post on post arrest treatment of suspects, but still wondered if defending counsel would argue fair trial impossible due to extensive pre-trial publicity, so that the more of the damning 'leaks' which appear, the better it would serve the seemingly embattled accused. Its occurred to me, as presumably to many others, that getting this to trial could be very difficult - the lady bringing the accusations would be having an almost unimaginably hard time of it, and if there were to be a conspiracy lurking in the background of the case, outing the accused would serve pretty much as well, if not better, than putting him away.

[Peachtree Pam]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110526/ts_ ... maid/print


Maid in Strauss-Kahn case considers civil action
By Leigh Jones Leigh Jones Thu May 26, 2:07 am ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The hotel maid whom Dominique Strauss-Kahn is accused of sexually assaulting has added two attorneys to her legal team as she considers a possible civil action, the attorney already representing her said.

Kenneth Thompson, a former assistant U.S. attorney in New York, and Norman Siegel, a former director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, took part in a meeting with the woman and her family on Wednesday afternoon.

"They decided that they should have enhanced representation," Jeffrey Shapiro, who had been the woman's sole attorney until now, told Reuters late on Wednesday. One reason for adding the attorneys was to decide "whether there is a civil case going forward," he said.

Strauss-Kahn has been charged with sexually assaulting and attempting to rape the maid at the upscale Sofitel Hotel in New York on May 14. He was head of the International Monetary Fund and had been considered a contender in France's presidential race until the incident took place.

Shapiro said any civil action against Strauss-Kahn or any other party would need to be filed within one year of the incident. If filed while the criminal case against Strauss-Kahn is pending, it would likely be stayed until the criminal case is concluded, he said.

The two lawyers were added to the team at the urging of male relatives, Shapiro said. There had been no discussion of a civil suit before Wednesday, he said.

Thompson, a partner at Thompson Wigdor & Gilly in New York, successfully prosecuted New York police officers accused of brutality against Abner Louima in 1997. Siegel, who headed the New York Civil Liberties Union from 1985 to 2000, is in private practice in New York.

[crikkett]

The two lawyers were added to the team at the urging of male relatives, Shapiro said. There had been no discussion of a civil suit before Wednesday, he said.

I wonder why this sentence was included. Whether this is some sort of dog whistle or something.

(I speculate that Shapiro was selling the maid on a civil suit from day 1 and that he's working on contingency... and I speculate that the only 'discussion' was who he was going to have to share his cut with. That would be how I'd script it, anyway.)

[Peachtree Pam]

You may be right Crikkett, but I think it shows that these male relatives are probably the family members who urged her years ago to try and seek asylum in US. Perhaps they were "sponsors" of her and her daughter. It doesn't matter. What is important is that these male relatives are far more savvy about NY and its "justice system" than the maid. I think they see plea bargain, slap on the wrist, suspended sentence and next flight to Paris on Air France. They probably cannot pay a lawyer, so the lawyer has to work on contingency fees. Nothing wrong with that, given that what this woman will go through in the next weeks and months is so horrific to contemplate that I hope they get every penny they can. It will be settled quietly - I expect Ann Sinclair will only have to sell a small pencil drawing by Picasso to comply with any conviction in a civil suit.

[barracuda]

[Joe Hillshoist]

That look is priceless.

[JackRiddler]

By the way, since Obama is 6-1, in that pic Strauss-Kahn looks to be about 5-8.