Judge rules maid's suit against Strauss-Kahn can proceed

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former head of the International Monetary Fund, is arraigned Monday, May 16, 2011, at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York. ( (AP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand, Pool))

  JENNIFER PELTZNEW YORK -- A hotel maid's sexual assault lawsuit against Dominique Strauss-Kahn can go forward to trial, a judge ruled Tuesday, rebuffing the former International Monetary Fund leader's diplomatic-immunity claim.

Bronx state Supreme Court Justice Douglas McKeon's ruling kept alive the civil case that emerged from a May 2011 hotel-room encounter that also spurred now-dismissed criminal charges against Strauss-Kahn, then a French presidential hopeful. The episode was the first in a series of allegations about his sexual conduct that sank his political career.

The housekeeper, Nafissatou Diallo, 33, said Strauss-Kahn, 63, tried to rape her when she arrived to clean his Manhattan hotel suite. Strauss-Kahn has denied doing anything violent during the encounter.

Prosecutors dropped related criminal charges last summer, saying they had developed doubts about her trustworthiness because she had lied about her background and her actions right after the alleged attack. She has insisted she told the truth about what happened in the encounter itself.

McKeon invoked an American sports metaphor in striking down the French diplomat's argument that he is immune from the lawsuit.

"Mr. Strauss-Kahn throws (legally speaking, that is) his own version of a 'Hail Mary' pass by asserting that once he was arrested and confined to a New York home as a condition of bail" he was covered by a treaty allowing departing diplomats reasonable time to leave the country before their immunity expires, even though he already had resigned his IMF post, McKeon wrote.

Strauss-Kahn didn't assert immunity from the criminal prosecution, and he resigned his IMF job days after his arrest. The lawsuit was filed about three months later.

That "may seem like an unfair result to some, but it's the result the law compels," Strauss-Kahn attorney lawyer Amit P. Mehta said at a hearing in March.

They pointed to a 1947 United Nations agreement that afforded the privilege to heads of "specialized agencies," including the International Monetary Fund. Although the United States didn't sign that agreement, Strauss-Kahn's attorneys said it has gained such broad acceptance elsewhere that it has become what's known as "customary international law."

But Diallo's lawyers said the immunity claim is off base. They stressed that the U.S. didn't join in the 1947 agreement, and that an IMF spokesman said shortly after Strauss-Kahn's arrest that he didn't have immunity because he was on personal business during his encounter with Diallo. Strauss-Kahn was visiting his daughter in New York.

"Dominique Strauss-Kahn thinks he's above the law," one of Diallo's lawyers, Kenneth P. Thompson, said after the March hearing.

McKeon's decision to allow the case to proceed was first reported by The New York Post.

Diallo's lawyers issued a statement calling the ruling "well-reasoned and articulate."

"We have said all along that Strauss Kahn's desperate plea for immunity was a tactic designed to delay these proceedings and we now look forward to holding him accountable for the brutal sexual assault that he committed," they wrote.

Strauss-Kahn's attorneys had no immediate comment on the ruling.

The Associated Press generally doesn't name people who report being sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Diallo has done.

After Strauss-Kahn's arrest in New York, a French writer came forward to say Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her during a 2003 interview. Paris prosecutors said that accusation was too old to try, but French authorities have pursued an unrelated allegation that he was involved in a hotel prostitution ring including prominent city figures and police in Lille.

In March, he was handed preliminary charges, which mean authorities have reason to believe a crime was committed but allow more time for investigation.

His French lawyer said the married Strauss-Kahn engaged in "libertine" acts but did nothing legally wrong and is being unfairly targeted for his extramarital sex life.

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Strauss-Kahn free from house arrest; charges stand

  By JENNIFER PELTZ and TOM HAYSNEW YORK -- Smiling faintly as he walked out of court, former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was released from house arrest Friday after prosecutors acknowledged serious questions about the credibility of the hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault.

The charges against him stand - for now, at least. But weeks after saying it had a strong case that was only getting stronger, the district attorney's office was on the defensive. So was the housekeeper's lawyer, who continued to insist that Strauss-Kahn had violently abused the woman.

An attorney for Strauss-Kahn, meanwhile, called the turn of events "a great relief." The case underscores "how easy it is for people to be charged with serious crimes and for there to be a rush to judgment," William W. Taylor said.

Strauss-Kahn, 62, had been confined for weeks to a luxury New York City townhouse on $6 million cash bail and bond after his arrest on attempted rape charges that forced his resignation as head of the International Monetary Fund and appeared to destroy any hope he had of running for president of France next year.

But then, on Friday, defense lawyers went into court to ask that his bail conditions be eased, with prosecutors' assent.

"The strength of the case has been affected by the substantial credibility issues regarding" the accuser, Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon told the judge, who then canceled Strauss-Kahn's bail and most of the other restrictions.

According to prosecutors, the woman admitted she lied to a grand jury about what she did immediately after the alleged attack. She actually went on cleaning rooms instead of reporting the episode right away, prosecutors told the defense in a letter.

She also told prosecutors a tearful, vivid but untrue story of having been gang-raped in her native Guinea, later admitting it was among various false accounts of oppression that she had been told to memorize to enhance her 2004 application for political asylum, prosecutors said. She claimed someone else's child as her own dependent and lied about her income on tax forms and was untruthful about "a variety of additional topics," including her personal life, they said, without elaborating.

Days after Strauss-Kahn's arrest, the woman was recorded talking about the case and mentioning Strauss-Kahn's wealth in a phone call to a man incarcerated on a drug charge, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss matters not made public in court.

The woman also raised questions by saying she knew little about tens of thousands of dollars others have deposited in bank accounts in her name, the official said. Authorities suspect the money might be drug-related, the official said.

District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. portrayed the turnabout as a case of prosecutors doing the right thing.

"Our commitment to the truth and the facts will govern how we proceed" in the Strauss-Kahn case, he told reporters.

Neither he nor Strauss-Kahn's lawyers took questions.

Authorities have not said specifically what they now think of the truthfulness of the woman's allegations against Strauss-Kahn.

Investigators found traces of his semen on her uniform, and that is powerful evidence there was a sexual encounter of some kind, though the defense has said anything that happened was not forced.

Still, the apparent lies about her background and her behavior could seriously damage her credibility as a witness if the case goes to trial.

Edward A. McDonald, a defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor and assistant district attorney in New York City, said dropping the case could be next. Prosecutors are "sending a real clear sign that they've gotten to the point where they think there is little hope of rescuing the case," he said.

Another hearing is set for July 18. Strauss-Kahn did not get his passport back and will not yet be allowed to leave the country, but he will be free to travel within the U.S., his lawyers said.

Strauss-Kahn himself remained mum Friday, but he strode confidently up the granite steps to the courthouse with his wife, French journalist Anne Sinclair, at his side, after they arrived in a Lexus SUV. After the short hearing, he slowly walked out the building with his arm on her shoulder, smiling at the crowd outside.

Moments later, the accuser's attorney, Kenneth Thompson, fired back.

"It is clear that this woman made some mistakes, but that doesn't mean she's not a rape victim," the lawyer said.

The 32-year-old hotel maid accused Strauss-Kahn of chasing her through his luxury suite in May, trying to pull down her pantyhose and forcing her to perform oral sex. Thompson said Strauss-Kahn bruised the woman's genitals, tore a ligament in her shoulder and ripped her stockings.

"From day one, she has described a violent sexual assault that Dominique Strauss-Kahn committed against her," Thompson said.

"She has described that sexual assault many times, to prosecutors and to me, and she has never once changed a single thing about that encounter."

He accused the district attorney of shying away from the high-profile case and blasted as lies reports that the woman was involved with a drug dealer.

Strauss-Kahn was held without bail for nearly a week after his May arrest. His lawyers ultimately persuaded a judge to release him by agreeing to an ankle monitor, surveillance cameras and armed guards. The security measures were estimated to cost him as much as $200,000 a month, on top of the $50,000-a-month rent on the townhouse in the city's TriBeCa section.

Prosecutors at the time wanted him kept him in jail, arguing that because of the seriousness of the charges, he might flee the country. In releasing Strauss-Kahn on Friday, State Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus said: "In light of recent developments, the risk that you would not be here appears to have receded quite a bit."

If the case collapses, it could once again shake up the race for the French presidency. Before the scandal, Strauss-Kahn, a prominent Socialist, had been seen as a leading potential challenger to conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy. French politician Michele Sabban said the Socialists should suspend the presidential primary calendar because of the new developments.

The new doubts about Strauss-Kahn's accuser could also feed suspicions in France that he was the victim of a politically motivated setup.

Indeed, Maxime Laumailler, an economics student from Rennes, France, who was standing outside the New York courthouse, called the case "a plot" against Strauss-Kahn.

"We are so surprised that the Americans are pre-judging him like this," said Laumailler's girlfriend, Charlotte LeBihan.

After Friday's hearing, Strauss-Kahn returned to the brick townhouse. A deliveryman arrived a few hours later with an arrangement of red, white and blue balloons, along with one shaped like the Statue of Liberty.

The card read, "Enjoy your freedom on Independence Day," said deliveryman Sean Hershkowitz. He said he didn't know who sent the greeting.

Friday evening he went to Scalinatella's, an Italian restaurant, for dinner on the Upper East Side with his wife and returned around 10:15 p.m.

(Copyright ©2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) Get more New York News »

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