Dominique Strauss-Kahn goes free but prosecutors do not drop charges
A smiling Dominique Strauss-Kahn was sprung without bail Friday after red-faced prosecutors conceded his accuser is a serial liar with credibility problems.
They detailed how the midtown hotel maid told bald-faced whoppers to investigators and the grand jury, even shedding crocodile tears - making her a nightmare witness.
The staggering turn of events in the sexual abuse case returned $6 million to Strauss-Kahn's pockets and had his lawyer predicting the vilified Frenchman would be vindicated.
Despite the humiliating public collapse of their case, prosecutors refused to drop attempted rape and other charges against Strauss-Kahn - and the victim's lawyer insisted she told the truth.
"When she was fighting to get away, when she was on her knees and he was sexually assaulting her, after he finished, she got up and started to run to the door and started spitting Dominique Strauss-Kahn's semen out of her mouth in disgust," said lawyer Ken Thompson.
The graphic defense of his client came on a dramatic day in the topsy-turvy case, with Strauss-Kahn enjoying his biggest legal victory since the NYPD arrested him aboard a Paris-bound plane on May 14.
"We are absolutely convinced that while today is a first giant step in the right direction, the next step will be for a complete dismissal of the charges," said renowned defense lawyer Benjamin Brafman.
The decision to release the Socialist pol came after a seemingly iron-clad case - with DNA evidence and a sympathetic victim's terrifying account - began imploding.
Brafman, who had promised to dish dirt about the accuser, arrived with a smile for the hearing before state Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus.
His much-maligned client, accompanied by wife Anne Sinclair, was smiling, too, as the pair entered the Manhattan courthouse through a media circus.
Once inside, prosecutors acknowledged a laundry list of lies from the maid - including a phony tale of a gang rape in her native Guinea, bogus U.S. tax returns and inaccuracies in her story to investigators.
Thompson said she hyped up the asylum application because she suffered genital mutilation and wanted to save her daughter from the same fate.
Those lies shouldn't jeopardize the prosecution of a sexual predator, he said.
"It is obvious that this woman made some mistakes, but that doesn't mean she is not a rape victim," he said.
Thompson said his client suffered a torn shoulder ligament when Strauss-Kahn slammed her to the ground inside his 28th-floor hotel suite.
She also had a bruised vagina, and her stockings were torn as the naked Frenchman attacked her in the $3,000-a-night room, he said.
The victim intends to go public with her story in the near future, Thompson added.
Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon said the case against Strauss-Kahn will continue, and he is due in court July 18.
"The fact of a sexual encounter was and is corroborated by forensic evidence, and the very brief time period inside the hotel suite strongly suggested something other than a consensual act," she said.
But in addition to the lies catalogued in a letter from the DA to the defense, the victim apparently has other credibility issues.
Just days ago, the DA's office learned of calls she made before and after the hotel incident to her boyfriend, a "high-end drug dealer," jailed in an Arizona lockup.
The maid "talks about the French pol's checkered past and how easy it would be to say he was abusive," the source said.
"The phone call ... and other calls, indicates she had a plan to entrap a rich guy," the source told the Daily News. "She knew his history and told her boyfriend not to worry, she was up for it."
The 32-year-old immigrant from West Africa also had $100,000 in secret bank accounts filled with cash by the drug dealer and others, the source said.
Thompson said the story about her drug ties was "a lie."
Perjury charges against the maid are a possibility, according to a source, because she lied to the grand jury about what she did after the incident.
She told the panel that after she fled Strauss-Kahn's suite, she stayed in a main hallway until her supervisor arrived.
She later admitted she actually went and cleaned another room - and even returned to clean Strauss-Kahn's empty suite - before reporting the incident.
The lies were revealed to the defense team on Thursday, and Strauss-Kahn wore a calm, almost serene look as he arrived for court yesterday in a black Lexus SUV.
Asked if he felt vindicated, the accused attacker glanced at reporters but said nothing.
After Obus released Strauss-Kahn on his own recognizance, ordering the government to return his $5 million bond and $1 million cash bail, he left holding his third wife's hand.
The former head of the International Monetary Fund and one-time front-runner in the French presidential race did not utter a word.
He and Sinclair returned to the $50,000-a-month Tribeca townhouse where he was held under house arrest for five weeks by an armed guard.
He is free to travel the city and the country at his whim - although prosecutors kept his passport, blocking a return to his homeland.
District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. acknowledged his office backed off the heavy-duty bail conditions imposed on Strauss-Kahn because the "strength of our case" was waning.
DSK accuser's checkered past doesn't mean she wasn't attacked, but tough sell for jury
Dominique Strauss-Kahn fairly cancanned out of Criminal Court after Judge Michael Obus freed him without bail on charges he sexually attacked a hotel maid.
He even gets his money back - or his rich wife's: $1 million in cash and a $5 million bond.
Just in time for Bastille Day, the French banking big has gone from "Les Miserables" to "Life Is Beautiful." He can even go out to eat at Bouley, instead of ordering in at the Tribeca townhouse where he's been under house arrest.
Isn't that how we treat all our accused? To paraphrase Mark Twain, steal a loaf of French bread, go to prison; make a lot of French bread, await trial in a mansion.
Prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Orbon said she isn't dropping the case yet. It's just that it may be hard to convince a jury Strauss-Kahn is guilty because the maid who said "J'accuse" may be a shady character from a sunny place.
She told investigators from the Manhattan district attorney's office she'd been raped in her native Guinea - yet made no mention of it on her application for asylum.
They reportedly found several bank accounts with a total of almost $100,000 and wonder if she wasn't laundering more than bed linens.
She had a phone chat with a jailed guy who got caught with 400 pounds of pot in which she crowed about how much money she could make off the former International Monetary Fund chief in a civil suit. Of course, the whole jailhouse call was recorded, duh.
Okay, her credibility is as wobbly as a three-legged chair, but that doesn't mean she wasn't attacked.
Her shakiness as a witness doesn't change the fact that the horny Frenchman (wait, is that redundant?) left his DNA on her uniform.
She says he came running naked out of the bathroom and forced her to perform oral sex. Maybe he thought that's what "Room Service" meant.
Defense lawyer Ben Brafman said in court he'll prove it was consensual. Hard to imagine Dominique Strauss-Kahn is simply irresistible without a towel on.
As they like to say on Law & Order, "You can't pick the vic."
Her checkered past doesn't mean she wasn't attacked, though it could make it tough to convince 12 jurors to believe her beyond a reasonable doubt.
That's what happened in the "Rape Cops" case, where jurors cleared the cops because the Gap exec who said she was raped was totally drunk and couldn't remember everything.
Never mind that two of the jurors said later they believed the woman was raped, but wanted more forensic evidence.
It would be beyond horrible if this sends a message to rape victims that pressing charges is futile.
Meanwhile, Strauss-Kahn is free to travel anywhere in America this holiday weekend, stay anywhere he wants.
I wouldn't want to be the maid who walks into his hotel room.
Would you?
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Sources: CNN, Fox News, NY Daily News, PBS, Youtube, Google Maps
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