Diallo Loses Her Case Against DSK: Her Lawyer's Fault

Strauss-Kahn dismissal about proof, not truth

The sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is now over. The judge has granted the prosecutors' motion to dismiss the case against the former head of the International Monetary Fund. But for all the complex legal machinations, one simple question remains unanswered: What happened between Strauss-Kahn and Nafissatou Diallo, the housekeeper at the Sofitel in New York, on May 14?

The answer -- or nonanswer -- explains something about our legal system. Cyrus Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, moved to dismiss the case against Stauss-Kahn because his staff came to believe that Diallo could not be trusted as a witness.

"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 prosecutors wrote in a 25-page brief filed Monday. "If we do not believe her beyond a reasonable doubt, we cannot ask a jury to do so."

Notice the key phrase, "whatever the truth may be." Like any prosecutor, Vance is concerned above all with what he can prove, not "the truth." As the prosecutors detailed in their brief, Diallo's credibility problems were extraordinary. In their account, she lied about the chronology of events with Strauss-Kahn, about her background, about her finances, about her associates and much else besides.

The prosecutors do not say that she lied about what happened in the hotel room with Strauss-Kahn. Their judgment is narrower; because of her lies about other subjects, a jury would never believe her account of the events in question.

If Diallo had taken the stand at a trial, she would have been subject to ferocious cross-examination by Benjamin Brafman, who is one of the best lawyers in the business. But what would Brafman have been trying to do? He would have tried to persuade the jury that Diallo was not worthy of belief, and based on the prosecutors' submission, he would have had a great deal of ammunition to make that case.

But Brafman's task, by design, would have been destructive, not constructive. His only duty would have been to tear down the story that Diallo told, not to build a credible one of his own. That's what the burden of proof means. Prosecutors have to prove their case; the defense need only poke holes, not present an alternative.

The prosecutors' account of the actions of Strauss-Kahn are similarly narrow. The picture they paint of him is an ugly one. Within minutes of Diallo's arrival in his hotel room, she was spitting out his semen in the hotel hallway. But the prosecutors say that, at this point, they cannot prove that Strauss-Kahn assaulted Diallo. At a minimum, it seems, Strauss-Kahn behaved like a cad and a creep, but that is a moral, not legal, judgment.

In sum, then, none of the parties in the case are principally concerned with determining the "truth" of what went on in that room. (Journalism, in its imperfect way, is concerned with determining truth.) The prosecution and defense are concerned only with what they can prove, or disprove, in a courtroom. That's not a criticism, just a reflection of how our system works. So what happened in that hotel room? Chances are, we'll never know.





Judge Orders Dismissal of Charges Against Strauss-Kahn

A judge formally ordered the dismissal of all criminal charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Tuesday, but he said his order would be stayed until an appellate court decides whether a special prosecutor should be appointed.

Prosecutors in the office of Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, told Justice Michael J. Obus of State Supreme Court in Manhattan that they could not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt because of serious credibility issues with the hotel housekeeper who had accused Mr. Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her as she entered his suite to clean it.

The dismissal brought some semblance of vindication to Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, after his stunning arrest more than three months ago. He was taken into custody aboard an Air France jet at Kennedy International Airport and then paraded before news cameras, looking disheveled and in handcuffs.

For his accuser, Nafissatou Diallo, a 33-year-old Guinean immigrant, the result caps a precipitous fall. Prosecutors initially portrayed her as a credible and powerful witness, only to say that her myriad lies about her past — which included a convincing, emotional but ultimately fraudulent account of being gang raped by soldiers in Guinea — ended up undermining the case.

Ms. Diallo, who has made her identity public, still has a civil lawsuit pending against Mr. Strauss-Kahn for unspecified monetary damages, and her lawyer, Kenneth P. Thompson, has been relentless in his assertion that Mr. Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted his client and that Mr. Vance’s office abandoned the case too soon.

Mr. Thompson made one last desperate attempt to keep the criminal case going, filing a motion on Monday asking that Mr. Vance’s office be disqualified. But about an hour before Tuesday’s hearing started, a court clerk handed out a one-page decision in which Justice Obus denied Mr. Thompson’s motion. However, Mr. Thompson has appealed the decision, which led to Justice Obus’s staying the dismissal.

After the hearing, Mr. Strauss-Kahn issued a statement, characterizing the past two and a half months as “a nightmare for me and my family,” and thanking the judge, his wife and family and other supporters.

He added that he was “obviously gratified that the district attorney agreed with my lawyers that this case had to be dismissed.”

“We appreciate his professionalism and that of the people who were involved in that decision,” he continued. Mr. Strauss-Kahn added that he looked forward to “returning to our home and resuming something of a more normal life.”

The case has attracted international attention ever since the arrest of Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a leading figure in the Socialist Party who was considered a top candidate for the French presidency; each appearance in court has drawn a carnival-like atmosphere outside, with journalists and camera crews mixing with protesters. The scene on Tuesday was no exception: Well before Mr. Strauss-Kahn arrived at 11:03 a.m., about three dozen protesters gathered. The bulk of the sentiments were decidedly against Mr. Strauss-Kahn.

There were chants (“D.S.K., shame on you,” and “Whatever we wear, wherever we go, yes means yes, no means no”). There were placards (“All rape victims deserve a fair trial,” “Stop victim blaming of rape victims” and one with an illustration of a police officer admonishing a top-hatted plutocrat and the slogan “Go to jail”).

And there were a few speeches in which people condemned Mr. Strauss-Kahn as a serial sexual abuser and criticized Mr. Vance for ending the case against him.


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Sources: AP, CNN, Daily Beast, Youtube, Google Maps

Nafissatou Diallo's PR Campaign Garners Public Support; Stops Character Assassination

Let's Hear It For Nafissatou Diallo! Alleged Rape Victim Of Former IMF Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Ms. Diallo's Decision To Come Forth To The Public, Defend Her Name & Give An Extremely Detailed Account Of What Happened In DSK's Lavish Manhattan Hotel Room Has Garnered Her Much Support From Women & Common, Everyday Citizens Well Aware Of How Frequently People With Great Wealth Are Allowed To Simply Walk Away After Committing Crimes.

I Admire Ms. Diallo For Boldly Speaking Out Despite The Manhattan D.A.'s Office Attempt To Destroy Her Character.

Had She Not Come Forth To The Public Soon, Cyrus Vance's Office Would Have Totally Destroyed Her & Dismissed The Case Like Yesterday.

Just Because Ms. Diallo Is A Victim Of Life's Circumstances, Does NOT Mean She's A Liar Or Gold Digger!

You Go Girl!!




The Real DSK Maid Tape

The lawyer for the hotel maid who has accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault tells The Daily Beast that tape recordings in the possession of prosecutors capture her describing her alleged attack to an incarcerated friend less than 24 hours after it occurred in a manner consistent with what she told police and prosecutors.

The tapes also show a much different conversation about lawyers and money than what was leaked by authorities earlier this month in a newspaper report, attorney Kenneth Thompson said late Wednesday night after listening to the audio recordings for the first time.

Thompson and the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, 32, met Wednesday with the New York District Attorney’s Office for the first time in nearly a month after the relationship between the alleged victim and prosecutors fell apart over questions about her credibility.

The meeting came just days after Diallo described the attack in an exclusive interview with NEWSWEEK.

Strauss-Kahn was the head of the International Monetary Fund and a leading candidate for French president before Diallo accused him of attacking her and forcing her to have oral sex after she entered his luxury suite to clean it May 14 at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan.

After being arrested, Strauss-Kahn resigned his IMF post and has pleaded not guilty to sexual assault and attempted rape in a case that has fascinated two continents and taken several dramatic turns.

After steadfastly standing by Diallo, prosecutors disclosed late last month they had serious reservations about her credibility after learning she lied to them about an earlier rape in her home country of Guinea, filed a false tax return, and lied on her application seeking asylum in the United States.

During an eight-hour session Wednesday, the prosecutors grilled Diallo about her conduct and contacts after the alleged attack, and they allowed her to listen for the first time to a tape-recorded conversation she had 24 hours after the alleged attack with Amara Tarawally, an illegal immigrant convicted on drug charges and being held in an Arizona detention center.

The call became a critical and tantalizing piece of evidence in the case after The New York Times reported July 1 that law-enforcement sources claimed the tape captured Diallo making a comment to the effect that her alleged attacker was rich and she knew what she was doing. The leak has since been used to suggest that Diallo may have schemed with her incarcerated friend to make money off Strauss-Kahn.

Diallo and Tarawally, in interviews with , also disputed the leaked version of the call.

Thompson said the tape was played Wednesday for Diallo in her native Fulani language and an interpreter explained what was on it. In all, the imprisoned friend called Diallo at least three times in the aftermath of the attack, according to Thompson.

“The tape they played today does not capture Nafi Diallo being recording as saying, ‘He has a lot of money and I know what to do,’ as was leaked to The New York Times,” Thompson said. “Instead it shows there were at least three calls over several days.

“In the first call on the day after the attack, Ms. Diallo clearly reported to her friend in prison that ‘a man tried to rape me on my job. He is big and powerful. I did not know who he was when he attacked me. Because he couldn’t take off my clothes, he put his penis in my mouth.’ And she explained she tried to stop him,” the lawyer said in an interview.

Thompson said that in a later call, the prisoner called back to check on his friend after learning more about the man who allegedly attacked her. During that call, there were discussions about Strauss-Kahn’s wealth and the fact that Diallo had gotten a lawyer, but the quote attributed to Diallo in the leaked report was not on the tape, he said.

At one point, the tape shows Diallo learned after the fact that the man she accused was politically powerful and wealthy. She also acknowledged hiring an attorney, Thompson said.

“Later in the call the prisoner makes a statement like ‘you could get money from this.’ I take this to mean he was referring to a lawsuit,” Thompson explained as he related what the translator told him was on the tape. “Nafi Diallo’s first reaction is ‘wait, wait, wait,’ suggesting she wasn’t worried about that. She then makes a comment like ‘he can deal with it,’ which I took to mean her lawyer could deal with the issue.”

Thompson said he was angry after learning the tape recordings are different from what was leaked and that he conveyed his concerns to prosecutors during Wednesday’s meetings.

“For nearly a month, information has been leaked to the media that falsely portrays Ms. Diallo as scheming to take Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s money a day after he attempted to rape her,” Thompson said. “But what I heard today shows that Ms. Diallo has been telling the truth from the very beginning, that she was sexually assaulted by Strauss-Kahn while doing her job at the Sofitel.”

Prosecutors were not immediately available for comment late Wednesday. They are continuing to investigate the evidence in the case as they try to determine whether to proceed to trial despite their concerns about the maid’s credibility or drop the charges. A decision is expected in weeks.






Strauss-Kahn’s Accuser Meets the Press and Thanks Supporters

Nafissatou Diallo continued her transformation from anonymous accuser in a headline-grabbing criminal case to a public figure, making a brief statement on Thursday afternoon at a Brooklyn church.

Ms. Diallo’s appearance came just days after she first revealed her identity to the public, and the day after she walked past reporters to discuss the case with lawyers at the Manhattan district attorney’s office. While brief, her comments suggested that she was prepared to be a highly visible presence as the case moves toward possible resolution in the coming weeks.

Before a throng of journalists and supporters from her native Guinea, Ms. Diallo, who has accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault, thanked supporters and spoke about her case in the lobby of a megachurch in East New York, Brooklyn, shortly after noon.

“I’m here because I had people call me a lot of bad names,” Ms. Diallo said softly at the Christian Cultural Center on Flatlands Avenue. “A lot of things they said about me was not true.”

Before being introduced by the Rev. A.R. Bernard, senior pastor at the center, Ms. Diallo, 32, dressed in a dark suit, rubbed her fingers together slowly, blinking often as she gazed out the windows of the lobby, past the bank of cameras and reporters.

“Me and my family, we are going through a lot,” she said. “We cry every day.”

Ms. Diallo, a housekeeper at a Midtown hotel, made her accusation in May against Mr. Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, but has watched the case crumble around questions of her credibility. She said her 15-year-old daughter had seen her crying recently, prompting a plea from the girl.

“She said: ‘Please stop crying. Be strong for me,” Ms. Diallo said at the church. “I told her, ‘I will be strong for you and for every other woman in the world.’”

Ms. Diallo, working without a script or notes, spoke for less than five minutes at the event on Thursday and did not take questions from reporters before being escorted from the lectern. Her lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, and other supporters remained at the microphone and spoke with reporters, as did Mr. Bernard.

Khadijah Shakur, a member of the New Black Panther Party, was among the roughly two dozen supporters who joined Ms. Diallo near a small stage in the lobby, assembled behind red velvet rope.

“She is being blamed, but she is the victim,” Ms. Shakur said before the news conference.

Ms. Diallo broke her public silence last week, granting interviews to Newsweek and ABC News.

At another prominent house of worship on the other side of Brooklyn, the Rev. Herbert Daughtry stood in the pulpit of the House of the Lord Church on Atlantic Avenue in Boerum Hill and called for prosecutors to aggressively pursue charges against Mr. Strauss-Kahn.

“I urge District Attorney Cyrus Vance not to drop the case but to pursue truth and justice and let the chips fall where they may,” Mr. Daughtry told a handful of reporters in an otherwise empty house.

In meetings on Wednesday at the district attorney’s office in Manhattan, Ms. Diallo and her lawyer, Mr. Thompson, listened to recordings of conversations Ms. Diallo had with a fellow African immigrant in an Arizona prison after the alleged attack.

Last month, law enforcement officials told Mr. Thompson and The New York Times that Ms. Diallo could be heard saying on the tape “words to the effect of: ‘Don’t worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I’m doing.’ ” After hearing the recordings on Wednesday, Mr. Thompson said his client’s statements, which were made in her native language, Fula, had been mischaracterized.


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Sources: ABC News, AP, Atlantic Wire, Daily Beast, Newsweek, NY Times, Youtube, Google Maps

Nafissatou Diallo Vs. DSK: His Accuser Goes Public! "Hello? Housekeeping"

The Maid's Tale



“Hello? Housekeeping.”

The maid hovered in the suite’s large living room, just inside the entrance. The 32-year-old Guinean, an employee of the Sofitel hotel, had been told by a room-service waiter that room 2806 was now free for cleaning, “Hello? Housekeeping,” the maid called out again. No reply. The door to the bedroom, to her left, was open, and she could see part of the bed. She glanced around the living room for luggage, saw none. “Hello? Housekeeping.” Then a naked man with white hair suddenly appeared, as if out of nowhere.

That’s how Nafissatou Diallo describes the start of the explosive incident on Saturday, May 14, that would forever change her life—and that of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund and, until that moment, the man tipped to be the next president of France. Now the woman known universally as the “DSK maid” has broken her public silence for the first time, talking for more than three hours with NEWSWEEK at the office of her attorneys, Thompson Wigdor, on New York City’s Fifth Avenue.

“Nafi” Diallo is not glamorous. Her light-brown skin is pitted with what look like faint acne scars, and her dark hair is hennaed, straightened, and worn flat to her head, but she has a womanly, statuesque figure. When her face is in repose, there is an opaque melancholy to it. Working at the Sofitel for the last three years, with its security and stability, was clearly the best job she’d ever hoped to have, after years braiding hair and working in a friend’s store in the Bronx as a newcomer from Guinea in 2003.

Diallo cannot read or write in any language; she has few “close friends,” she says, and some of the men she has spent time with, whom she does not call fiancés or boyfriends, but “just friends,” appear to have taken advantage of her. One, now in a federal detention center in Arizona awaiting deportation after a drug conviction, won her confidence—and, she says, access to her bank accounts—by giving her fake designer bags: “Six or seven of them,” she says. “They weren’t very good.” Her face goes almost blank. “He was my friend that I trust—that I used to trust,” she says.
Related: The Strauss-Kahn Timeline »

Some of Diallo’s most upbeat moments in the interview came when she recounted the small promotions and credits available at the Sofitel for a job done well. She was supposed to clean 14 rooms a day for a wage of $25 an hour plus tips, according to her union. It’s an achievement, Diallo said, to get a whole floor of your own because it saves the time wasted going up and down in the elevator to clean random individual rooms. Another maid had gone on maternity leave in April, Diallo said, and she’d gotten the 28th floor. “I keep that floor,” said Diallo. “I never had a floor before.” When every door has a “Do Not Disturb” notice, maids save precious minutes by going to the hall closet and quickly refilling their cleaning carts with soap, towels, and other amenities. Diallo’s eyes lit up talking about the routine and about her colleagues. “We worked as a team,” she said. “I loved the job. I liked the people. All different countries, American, African, and Chinese. But we were the same there.”

Occasionally as Diallo talked, she wept, and there were moments when the tears seemed forced. Almost all questions about her past in West Africa were met with vague responses. She was reluctant to talk about her father, an imam who ran a Quranic school out of the family home in rural Guinea. Her husband died of “an illness,” she said. So did a daughter who was 3 or 4 months old—she wasn’t sure. Diallo was raped by two soldiers who arrested her for a curfew violation at night in Conakry, the Guinean capital. When they had finished with her, they released her the next morning, she said, but made her clean up the scene of the assault. At first she said she couldn’t recall what year that happened, but later she said it was 2001. Diallo had managed to get her surviving daughter, now 15, out of Africa and to the United States “for a better life,” she said. But precisely how that happened was not a subject she or her lawyers would explore. Again, her eyes stared downward, welling with tears.

When Diallo reached the point of her alleged assault in the Sofitel, however, her account was vivid and compelling. As she told NEWSWEEK, she had used up a lot of time waiting for guests to check out of room 2820 before she cleaned it. Then she saw the room-service waiter taking the tray out of 2806, one of the hotel’s presidential suites. The waiter said it was empty. But still she decided to check. This is her account.

“Hello? Housekeeping.” Diallo looked around the living room. She was standing facing the bedroom in the small entrance hall when the naked man with white hair appeared.

“Oh, my God,” said Diallo. “I’m so sorry.” And she turned to leave. “You don’t have to be sorry,” he said. But he was like “a crazy man to me.” He clutched at her breasts. He slammed the door of the suite.

Diallo is about 5 feet 10, considerably taller than Strauss-Kahn, and she has a sturdy build. “You’re beautiful,” Strauss-Kahn told her, wrestling her toward the bedroom. “I said, ‘Sir, stop this. I don’t want to lose my job,’” Diallo told NEWSWEEK. “He said, ‘You’re not going to lose your job.’” An ugly incident with a guest—any guest—could threaten everything Diallo had worked for. “I don’t look at him. I was so afraid. I didn’t expect anyone in the room.”

“He pulls me hard to the bed,” she said. He tried to put his penis in her mouth, she said, and as she told the story she tightened her lips and turned her face from side to side to show how she resisted. “I push him. I get up. I wanted to scare him. I said, ‘Look, there is my supervisor right there.’” But the man said there was nobody out there, and nobody was going to hear.

Diallo kept pushing him away: “I don’t want to hurt him,” she told us. “I don’t want to lose my job.” He shoved back, moving her down the hallway from the bedroom toward the bathroom. Diallo’s uniform dress buttoned down the front, but Strauss-Kahn didn’t bother with the buttons, she said. He pulled it up around her thighs and tore down her pantyhose, gripping her crotch so hard that it was still red at the hospital, hours later. He pushed her to her knees, her back to the wall. He forced his penis into her mouth, she said, and he gripped her head on both sides. “He held my head so hard here,” she said, putting her hands to her cranium. “He was moving and making a noise. He was going like ‘uhh, uhh, uhh.’ He said, ‘Suck my’—I don’t want to say.” The report from the hospital where Diallo was taken later for examination notes that “she felt something wet and sour come into her mouth and she spit it out on the carpet.”

“I got up,” Diallo told NEWSWEEK. “I was spitting. I run. I run out of there. I don’t turn back. I run to the hallway. I was so nervous; I was so scared. I didn’t want to lose my job.”

Diallo says she hid around the corner in the hallway near the service lobby and tried to compose herself. “I was standing there spitting. I was so alone. I was so scared.” Then she saw the man come out of 2806 and head for the elevator. “I don’t know how he got dressed so fast, and with baggage,” she said. “He looked at me like this.” She inclin-ed her head and stared straight ahead. “He said nothing.”

The entire incident had taken no more than 15 minutes, and maybe much less. According to a source familiar with the phone records, nine minutes after Diallo entered the room, Strauss-Kahn made a call to his daughter.

The maid had left her cleaning supplies in room 2820 when she went to check on Strauss-Kahn’s suite. Now she retrieved them and returned to the suite in which, she says, she had just been attacked. Disoriented, she seems to have sought some kind of solace in resuming her routine. “I went to the room I have to clean,” she explained. But she couldn’t think how or where to start. “I was so, so, so—I don’t know what to do.” Prosecutors, losing faith in Diallo’s credibility, would later raise an issue about this sequence of events. They said she told the grand jury that after the attack she hid in the hallway, but subsequently changed her story to say she cleaned room 2820 and then began to clean the DSK suite. She disputes that she changed her story, and hotel room-access records support what she told NEWSWEEK.

Many aspects of Diallo’s account of the alleged attack are mirrored in the hospital records, in which doctors observed five hours afterward that there was “redness” in the area of the vagina where she alleges Strauss-Kahn grabbed her. The medical records also note she complained of “pain to left shoulder.” Weeks later, doctors reexamined the shoulder and found a partial ligament tear, she said.

If there is one inconsistency for defense lawyers to dwell on in the hospital records, it is a passage that says her attacker got dressed and left the room, and “said nothing to her during the incident.” In her interview with police and her account to NEWSWEEK, Diallo recalled several statements Strauss-Kahn made during the alleged attack.

Defense lawyers are expected to challenge the nature of her injuries, her recollection of events, the veracity of elements of her life story, and her conduct with other men if the case proceeds.

Diallo’s supervisor, making the rounds, found her in the hallway. She could see Diallo was shaken and upset and asked what was wrong. “If somebody try to rape you in this job, what do you do?” Diallo asked her. The supervisor was angry when she heard of the assault, Diallo recalled. “She said, ‘The guest is a VIP guest, but I don’t give a damn.’” Another supervisor came, then two men from hotel security. One of them told Diallo, “If this was me, I would call the police.” At about 1:30 p.m., an hour after the first supervisor was told of the alleged attack, the hotel dialed 911.

At that moment, Dominique Strauss-Kahn was still one of the most powerful men in the world. As head of the IMF, he was the lead player in attempts to keep the European, and indeed the global, economy from plunging into a potentially apocalyptic recession. He was also getting ready to declare his candidacy for the presidency of France in an election only a year away. If he were to defeat Nicolas Sarkozy, the hugely unpopular incumbent, DSK would then govern a country that is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and has the world’s third-biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Prosecutors have identified a hotel concierge who says DSK made an unwanted advance to her the previous night. They have also identified a blonde American businesswoman observed going into the same elevator as Strauss-Kahn at 1:26 a.m. in what appears to have been a consensual relationship. (The French magazine Le Point reported implausibly in July that Strauss-Kahn had even admitted to his wife, the heiress and former television personality Anne Sinclair, that he had had sex with three women that Friday and Saturday as “a last glass before hitting the road for the [French] presidential campaign.”)

What’s more certain is that after checking out of the hotel at 12:28 p.m. on May 14, Strauss-Kahn went to lunch with his youngest daughter, Camille, who had been studying at Columbia University. From there, he went to JFK airport to catch Air France Flight 23 overnight to Paris. The next day he was supposed to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But as he waited to board the plane, Strauss-Kahn apparently couldn’t find his IMF cell phone. On another mobile, he called the Sofitel to ask if it had been found in the suite. The police, now on the scene at the hotel, had an employee say yes (although in fact the phone was not there) and ask where they could get it to him. The Air France terminal, Gate 4, he said, and asked them to rush to get it to JFK before takeoff. Instead, the Port Authority police were notified, and just before the plane was ready to taxi away from the gate, they took Strauss-Kahn off it. “The NYPD need to speak with you about an incident in the city at a hotel,” one of the cops told him.

While Strauss-Kahn languished in “the box,” the interview room at the Manhattan Special Victims Squad in Harlem, Nafissatou Diallo was taken to the hospital for examination, then back to the hotel with the police to walk through what had happened to her, showing them where she stood, where she fell, where she spit. As the day wore on, she became increasingly frantic about her daughter alone at home. Finally the police took her back to the Bronx at 3 in the morning. Neither she nor the girl could sleep. “She was so scared,” Diallo remembered.

But when Diallo watched the morning news, she was terrified: “I watched Channel 7 and they say this is [the] guy—I don’t know—and he is going to be the next president of France. And I think they are going to kill me.” The phone started to ring in her apartment as reporters found her number. Others appeared at her door. She woke her daughter and told her to pack her bag and get ready to stay with a relative. She told the girl how powerful DSK must be: “Now everybody say everything about me, all the bad things.” The girl tried to reassure her mother. “She says, ‘Please, Mom, don’t hurt yourself. I know one day the truth will come out.’ I was so happy when she said that.”

That afternoon, Diallo went back to the Special Victims Squad to look at a lineup of five men. “My heart was like this,“ she says, patting her chest. But she knew him immediately. “No. 3,” she said, and left as quickly as she could. Later she was housed in a hotel with her daughter for weeks, almost incommunicado, neither of them allowed cell phones after they were placed in protective custody by prosecutors. It would be almost two months before she was allowed to return to her apartment to pick up her possessions. “I don’t know why I have to do these things,” she says. “Is it because he is so powerful?”

To this day, we do not have DSK’s account of what happened in suite 2806. Since his arrest, Strauss-Kahn has shielded himself with highly skilled lawyers and investigators who have kept his version of events off the public record. His lawyer, William Taylor, told NEWSWEEK, “What disgusts me is an effort to pressure the prosecutors with street theater, and that is fundamentally wrong.” To charges of criminal sexual assault, attempted rape, and related offenses, Strauss-Kahn entered a plea of not guilty. Meanwhile, his supporters have attacked the maid’s account, her reputation, her background, and her associations. But Strauss-Kahn’s antecedents surfaced with a vengeance as well.

In 2008 DSK admitted to an affair with a subordinate at the IMF. Speaking to investigators, he called it “a personal mistake and a business mistake.” In July a young French journalist and novelist, Tristane Banon, filed charges against him in Paris for what she claims was an attempted rape in a Left Bank apartment where she went to interview him in 2003. She told fellow guests during a TV appearance in 2007 that he had come after her like “a chimpanzee in rut,” and her account bears some similarities to Diallo’s as she describes a man who seems to lose control completely when at the height of sexual desire. Banon’s mother, Anne Mansouret, is an ambitious politician in her own right who is often identified with Strauss-Kahn’s rivals in the French Socialist Party. She recently claimed that she herself had had consensual but “brutal” sex with him in 2000. Among DSK’s acquaintances from Paris to Washington to New York, dinner-party conversation is rife with tales of close calls and wild encounters. One French magazine calls him “Dr. Strauss and Mr. Kahn.” He also has long enjoyed a reputation as being hugely charming and seductive.

DNA evidence in suite 2806—the result of all that spitting that mingled the maid’s saliva and Strauss-Kahn’s sperm—makes it virtually impossible to deny there was a sexual encounter between DSK and Diallo. Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers raised the possibility early on that it was consensual and have left it to others to speculate about the circumstances under which that might have been the case: that Diallo expected money that she did not receive, or that the sex got rougher and more aggressive than she would accept. The New York Post published stories attributed to an anonymous source that claimed Diallo was at least a part-time prostitute. Her lawyers, Kenneth Thompson and Douglas Wigdor, are now suing the Post, saying the story is false. The newspaper stands by its story.

In her interview with NEWSWEEK, Diallo didn’t disguise her anger at Strauss-Kahn. “Because of him they call me a prostitute,” she said. “I want him to go to jail. I want him to know there are some places you cannot use your power, you cannot use your money.” She said she hoped God punishes him. “We are poor, but we are good,” she said. “I don’t think about money.”

Perhaps. But on the day of the incident, by Diallo’s own account, she made two telephone calls. One was to her daughter. The other call was to Blake Diallo, a Senegalese who is from the same ethnic group but no relation. He manages a restaurant, the Cafe 2115 in Harlem, where West Africans gather to eat, talk, politic, and sometimes listen to concerts. Nafissatou describes Blake as “a friend,” and one of the first things he did for her after the incident was to find her a personal-injury lawyer on the Internet.

More problematic were a series of phone calls that Nafissatou Diallo received from Amara Tarawally, whose uncle owned the bodega where Diallo worked when she first came to the United States. Originally from Sierra Leone, he divided his time between New York and Arizona, where he sold T shirts and fake designer handbags. But last year he was busted in a sting operation run by Arizona police when, according to cops, he paid them almost $40,000 cash for more than 100 pounds of marijuana.

On July 1, The New York Times reported the existence of a taped conversation between Diallo and Tarawally. The article said they talked the day after the incident at the Sofitel and quoted a “well-placed law enforcement official”: “She says words to the effect of, ‘Don’t worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I’m doing.’” But at the time, prosecutors did not have a full transcript of the call, which had been conducted in a dialect of Fulani, Diallo’s language. The quote was a paraphrase from a translator’s summary of the tape, and the actual words are somewhat different, sources told NEWSWEEK.

In July NEWSWEEK talked to Tarawally in Arizona. He insisted that the quotation must refer to a later conversation and in any case was taken out of context. Diallo said she no longer talks to Tarawally. He used her bank account to move tens of thousands of dollars around the country without informing her, she said. She denied he ever gave her money to spend. “Like I say, he was my friend,” Diallo told us. “I used to trust him.”

But the list of reasons for prosecutors to doubt Diallo’s credibility does not begin or end with Tarawally. In a letter to DSK’s defense lawyers on June 30, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. cited several lies and deceptions in her past. She had claimed deductions for two children on her taxes instead of one. She had understated her income to get cheaper housing. And, most important, she had lied on her asylum application.

Diallo, a widow, came to the United States in 2003, leaving her then–7-year-old daughter behind in Guinea with a brother. Having entered the U.S. under dubious circumstances and without working papers, she lived with family members for some time, eking out an income braiding hair and then working in a bodega in the Bronx.

In late 2003 Diallo applied for asylum. Because she had suffered genital mutilation as a child, and doctors confirmed that fact in a medical report, she probably would have qualified for asylum in any case, given current law and practices. And she insists she was raped after curfew by two soldiers. (This is not unheard of in Guinea. In 2009 soldiers conducted mass rapes and killed as many as 160 people in a Conakry sports stadium, according to human-rights organizations.) But bad as the realities were in Diallo’s homeland, she admits the account that she gave the U.S. government on her asylum application was heavily embellished. Her fictionalized narrative worked to get her a green card and allow her to bring her child to America. But her past misstatements may make it impossible to win a criminal case against DSK based on her testimony.

Prosecutors are likely weeks away from making a decision on whether to proceed with the -charges. They remain confident that the forensic evidence shows a sexual encounter and impressed by the consistency of the story Diallo told to two maid supervisors, two hotel security guards, hospital personnel, and detectives during the first 24 hours. The prosecution team has “no idea what it is going to do yet,” a person close to the case said. The investigators are “treating it like any other case that runs into these problems, and that means gathering all the evidence.”

Given the issues of Diallo’s credibility, investigators have been building a “suspect profile” of DSK, interviewing other women who claim to have been assaulted or who had consensual affairs, trying to establish a pattern of behavior and comparing it to Diallo’s account. In mid-July they talked with the lawyer for Tristane Banon. Though not required to do so, New York prosecutors have begun the process of asking French authorities to let her speak to U.S. officials, providing the alleged victim some political cover in her home country, where the DSK case is a media rage.

Almost immediately after the indictment was secured and long before the public knew of the problems with Diallo’s past, prosecutors began digging around in her financial records and interviewing friends, looking for any evidence of extortion or criminal activity. The review found ties to shady acquaintances and suspicious transactions, to be sure, but no evidence of a premeditated plot against Strauss-Kahn.

It’s possible that Diallo is a woman who has lived for the last few years on the margins of quasi-illegal immigrant society in the Bronx, associating with petty con artists and dubious types trying to get a foothold in this country. But that does not preclude her having been the victim of a predatory and powerful man. Nor does it mean she will rule out an attempt to make some money from the situation.

Given the climate of suspicion that developed around her, Diallo’s last three encounters with authorities, on June 8, 20, and 28, were difficult sessions, as prosecutors grilled her like a defendant. The mistrust between Vance and Diallo’s lawyers boiled over on July 1, when Thompson held a news conference in front of the courthouse and accused the district attorney of abandoning Diallo.

Since then, both sides have tried to smooth matters over. Thompson has signaled a willingness to let his client be interviewed again if prosecutors let her see a transcript of the disputed prison call, and that is something prosecutors say they are willing to do. But the distrust and tensions could be renewed again after prosecutors learn of Diallo’s decision to go public after weeks of remaining in protective custody. Diallo says she gave the interview to NEWSWEEK to correct the misleading portrayal of her in the media. Her account of what happened has remained the same all along, she says. “I tell them about what this man do to me. It never changed. I know what this man do to me,” she says.

Looking to the future, Diallo says she would love to go back to working in a hotel, but maybe in the laundry. She wants never again to have to knock on a door and call out: “Hello? Housekeeper.”


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Sources: ABC News, CNN, Newsweek, Google Maps

DSK Rejects Plea Bargain! Wants To Walk Free Without Consequences!

Strauss-Kahn’s Lawyers Say He Won’t Plead Guilty


After meeting with Manhattan prosecutors on Wednesday, lawyers for Dominique Strauss-Kahn characterized the session as “constructive,” but stressed that he was unwilling to plead guilty even to minor charges.

William W. Taylor III, who along with Benjamin Brafman is representing Mr. Strauss-Kahn, said late on Wednesday that they did not discuss a plea bargain in the sexual assault case against their client.

“Mr. Strauss-Kahn will not be pleading guilty to anything,” Mr. Taylor said.

In a sign of the deteriorating relationship between the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the woman who made the accusation, her lawyer sent a letter to the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., requesting that he step aside and let a special prosecutor take over the case.

Mr. Vance promptly rejected the request. Prosecutors remove themselves only in extraordinary circumstances, generally when there is a personal stake in the outcome or a clear conflict of interest.

In the letter, the lawyer, Kenneth P. Thompson, said that Mr. Vance’s office had reached disturbing conclusions about his client based on a summary of a recorded phone conversation she had with a man in an immigration detention center.

Last week, prosecutors informed Mr. Thompson that the conversation raised “very troubling” questions about her credibility because she discussed the possible benefits of pursuing charges against a wealthy man.

But Mr. Thompson said on Wednesday that prosecutors had told him that they were basing their conclusions on “a digest of the conversation” rather than on the recording itself or a full transcript of it, which was in a dialect of the Fulani language of the woman’s native Guinea.

A law enforcement official, however, said on Wednesday that the recorded conversation between the woman and the man, who is accused of dealing drugs, was one of at least three in which she talked about the encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn and its aftermath. Investigators were continuing to review and analyze the conversations with Fulani interpreters, the official said.

In the letter, Mr. Thompson said that prosecutors had improperly maligned his client without access to the full conversation. He said they first described their understanding of the recorded conversation to him last Thursday, and then repeated it to The New York Times. Mr. Thompson cited The Times’s account of the conversation as one of several “damaging and prejudicial leaks” from prosecutors as part of the reason for requesting that Mr. Vance recuse himself.

The letter cited an e-mail that Mr. Thompson received on Tuesday from Mr. Vance’s chief assistant, Daniel R. Alonso, that read, “We at this point have only a digest of the conversation, so we need to have our interpreter prepare a complete transcript.”

Mr. Thompson said earlier this week that his client denied that she made the remarks that prosecutors have attributed to her. “She says it’s not true, that she didn’t say it,” Mr. Thompson said. “The way they’re describing the tape, she doesn’t agree with it.”

The law enforcement official said that after further translation and review, prosecutors were confident that the digest accurately reflected what she said.

The investigation has at points been hobbled by difficulties and delays in arranging for translators who were fluent in the dialect spoken by the woman, who accused Mr. Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her when she went to clean his suite at the Sofitel New York on May 14.

Mr. Thompson, in an interview, said his client complained during one early interview session with prosecutors that the interpreter at that session was not rendering her words accurately. His client “stopped the guy, and says, ‘He’s not translating correctly, he’s not from my tribe,’ ” Mr. Thompson said. “Her tribe speaks a very unique dialect of Fulani.”

Erin M. Duggan, a spokeswoman for Mr. Vance’s office, said that the office had not received the letter from Mr. Thompson but that copies had been provided by reporters.

“We strongly disagree with how the office and the work of the assistant district attorneys have been characterized,” she said. “Any suggestion that this office should be recused is wholly without merit.”


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Sources: CNN, NY Times, Google Maps

How Dominique-Strauss Kahn Allegedly Attacked Hotel Maid (Details)

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

DSK Released! Felon's Lies! Accuser's Rights Violated! WHITE Wins Again!

I Warned You This Would Probably Happen!

So Today Accused Sexual Predator Dominique Strauss-Kahn Was Released From House Arrest During A Hearing In An Manhattan Courtroom.

I'm Not Surprised.

Considering How The French Press Published His Accuser's Name In Several Articles, DSK's International Influence, His Wife's Money & The LIES Of An Incarcerated Felon, The News Of DSK's Release Did NOT Surprise Me.

Of Course DSK's People & The NYPD Are Going To Try & Make DSK's BLACK Accuser Appear To Be A Lying, Money Hungry Slut.

After All She's Just A Hardworking, Low Income, BLACK Woman From New Guinea (An African Country) Who Came To AmeriKKKa Seeking A Better Life For She & Her Daughter.

Who Would Believe That SHE (A Hardworking, Low Income, BLACK Woman From New Guinea) Were Actually Raped By A WHITE, Prominent Man Of DSK's Status?

I Mean Its Okay For An Attractive, Young, WHITE Woman To Kill Her 2-year-old Child, Become A Celebrity, (i.e., Casey Anthony) & Possibly Walk Free But How Dare A Hardworking, Low Income, BLACK Woman From New Guinea Accuse A Prominent, WHITE Man Like DSK Of Sexual Assault?

To Make Matters Worse, For Manhattan Prosecutors To Accept The Testimony Of An Incarcerated Felon Who Would Probably Say Anything For An Early Release Deal, Is Preposterous!

Now As It Relates To DSK's Accuser Not Being Honest When Asked About A Previous Rape Charge On Her Asylum Application, Since English Is NOT Her Native Language When She Was Being Interrogated Was There An Interpreter Or Translator Present?

If NOT Then DSK's Accuser Civil Rights Were Clearly Violated!

However, I Warned You This Kind Of Thing Was Going To Happen.

Once Again Rich, WHITE Males Win!

Oh! And One More Thing.....

If You Want To Accuse Me Of Playing The "Race Card" Be My Guest!






Dominique Strauss-Kahn goes free without bail, but prosecutors will not drop sex assault case

A smiling Dominique Strauss-Kahn was freed with no bail Friday in a stunning reversal of fortune as prosecutors declined to drop attempted rape charges against the French bigwig.

The accused sexual predator, due back in court July 18, walked out of court with his biggest legal victory since his May 14 arrest for assaulting a midtown Manhattan hotel maid.

Strauss-Kahn held hands with his wife, who stood by him from the start, and flashed a smile while leaving the courtroom. He declined to address a media horde at the Manhattan courthouse.

"This is a giant step," said defense attorney Benjamin Brafman after his client's triumph. "The next step will lead to a complete dismissal of the charges."

With sources saying the case was collapsing amid a series of lies by the accuser, prosecutors acknowledged their witness had "substantial credibility issues."

But prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Orbon said the case against the defendant would continue.

"The fact of a sexual encounter was and is corroborated by forensic evidence," she said.

The 62-year-old former head of the International Monetary Fund will be freed from his house arrest in a $50-000-a-month lower Manhattan townhouse.

His $1 million cash bail and $5 million bond will be returned under a deal with prosecutors, and he is permitted to travel anywhere in the U.S under the agreement, said noted attorney Brafman.

Prosecutors held onto his passport, keeping Strauss-Kahn from traveling to France.

Strauss-Kahn, accompanied by his television newswoman wife Anne Sinclair, departed for court in a black Lexus SUV about 40 minutes before his scheduled hearing.

Asked if he felt vindicated, the accused sexual predator turned to face reporters but said nothing. Strauss-Kahn's wealthy wife had posted the huge payout to spring him from Rikers Island.

Strauss-Kahn wore a calm, almost serene look as he headed inside the courthouse with Sinclair and a security guard. He wore a black suit with a light blue tie.

Brafman was smiling too as he joined his white-haired client for the hearing.

The prosecution of Strauss-Kahn is in jeopardy of falling apart because the hotel maid who accused him was caught in a web of lies, sources said.

The Bronx chambermaid's credibility crumbled as investigators linked her to a network of crooks and found that she had multiple bank accounts stuffed with a total of almost $100,000 in dirty cash, sources said Thursday night.

Prosecutors now believe there was little truth in anything the native of Guinea native told them since the NYPD yanked the one-time contender for the French presidency off a plane at Kennedy Airport on May 14, the sources said.

A horde of media joined the simply curious outside the courthouse where Strauss-Kahn was due at 11:30 a.m.

"I hope he will not be guilty for the image of France," said French tourist Jean Mark Beauchet, 62. "It changed the political scenario in France. He would have won the election."

Hells Kitchen resident Willa Streeter said she was there to support Strauss-Kahn.

"I feel bad how they handled this case," she said. "They took him to Rikers Island with all those murderers."

A phalanx of photographers lined either side of the courthouse entrance awaiting Strauss-Kahn, who will make the short ride to court from the Tribeca townhouse where he was held under armed guard.

Strauss-Kahn has reason for optimism: There even appears to be a smoking gun exposing his accuser.

Less than a day after Strauss-Kahn's arrest, the woman had a telephone conversation with an incarcerated "high-end, profitable drug dealer," said one source with knowledge of the imperiled case.

During the jailhouse chat, the maid discussed how she could cash in by accusing the political and financial titan. The damning talk was caught on tape.

"The DA's office has concluded she materially misled the grand jury," said a source close to the case. "The case has gone to hell. It's a wreck."

A perjury charge against the accuser is a possibility - but what actually happened in the hotel room may forver remain a he-said-she-said, the sources said.

Prosecutors were expected Friday to give the judge a letter outlining "four to five" different examples of credibility issues on the maid's part, a law-enforcement source said.

"The end is going to be soon - whether it's this week or next week, the case is not sustainable," the source said.

Prosecutors still believe Strauss-Kahn and the accuser had a sexual encounter - possibly even one of a forcible nature, a police source said. But the maid's shattered credibility makes even a misdemeanor charge against him seem like a tough sell.

The stunning revelation, first reported Thursday by the New York Times, is a major blow to the NYPD and first-term Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. DA's office.

It will also inevitably fuel pre-existing speculation that Strauss-Kahn was set up by political enemies - claims prosecutors have previously said are without merit.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, the department's top spokesman, declined comment. A spokesman for the DA's office also refused comment.

The well-placed source said the NYPD rushed to judgment after it learned Strauss-Kahn, 62, was headed to the airport to catch a Paris-bound flight after allegedly fondling the maid at his $3,000-a-night suite at the Sofitel hotel near Times Square. France does not have an extradition policy with the United States.

"They jumped the gun here because he was getting on a plane," the source said. "That is the explanation."

From the moment the criminal charges made headlines, Strauss-Kahn's legal team beat the bushes, sources said. They learned that she told investigators that her application for asylum included a previous rape - but the papers held no such claim, another cop source said.

The defense team also learned she was paying hundreds of bucks a month for several phone bills, but told authorities she had only one phone, that source said.

In late May, Strauss-Kahn's lawyers sent a letter to prosecutors saying they had evidence that shot holes in the case. Prosecutors fired back telling them to turn over the goods, the sources said.

Prosecutors have scoffed at the notion Strauss-Kahn's defense team spoon-fed them info about the maid's shady background, sources said.

Defense lawyers "knew by the second or third day she was not who she claimed to be," one source said.

The maid had a jailhouse chat with a man who had been busted with more than 400 pounds of marijuana, the sources said. He and a handful of others had made several cash deposits - adding up to about $100,000 - into "sophisticated bank accounts" set up for the maid.

The maid has told authorities she knew little about the big-money deposits, the sources said.

"She's complicit in those activities," the source said. "She's a rainmaker. She's in with a crew that makes illegal money."


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Sources: AP, CNN, NY Daily News, NY Times, Orlando Sentinel, Slate.fr, Youtube, Google Maps