A Second Accuser for the Managing Director of the IMF (Update: TSG Complaint)
[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here. Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]
Update: This just in via Cnn’s breaking news email service: “Judge denies bail to International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn in sexual assault case.” Which given his resources seems like a very obvious outcome–he is obviously a serious flight risk even if he wasn’t trying to flee the scene of the crime when he got on that plane.
Update (II): The Smoking Gun has the criminal complaint. It doesn’t add much.
So over the weekend Dominique Strauss-Kahn (who is a man), who was described by the New York Times as Managing Director of the IMF was arrested in NYC for sexual assault and related charges. Basically a maid accused him of fairly brutally trying to rape her and judging by this account he might have succeeded to a degree:
According to the law enforcement official, the woman entered Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s suite early Saturday afternoon by saying “housekeeping.” She heard no answer and believed that the suite was unoccupied. She left the door open behind her, as is hotel policy.
She went to the bedroom and a naked man rushed from the bathroom to the bedroom. She apologized, the law enforcement official said, and tried to leave.
But according to the official, the man chased her, grabbed her and shut the door, locking it. He then pulled her toward the bedroom, the official said, and tried to attack her there.
He dragged her to the bathroom, the official added, and forced her to perform oral sex. The police said the woman eventually escaped from the suite and reported the attack to other hotel personnel, who called 911.
The accounts suggest a very hasty exit from the hotel and it is pretty much verified that he was literally on a flight out of the country a few hours later when the police took him off the plane and arrested him.
I admit I resisted talking about the story because of a combination of factors. First by that account they were just accusations. While it is good to see the NYPD take these allegations very seriously, we can’t go overboard and reverse the presumption of innocence. Just because some men get away with rape—particularly if they are “important”—doesn’t’ mean all men accused of rape are guilty, even if they are “important.” And second, I didn’t see it has having significance beyond him. I did not think this necessarily reflected the IMF as a whole.
But then we learned a few other things.
For starters, he is also a leading contender for the socialist party’s nomination in France’s upcoming presidential election and has thrown what was considered an easy race into chaos. According to the Telegraph:
Mr Strauss-Kahn was predicted to beat Nicolas Sarkozy and all other contenders in the presidential election next April or May. He was expected to announce his candidacy in June and win the Socialist primary race in October.
However, his chances of taking the presidency now appear slim. While French voters are generally ambivalent about extra-marital affairs, the charge of sexual assault and attempted rape is taken altogether more seriously.
And there is another accuser, now:
A French writer who claims Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted her nine years ago is to file an official complaint, her lawyer has announced.
Tristane Banon previously described the attack, which happened when she was in her early 20s, in a television programme in 2007, when she called Strauss-Kahn, whose name was bleeped out, a “rutting chimpanzee.”
She consulted a lawyer at the time, but was persuaded not to take action by her mother, a regional councillor in the Socialist party and friend of the Strauss-Kahn family. Banon is goddaughter to Strauss-Kahn’s second wife.
So even if there turns out to be an alibi—as is rumored very thinly to exist—for the current alleged assault, the result might be shaking out this old creepy behavior and perhaps others. Think of it like the fall of Tiger Woods. For all we know that initial incident might have been nothing more than “sleep driving” under the influence of sleep medication. But somehow that incident triggered an avalanche of suppressed news to come pouring out. The same might happen here.
And the other interesting thing to come out of this story was noted by the Economist:
LEAVE aside the details of the allegations against Dominique Strauss Kahn…. Just note that the New York Times states that he was staying in a $3,000 a night suite and was taking a first class flight to Paris. This is the IMF, the body that imposes austerity on indebted countries and is funded by global taxpayers. And this was the likely leading socialist candidate for the French presidency.
Now, it is might be the case that it is coming out of his own paycheck, but that still means that the man is paid so obscenely much that he is willing to drop $3K on a hotel room and wouldn’t dare fly coach. Well, either that or he gets these perks for free, which is just as bad. As the title of the post reads: “It makes you want to join the tea party.”
[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]
I think the deluxe flight and hotel do. Perhaps the scummy abuse of peasants doesn’t, but I’m not disposed that way.
Dustin (c16eca) — 5/16/2011 @ 8:09 amdidn’t Turbo-Tim spend some time at the IMF? Not that there’s any connection between the two of them. Must be an interesting place to work.
Chris (eafa5f) — 5/16/2011 @ 8:12 amdustin
the rape COULD reflect on them as a whole, yep. i am just not ready to say that.
otoh, absolutely deluxe flight and hotel reflects on them…
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 5/16/2011 @ 8:17 amBut is it rape rape?
Whoopi Ashhole wants to know.
BTW did anyone else finger him as the suspect?
😆
DohBiden (15aa57) — 5/16/2011 @ 8:18 ami am just surprised i am apparently the first to say “who is a man” after the guy’s name.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 5/16/2011 @ 8:22 amI’am surprised Kman hasn’t come in and penetrated our brains with his gobbledegook.
DohBiden (15aa57) — 5/16/2011 @ 9:05 amAnd yes SS medicaid and medicare and all that need to be reformed.
DohBiden (15aa57) — 5/16/2011 @ 9:06 amOne news account said he wasn’t in NYC on IMF business, but for personal reasons. This is why diplomatic immunity didn’t apply; apparently IMF honchos get limited immunity, only for actions undertaken for the agency.
So if the $3,000 suite was expensed… oops! If it wasn’t, perhaps this do-gooder is indeed a tad overpaid.
Apparently Strauss-Kahn has a standing arrangement with Air France, whereby he can show up for any flight at the last minute, and fly first class. I can’t recall whether this is a freebie, or if he (or his business AmEx) is charged.
AMac (4826b2) — 5/16/2011 @ 9:09 amAs commenter Patrick (not ours) stated at Althouse.
$3000 a night hotel.
$3,500 suit.
First class air travel.
Socialist.
“You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means…”
Have Blue (854a6e) — 5/16/2011 @ 9:12 amDon’t give a socialist a hard time about $3,500 suits…
from Roger L. Simon:
Via Instapundit.
BfC (ffa9b4) — 5/16/2011 @ 9:30 amAnd his wife stand by him. Guess it’s another case of the vast right wing conspiracy. We know how that turned out.
PatAZ (f79bea) — 5/16/2011 @ 9:31 am‘And his wife stand by him.’
What do you expect to do? Throw him under the bus?
Veronal (0692b1) — 5/16/2011 @ 9:37 amEdit:
‘And his wife stand by him.’
What do you expect her to do? Throw him under the bus?
Veronal (0692b1) — 5/16/2011 @ 9:37 amWatched an interview of Roseanne Barr (sp?) by I believe O’Reilly. She stated, “I am a socialist.” Less that a minute later she was talking about promising to buy her son a Lambourghini (sp?) if he got good grades in school.
Have Blue (854a6e) — 5/16/2011 @ 9:39 amComment by AMac — 5/16/2011 @ 9:09 am
Even if he was in NYC on IMF business, he was on his own time, and therefore not covered by diplomatic immunity.
Plus the added wrinkle that to claim immunity he would need the co-operation of the French government–IOW, Sarkozy. I’ll let you decide the probability of that.
kishnevi (73c123) — 5/16/2011 @ 9:39 amI’am sick and tired of these politicians wives standing by their man especially when these women are stabbed in the back by them.
DohBiden (15aa57) — 5/16/2011 @ 9:40 amHe has probably been assaulting women for some time if he’s become this reckless about it. His wife can do as she pleases, but it’s no credit to her that she stands by this POS, or that his partisan allies claim it was a setup simply because they need it to be.
But what do I expect some hyperrich socialist to do? Stand by her elite leader husband like a good slave.
Dustin (c16eca) — 5/16/2011 @ 9:49 amGreetings:
I good job by the NYPD. That whole SVU television franchise would have been at risk.
11B40 (50ccd7) — 5/16/2011 @ 10:31 amHe does have a longstanding reputation as a flagrant “womanizer” whatever that means. Add the onset of dementia or treatment with some sort of dopamine agonist (for say, Parkinsons) and he might start acting up in unprecedented ways, however.
Still, I think this is a person with certain pathologies o personality that might be prone to taking liberties with other peoples things, and perhaps other people’s persons.
SarahW (af7312) — 5/16/2011 @ 10:34 amthe only thing i question is, why didn’t she just bite the hell out of him when he had it in her mouth?
Rorschach (c5574d) — 5/16/2011 @ 11:16 amit would be awful hard to claim it was consensual when they have to surgically reattach it… and i’m sure the blood loss would be pretty severe…
Rorschach (c5574d) — 5/16/2011 @ 11:19 amror
well i did always love the line in the shawshank redemption about how when you die you bite down.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 5/16/2011 @ 11:19 amThanks, Dustin, for answering Veronal for me. Obviously he didn’t see any sarcasm in my comment. Or how much she seems to be like Hillary was in a similar situation. I think I would have kept my mouth shut, until all the facts were in, even if I planned on staying with the jerk.
Good idea, Rorschach. Don’t think he would have been jetting off to France so quickly after that.
PatAZ (f79bea) — 5/16/2011 @ 11:35 am$3000 a night hotel.
$3,500 suit.
First class air travel.
Socialist.
“You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means…”
Comment by Have Blue — 5/16/2011 @ 9:12 am
The hell it doesn’t. Socialist has ALWAYS meant “A small political elite that live like Medici Princes at the expense of the rest of us.”, at least wherever Socialism has progressed beyond the drunken college students and revolutionary wannabes stage.
C. S. P. Schofield (8b1968) — 5/16/2011 @ 2:17 pmCSP
amen to that. 🙂 you can’t get rid of haves and have-nots. but you can change whether the winners are determined by the government or the marketplace.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 5/16/2011 @ 2:20 pmWhy didn’t he just offer her a lot of money and bill it to the IMF as room service like everyone else does?
dunce (b89258) — 5/16/2011 @ 2:32 pmAs I understand it, no. He’s not representing France, he’s representing the IMF, which means the person who would have to waive immunity, if it had attached in the first place, was…DSK! Fortunately, it didn’t attach because raping hotel housekeepers isn’t an official act of the IMF.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 5/16/2011 @ 2:35 pmA while back, a French female politician claimed that 3/5ths of all Englishmen were gay.
Now we are starting to get a clue regarding her standards of comparison.
SPQR (26be8b) — 5/16/2011 @ 2:37 pmRape a maid, rape a country, it’s all the same….
Rorschach (c5574d) — 5/16/2011 @ 3:01 pmGive the man a break. Remember how some of the NOW feminazis defended Bill Clinton’s abuse of Monica Lewinsky. Powerful men have strong sex drives. What old slut said she would have gladly fellated Bill herself because of all he did for womens’ rights?
A liberal acquaintance insisted a blow job is not sex. So I assumed that if she caught HER hubby getting a hum job it would be fine with her? No way, he’d be a dead prick, she insisted.
Really though, perhaps one of Dominique’s lower chakras needed adjustment and he was merely emulating Nobel laureate Algore?
And what became of those rumors that little zero himself was engaged in sodomy with other members of Rev. Wright’s congregation? I saw a picture of the zebra naked on a sofa with Hillary. Ok, it was a photoshop but so what? It might be happening now.
Calypso Louie Farrakhan (d36a3f) — 5/16/2011 @ 3:53 pmThat’s precisely the point, though. Powerful men do have strong sex drives, but they also have strong pulling power. They can get all they want or need without forcing anyone. Which is why this story, or the rape of Juanita Broadrick, is doubly wrong; with all the women banging down your door to bang you, why pick on the one who won’t?
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 5/16/2011 @ 4:11 pmAs I understand it, no. He’s not representing France, he’s representing the IMF, which means the person who would have to waive immunity, if it had attached in the first place, was…DSK!
My source for the Sarkozy tangent was an article in on the Atlantic website. However, the Atlantic’s search engine is too screwy to find the actual article for me today.
However, it did lead me to this (non Atlantic) post which covers the immunity angle:
kishnevi (9ee373) — 5/16/2011 @ 5:09 pmhttp://opiniojuris.org/2011/05/15/what-kind-of-immunity-does-the-imf-managing-director-have/
C. S. P. Schofield at 2:17 pm – It’s even worse than that as BfC staes in reply to me the commenter mistyped what the suits wee supposed to cost. They were not 3,500 dollars they were 35,000 dollars each.
Have Blue (854a6e) — 5/16/2011 @ 9:26 pmWhat exactly does one get when one rents a $3000/night hotel room that a $500/night doesn’t offer?
I’d expect Jeeves and a free quality computer as well as the little shampoo bottles.
Does the hotel offer free wifi or is that extra?
ErisGuy (c3c2b7) — 5/17/2011 @ 3:54 amSo is Jon Stewart going to mock us about this?
DohBiden (15aa57) — 5/17/2011 @ 4:51 ammoney for nothing, your chicks for free….
torabora (a3895b) — 5/17/2011 @ 6:20 amI wanted to thank you for this large interpret!! I unquestionably enjoying every little grain of it I prepare you bookmarked to substantiate unconfined hip stuff you post..
jordvarmeanlæg (d77ef1) — 5/22/2011 @ 6:58 amDSK’s current wife is freaking me out. She has a big career and loads of inherited money and status in her own right. He must be something else for her to want to be the great seducer’s protector and ATM machine. I can understand that maybe she yearned to be the first lady of France and was willing to overlook some of DSK’s well known, uh, character flaws to get there. But that dream is over. He’s not ever going to be the first dude of France.
elissa (d37c7c) — 5/22/2011 @ 7:26 amDude the ultimate schadenfreude would be if he got AIDS from the women he raped.
DohBiden (15aa57) — 5/22/2011 @ 8:21 am