IMF Chief seeks Bailout following Rape Charge in New York

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   theirishobserver.posted 12 years ago

   The head of the IMF  Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been charged with a criminal sexual act,attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment in an alleged sexual assault of a hotel maid in New York City, police said.
   
   Mr Strauss-Kahn is expected to be brought before a state court judge later today. His attorney, Benjamin Brafman, said he "will plead not guilty."
   
   Mr Strauss-Kahn, a key player in the world's response to the 2007-09 financial meltdown and in Europe's ongoing debt crisis, was removed from an Air France plane ten minutes before it was to take off for Paris from John F Kennedy International Airport in New York police spokesman Paul Browne said.
   
   A 32-year-old maid filed a sexual assault complaint after fleeing the $3,000-a-night hotel suite at the Sofitel in Times Square where the alleged incident occurred yesterday afternoon, Browne said.
   
   Mr Strauss-Kahn (62) who has been considered a possible Socialist Party candidate in the French presidential election in April and May 2012, appeared to have fled the hotel after the incident, the police spokesman said.
   
   Mr Browne gave reporters an account of events which led to the state charges against Mr Strauss-Kahn. "She told detectives he came out of the bathroom naked, ran down a hallway to the foyer where she was, pulled her into a bedroom and began to sexually assault her, according to her account."
   
   "She pulled away from him and he dragged her down a hallway into the bathroom where he engaged in a criminal sexual act, according to her account to detectives. He tried to lock her into the hotel room," he added.
   
   Mr Browne said Mr Strauss-Kahn does not have diplomatic immunity.
   
   The news rocked France, where latest opinion polls ranked MrStrauss-Kahn, the front-runner for the presidential election next April and May. Marine Le Pen, head of the far-right National Front, said her rival's hopes were crushed.
   
   The IMF declined to comment and IMF board officials told Reuters they had not been informed officially of the incident.
   
   Renaud Muselier, a member of conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party, said: "It's a disaster for our country and France's image because he is the head of the IMF and it completely changes the cards for the presidential election."
   
   The allegation will be a major worldwide embarrassment to the IMF, which has authorized billions of dollars in lending programs to troubled countries and has played a major role in the euro zone debt crisis.
   
   It follows the announcement on Thursday the IMF's No. 2 official, John Lipsky, plans to step down in August when his term ends.
   
   The IMF managing director has yet to say whether he will run for president, although French opinion polls put him as a clear winner over conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy if the two faced off in an election.
   
   "The NYPD realized he had fled, he had left his cell phone behind," Mr Browne said. "We learned he was on an Air France plane. They held the plane and he was taken off and is now being held in police custody for questioning."
   
   He was taken to the police department's Special Victims office in Manhattan.
   
   The woman, who has not been named, "was brought by EMS (emergency medical services) to the Roosevelt Hospital, where she was treated for minor injuries," Mr Browne said.
   
   Mr Strauss-Kahn was on his way to Europe for a meeting today with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss the European debt crisis and then was to attend a euro zone finance ministers meeting in Brussels tomorrow.
   
   Mr Strauss-Kahn took over the International Monetary Fund in November 2007 for a five-year term scheduled to end next year.
   
   Before that, he was a French finance minister, member of the French National Assembly and a professor of economics at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris.
   
   The IMF declined to comment and IMF board officials told Reuters they had not been informed officially of the incident.
   
   Mr Strauss-Kahn has faced controversy before. In October 2008, he apologized for "an error of judgment" for an affair with a female IMF economist who was his subordinate. An inquiry cleared him of harassment and abuse of power, although he was warned by the fund's board of member countries against further improper conduct.
   
   He apologized to the woman, Piroska Nagy, and his wife, French television personality Anne Sinclair, as well as to IMF employees for the trouble he had caused.
   
   Since taking over the IMF, he has won plaudits for putting the fund, the world's main overseer of the global economic system, at the center of global efforts to cope with the financial meltdown of 2007-09.
   
   Mr Strauss-Kahn introduced sweeping changes at the global institution to ensure that countries swamped by the financial collapse had access to emergency loans. He was pivotal in brokering a bailout program for Iceland, Hungary, Greece, Ireland, and recently Portugal.
   
   He has also overseen internal changes that have given emerging market countries, such as China, India and Brazil, greater voting power in the institution, and weighed into thornier issues by urging China to allow its currency to rise in value in a dispute with the United States.
   
   Based in Washington at the IMF's headquarters, Mr Strauss-Kahn has continued to spend a lot of time in France, fanning speculation he was considering re-entering politics as a presidential candidate.
   
   Lipsky's planned departure and now Mr Strauss-Kahn's detention raises questions about a possible leadership vacuum should the IMF chief be charged by U.S. authorities or face possible discipline by the IMF board.

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2. 61

   Moderndayslaveposted 12 years ago

   We will see soon if our justice system will work as designed or money and power permits you to do as you please.

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3. 61

   theirishobserver.posted 12 years ago

   I would agree with those sentiments

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   Moderndayslaveposted 12 years ago

   "Justice is Blind" but it knows what a bunch of coins sounds like.

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   Stacie Lposted 12 years ago

   unfortunately men in power think they are above the law...we'll see how this plays out..

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   knolyourselfposted 12 years ago

   Considering that this guy was probably to be a candidate for the French presidency, don't think a frame-up should be discounted.

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      lovemychrisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf … e28103.htm

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         zampanoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         It is somewhat comforting to find someone in this thread who concedes the benefit of doubt to this affair among all the "opinions" of those who "know" where the truth is, like the virtuous in religious threads.
         There is all the same a chance that the man was set up.
         And that probability is considerable.
         Or else, the man is seriousely ill.
         I just think we should see more of the victim.

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      hottopicsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Here come the conspiracy theories. I guess someone held a gun to his head and told him to run naked down the hallway. Lock him up and throw away the key.

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         zampanoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         
         I advise you to change your HubScore quickly.
         You could be charged on that in case someone decided to elaborate a story on it.
         

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            hottopicsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Wow, that was an intellegent response to the topic. My score is what it is because I do not live on Hubpages 24-7 like people who are over 90. Seems I have a life. By the way, I am not religious, I do not believe in God. So much for a religious thread. You get on other Hubbers about posting facts not opinions. People in glass houses, well you know the rest.

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               cheaptrickposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Hey,wait a minute now!I've consistently been over ninety and I DON'T live here either!Content does have a small impact ya know!

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7. 61

   theirishobserver.posted 12 years ago

   No conspiracy, he has been getting away with a great deal for a long time
   
   1967: married Hélène Dumas
   
   1984: married Brigitte Guillemette
   
   1991: married Anne Sinclair, star political interviewer of Sept Sur Sept, a programme on top French TV channel TF1. She gave up her post when he became finance minister in 1997.
   
   2007: After he IMF managing director in 2007, Jean Quatremer, a journalist at Libération, wrote: "The only real problem for Strauss-Kahn, is his relation to women. Too forward, he often brushes with harassment. It is a problem known to the media but that nobody talks about (we are in France)." Frederic Lefebvre, an adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy, claimed shortly afterwards in a biography that Mr Strauss-Kahn "wouldn't last a week" if he entered a presidential election, due to the weight of damaging allegations that would emerge.
   
   Mr Lefebvre claimed to have seen photographs showing Mr Strauss-Kahn leaving La Chandelle, a popular Parisian wife-swapping club, and said they would be circulated if Mr Strauss-Kahn entered an election.
   
   Related Articles
   Dominique Strauss-Kahn profile
   15 May 2011
   Allies concede Dominique Strauss-Kahn's political career is over
   15 May 2011
   Strauss-Kahn 'does not have diplomatic immunity'
   15 May 2011
   IMF chief charged over 'sex attack'
   15 May 2011
   Tristane Banon, a writer, claims she had to fend Mr Strauss-Kahn off with kicks and punches when he invited her to a meeting in a room furnished with a double bed and a television. He said he went at her "like a chimpanzee on heat" during the alleged incident in 2002.
   
   Her husband, a Socialist politician, said she spoke to DSK about it and he said: "I don't know what came over me, I lost the plot."
   
   2008: DSK is forced to apologise publicly to IMF employees and his wife for the trouble caused by his affair with Mrs Piroska Nagy, a Hungarian subordinate in the international organisation.
   
   The IMF board called it "a serious error of judgment," but ruled he had not abused his position. Mrs Piroska Nagy later declared: "I believe that man has a problem." Aurélie Filipetti, a Socialist MP, told Le Temps that she had once been the object of a "very heavy-handed flirt" by DSK. "I made sure I was not alone with him in a closed room," she said.
   
   Danielle Evenou, a French actress and wife of a former Socialist minister, said on French radio: "Who hasn't been cornered by Dominique Strauss-Kahn?"
   
   2010: Release of The Secret of a Presidential Contender, written by a woman hidden under the pseudonym Cassandre, who was said to be one of his female aides. It cites "rumours of multiple extramarital liaisons beyond the one he confessed to with an IMF employee in 2008." In her book, the author writes: "Like all great political animals, he has trouble controlling himself." The French press quote President Nicolas Sarkozy as warning DSK before his Washington appointment, saying: "You know, over there they don't joke about this sort of thing. Your life will be passed under a magnifying glass. Avoid taking the lift alone with interns. France cannot permit a scandal."
   
   May 2011: DSK arrested and charged with sexual assault on a New York hotel maid.

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8. 61

   theirishobserver.posted 12 years ago

   Well done New York Cops

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9. 63

   Daniel Carterposted 12 years ago

   He's being held without bail, last I read.
   He's considered dangerous, and has a history, hence the apparent "no mercy" approach.
   
   I'm glad he slit his political throat in the process. I'm a bit sorry for his wife, although it does beg the question of her need to dig for his gold, power and influence. Might be a marriage made in heaven, for all we know...

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10. 65

    Ralph Deedsposted 12 years ago

    Maybe they should send him to Gitmo and put him before a Military Commission.

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       Moderndayslaveposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Most likely protected custody but he's in Rikers Island. GITMO would be club med.

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          DannyMaioposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          That is the TRUTH! especially now that Obama has stopped the interrogating!

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    AnnCeeposted 12 years ago

    I certainly appreciate your perspective on this, Irish.  You in Europe are more familiar with this man than we are.
    
    How did the meeting with the president go?

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    AnnCeeposted 12 years ago

    Pat Buchanan on the sex scandal surrounding IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn: "I will tell you. Look, you have the Charlie Sheen of global finance running the IMF. The seriousness of it is this: He is dead as a presidential candidate in France. Good news for Sarkozy, he's out of the IMF, but more important, this is going to bring a focus on the IMF, which through the back door has been putting the American taxpayers on the hook to bail out Greece and Ireland and those European countries which are in fact bailouts of those European banks. And Ron Paul is right on top of this, and, Joe, I see this as bringing the IMF, at this critical point, when the bailouts in Europe are in big trouble, it is put a limelight on the one institution other than the European Central Bank, which is bailing out these European countries and banks."
    
    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/ … order.html

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    cheaptrickposted 12 years ago

    Y'all shouldn't be to"Hard on"this guy.After all,he's just doing to her what his organisation does to entire countries...It's just habitual with guys like him.
    On the TV show"The View"they mentioned sodomy,if that's true it makes even more sense.He probably mistook her for a small defenceless country and did what the IMF always does to small defenceless countries.

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       AnnCeeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       EXACTLY right, Cheap.

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       dutchman1951posted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Cheap, this was a human being that was attacked, overpowerd and raped
       
       the analogy is funny, yes, but what about this women who did not ask for that?

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          cheaptrickposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Bad things happen to good people.This ones no different than the thousands of rapes that occur every day,it just happens to be Right in our Face..Ive done a bit more research on this and I'm not so sure anymore.I have some small amounts of hard silver investments that have literally sky rocketed in value the last couple of years[bought in at $14,is now at $47 per ounce].Every investment broker I trust has said"When you here the world reserve currency is about to change,the collapse of Our economy will be right around the corner".If Khan really was trying to do that,I dare say the powers that be could pull off any frame up they want...and back it up with manufactured facts.Remember,Sensationalism is much more effective in pissing people off than cold hard facts...I'm not so sure anymore if it was a setup or not.

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    lovemychrisposted 12 years ago

    "Strauss-Kahn was trying to move the bank in a more positive direction, a direction that didn't require that countries leave their economies open to the ravages of foreign capital that moves in swiftly--pushing up prices and creating bubbles--and departs just as fast, leaving behind the scourge of high unemployment, plunging demand, hobbled industries, and deep recession."
    
    ****
    The Cult would NEVER let him do that.
    You are right Knoly---there is something to think about here.

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       Mister Veritisposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       
       Written by socialists for socialists...
       
       C,mon now. Admit it. The socialists in power want the money but do not want to medicine that ought to go along with it. This is just one more way the left has been defunding the American taxpayer.

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    AnnCeeposted 12 years ago

    http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/146663/2 … s-rape.htm
    
    Tuesday, May 17, 2011 3:35 AM GMT
    Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexual assault charges brings previous sex scandals into focus
    
    By Nathan Spear
    
    Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, was refused release on bail on charges of attempting to rape a hotel maid because he is considered a "flight risk."  As this allegation emerged, prosecutors are working to verify similar previous incident reports on sex charges against him.
    
    Although Strauss-Kahn's attorneys claimed his innocence of the charges against him, they failed in a bid for the bail. In France, his story is said to be more dramatic than the movies being exhibited at Cannes. Strauss-Kahn's weekend arrest has left the IMF in disarray and moreover, it may almost certainly end his presidential hopes.  Strauss-Kahn was expected to pose a serious challenge to Nicolas Sarkozy's re-election bid in the 2012 French presidential election.
    
    This is not the first time Strauss-Kahn is caught up in a sex scandal.  In France, a lawyer said his client, a novelist, is likely to file a criminal complaint accusing the IMF chief of sexually assaulting her nine years ago.  A French lawmaker has also accused him of attacking other maids during previous stays at the Sofitel luxury hotel in New York.   
    
    According to the latest victim, a 32 year old maid, when she entered Strauss-Kahn's $3000 per night suite, thinking it was empty, Strauss-Kahn, naked, came out suddenly from the bathroom and chased her before violently groping her breasts, tearing off her bra and pantyhose, and then forced her to perform oral sex.  The maid struggled and was able to break free and escaped with minor injuries.  She then reported the sexual assault to the hotel management who in turn alerted the police.
    
    Defense  attorney Benjamin Brafman defended Strauss-Kahn saying that his client voluntarily worked with the authorities in a forensic examination.  There is also testimony that Strauss-Kahn was not trying to flee the scene before the police arrived.  Rather he was rushing to catch a booked Air France flight to Paris, because he was late.  Brafman also said that Strauss-Kahn had told the authorities of his whereabouts at the airport after the hotel security called him. Strauss-Kahn was arrested in Air France's first class cabin right before the plane was taking off to Paris.
    
    The prosecutors requested the court to deny Strauss-Kahn bail suggesting that he was a "flight risk," because  he would make a flee to France to avoid extradition.  France does not have any extradition treaty with the US.
    
    The allegations and photos of a handcuffed Strauss-Kahn has left France in shock.  Supporters such as the Socialist party leader Martine Aubry described the event as "profoundly humiliating and were of unbearable cruelty."  Environment minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet commented "It's so French to see conspiracies everywhere, it's something in our culture I think."
    
    Supporters of Strauss-Kahn are denouncing the recent turn of events, suspecting his rivals to have conspired a smear campaign to foil his presidential bid next year.

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    knolyourselfposted 12 years ago

    "Here come the conspiracy theories." Conspiracy or not, one at least should know who this guy is.
    http://www.counterpunch.org/baker05172011.html

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    theirishobserver.posted 12 years ago

    Lets wait and see

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    lovemychrisposted 12 years ago

    "This looks like a set up honey-trap."
    
    "Agreed, these people do this and far worse every day of the week. When one gets caught, it's a set up.
    
    If a maid had really complained in this way about a man like this, she'd take a dive from the roof."

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    logic,commonsenseposted 12 years ago

    He put himself in the situation of his own free horndog will.  If you want to ride the ride, you have to pay the price.

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    knolyourselfposted 12 years ago

    "Dominique Strauss-Kahn Was Tying to Torpedo the Dollar"
    
    http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf … e28135.htm

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    Reality Bytesposted 12 years ago

    I hope they place him in general population once he is convicted.
    
    Street justice will take care of the rest.

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       zampanoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Yeah !
       What are justice courts for, afterall ? They cost money while the street has such cheap means of taking care of law's application.
       Hang him !
       BTW : Don't forget his wife. She could be an accomplice.
       Ah! And the daughter too.
       
       It'd be a pitty if the grand jury was composed of such yokels...

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          Reality Bytesposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          To keep the labor camps full of employees (Prison System)!
          
          They also are very good at confiscating wealth from the people.

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    theirishobserver.posted 12 years ago

    Honey Trap - What? Just because there are bears in the forest does not mean that we all have to strip off and eat honey

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    theirishobserver.posted 12 years ago

    Judge and Jury must make the call

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