When Dominique Strauss-Kahn stepped out of the shower in his $3,000 a night suite at the Sofitel Hotel in New York one year ago May 14, he was fully on track to become the next President of France. As head of the International Monetary Fund he was now on his way meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel with a secret plan to avert the Greek default. He was nearly 20 points ahead of his rival President Nicolas Sarkozy in the public opinion polls. He had planned to announce his candidacy on June 15th, he told me when I interviewed him last month. He was confident, perhaps overconfident, he could not be stopped, expecting to be nominated by his Socialist Party, and then defeat Sarkozy.
These well-laid plans, as the whole world knows now, went astray moments after he stepped out of the bathroom naked and encountered a statuesque maid. The liaison that followed in the next seven minutes is currently the subject of a civil suit filed by that maid, Nafissatou Diallo, who claims he forced her to twice have oral sex; DSK claims that the sex was offered and consensual.
Four hours later he was arrested at JFK airport (after calling the Sofitel and reporting his location so it could return a missing cell phone). In their rush to judgment, and after receiving information from an unidentified official in Paris, the prosecutors moved to deny DSK bail before they had gathered critical evidence, including key swipe and cell phone records. As a result, he was paraded before the cameras in a humiliating "perp walk," imprisoned in the Rikers Island jail for four days, placed on suicide watch, and then put under house arrest for more than a month. By this time, his presidential ambitions had been effectively destroyed.
Only one month after this spectacle, in late June, after the prosecutors got the key swipe records, did it become clear to them that Diallo, the only witness against DSK, had given false testimony under oath to the Grand Jury about the case itself. So the Grand Jury had indicted him on testimony from a single witness that was untrue. The prosecutors found her "credibility cannot stand the most basic evaluation" and that "the nature and number of [Diallo's] falsehoods leave us unable to credit her version of events beyond a reasonable doubt." They further concluded that the medical evidence not only did not "prove or corroborate that their encounter was forcible or non-consensual," but it fails to corroborate certain aspects of [Diallo's] account." In an almost unprecedented move in a high profile case, the district attorney dropped all the charges.
When I met with DSK in Paris this April, he could not easily accept that the destruction of his political career was merely the result of false testimony. By now he had considerable reason to believe that he had been under surveillance by his political opponents. This suspicion is consistent with the conclusion of investigative journalists Didier Hassoux, Christophe Labbé, and Olivia Recasens, who interviewed member of the French intelligence services DCRI for their 2012 book, The President's Spy. They report that the DCRI not only had made DSK a target but also set up a "special group" that liased directly with Sarkozy's Élysée Palace. If so, DSK was likely being watched on his U.S. trip that May. It would then be possible for these operatives, and their superiors in Paris, to use whatever happened at the Sofitel to ruin his presidential ambitions.
There certainly were curious happening in that hotel suite, including reported interceptions of his emails, a missing Blackberry phone, and at least one unidentified person using someone else's key cart to enter his room just prior to his arrival. The suite had also been used for sexual liaisons before he checked in. The police lab analysis of the DNA evidence found precisely where Diallo said the attack occurred, revealing other stains there with DNA from at least seven other "unknown individuals. One stain visible in the carpeting contained a mixture of saliva and semen from three different people. Since no complaint was filed, these were presumable consensual liaisons.
Even if all the mysteries of the presidential suite have not been solved, it is now abundantly clear that if the district attorney's office had gathered more evidence before they arrested and imprisoned DSK, the outcome of the French election might well have ad a different victor. But DSK's enemy Sarkozy has not emerged triumphant. The ending here is more like a Shakespearean revenge tragedy in which, as the plot unfolds, everyone involved is ruined.
Edward Jay Epstein is the author of Three Days In May: Sex, Surveillance and DSK.
I beleive it's a frame up ! a politic frame up !
he was, (and he is) the best to become our president ! ... So much people were jalous about him ! he is very clever ! I can't beleive Nafissatou's story how she told to the police, journalist and other people ! I think somebody push her to lie about Mr Strauss Kahn !
It's really unfair ! We are lot of people in France to support him, even if journalist are odious with him !!
We would have been very happy if Mr Strauss Kahn was become our president !!! he is the best !!!!
I can't beleive all these crazy stories ? it's really politics and surely other people who win and want to win lots of money ! it's a shame !
And what about the sofitel ? not clear ! too strange !!
this story is too big to be true ! ... Too much liers even in France ! ...
All my support to Mr Strauss Kahn ! :-))
I agree completely
Sure and certain that one day the truth will triumph and DSK will have the place which belongs to him in the French political space.
I hope to him all the best.
I hope, I wish, I would like, I want Mr strauss Kahn come back "in the French political space" as you said !
Nice to read you
Perhaps it is true that Diallo's false testimony put an end to DSK's political ambitions. In that case we in France owe her a debt of gratitude. We're better off with Mr Normal.
Maybe you are right that a blackmailing issue could have been a huge problem, but I don't think so. I think that one at the Elysées the security would have been enough.
But this is passé.
Now the real question is : who has the brain to deal with the situation of Europe today.
The answer is obvious : at the moment, none of this who are in charge.
He was in charge, he has the brain, who does not want an issue for Europe ?
Further, you lose credibility in reciting the $3000 a night suite price -- that may be the list price, but he had an upgrade. And finally, while beauty is in the eye of the beholder the chambermaid in this case is hardly "statuesque" and not the kind of woman one would hire as irresistible to male lust.
Finally all conspiracy theories vastly overestimate the ability of the putative conspirators to pull off complex plans flawlessly and not get caught or be tempted to brag.
No, in this DSK fiasco, the most probable explanation is simply that once again an intelligent man's little head took over all his thinking for a moment.
The technique used here is simply the same the Soviets and the Nazis used to convince their population that they were telling the truth.
When you hammer every single day in the people's mind that you neighbor is different, nasty, or drinking the blood of young virgins, and that this neighbor cannot answer, then you build a "common knowledge".
The lay is supposed to be the same for everyone : innocent until proven guilty. In his case, he is considered guilty since the 14th of may 2011, and without any trial, is executed every single morning,
This is not justice.
And were I a French citizen, even if the facts are as DSK says they are, I wouldn't vote for him.
She has no credibility at all. Charges were dropped. Seems pretty simple to me. Except that an innocent man's future electoral chances were ruined by a maid who was out to extort money.
9:50am
NYC
I thought as much when the news first broke.