3470 So, will anyone apologize to the hotel maid?

Thursday, February 24, 2012

Competent leaders have always understood the crucial difference
between public proclamations and private bargains.
-- Stephen Jay Gould --

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Remember Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, the guy who planned to run for President of France, but was derailed when the NYC hotel maid accused him of rape? Remember how the case was dropped when the maid's veracity was questioned? Remember when a woman couldn't charge rape without two witnesses? Remember when she had to have a spotless reputation to be taken seriously, and even then the charges were dropped if she didn't have two black eyes and a broken leg? Oops, sorry, I got sidetracked a little there. Back to Strauss-Kahn.

From today's Bloomberg article in the San Francisco Chronicle:

French builder Eiffage SA filed an embezzlement complaint after an internal probe found an employee spent as much as 50,000 euros ($66,000) to pay for women to travel as far as Washington to have sex with Strauss-Kahn.

Investigators are trying to determine whether Strauss-Kahn knew corporate money was used to pay the women and whether he played an active role organizing sex parties he allegedly attended, or knew the women attending were prostitutes.

Prostitution and paying for sex are legal in France, while procuring prostitutes for someone else isn't

Strauss-Kahn was also questioned by agents charged with internal investigations of the French police regarding his ties to a regional police chief indicted in the affair.

Strauss-Kahn has denied wrongdoing in relation to the investigation and said in a Nov. 11 statement from his lawyers that he wanted to be questioned, "to put an end to the dangerous and spiteful insinuations" in the media.

"A lot of other people associated with this affair have been indicted," Mesnooh said. "Their links were a little more direct perhaps than the links of Mr. Strauss-Kahn with the prostitution side and the abuse of corporate assets side."

I don't know how he expects to get out of this one. It's not lowly women complaining this time, others will testify to his presence at the parties and to hotel trysts, he had to know the women were prostitutes, and he had to know someone else paid for them.

Of course, he might be one of those unfortunately too common men who regard ALL women as prostitutes or potential prostitutes, just that some are cheaper than others. Like "free" hotel maids.
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