This is happening fast:
Dominique Strauss-Kahn was released from house arrest on Friday as the sexual assault case against him moved one step closer to dismissal after prosecutors told a Manhattan judge that they had serious problems with the case.
Prosecutors acknowledged that there were significant credibility issues with the hotel housekeeper who accused Mr. Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her in May. In a brief hearing at State Supreme Court in Manhattan, prosecutors did not oppose his release; the judge then freed Mr. Strauss-Kahn on his own recognizance.
The development represented a stunning reversal in a case that reshaped the French political landscape and sparked debate about morals, the treatment of women and the American justice system. Prosecutors said they still believed Mr. Strauss-Kahn had forced the woman into sex, but that inconsistencies in her past and account of the moments following the incident could make it hard for jurors to believe her.
So basically, I guess this means they still think he raped her but she is making it impossible for them to prove it. What does her past have to do with anything, though? I can understand inconsistencies regarding the actual assault being problematic, but who cares if she lies about everything up to 5 minutes before she was allegedly attacked? What does that have to do with anything?
Trollenschlongen (formerly Tim, Interrupted)
Don’t believe everything prosecutors or cops say.
Once a “case” gets rolling, it seems to be as much about covering their own asses as it is about seeing justice done whether there was actually a crime or not.
How weak is it to say “we still think he did it” while on the other hand saying “his accuser is so full of shit that our case is unprovable.”
It seems obvious there is nothing to go on but her word. And her word, given her past as a con artist, is worth nothing.
TG Chicago
My first thought was similar: while the new info puts the defendant in a worse light, there is still no reason to think she’d falsely accuse him of rape. The only plausible explanation I’d heard was that it was a conspiracy to take him down, but that wasn’t terribly plausible. So why would she lie about being raped?
Then I thought: what if she thought the act was a fee-for-service deal? Either she figured it was implicit and he didn’t realize it or he reneged on an agreement. Then she was mad, so she accused him of rape without thinking about how unwise that was for her.
I’m just trying to figure out why the case seems to be collapsing so quickly when the new evidence doesn’t (to my mind) actually speak to the facts of the case as we know them. Yeah, it makes her look a bit unsavory, but sometimes unsavory people are victims of crime, too.
(ETA: Probably I’m just being overly idealistic, thinking that prosecutors wouldn’t drop a case against a guy they believed to be guilty just because the victim was less than wonderful.)
Suzan
It doesn’t matter that she is a known liar? Would you believe anything Sarah Palin said? Of course it matters. Rape is difficult to defend against and while I think rape victims are often treated unfairly for insignificant reasons, being a known liar is reason to question her veracity unless there is other persuasive evidence.
Corner Stone
Doesn’t matter what the truth is anymore. No one will ever find it.
HT from TalkLeft
Derf
If you took the time to read the details of her past you will find she has about as much credibility on accusing someone of rape with no witnesses to any of it, as John Galt Cole has credibility on foreign affairs…domestic affairs….pretty much all politics in general really.
I gotta laugh at the morons around here threatening to filter out posts (cue the scary music). They don’t like reality so they would rather filter it and live in John Galt Coles reality. The reality where all war is all bad and never ever an option (not even as a deterrent)and should all just end today. A world where some libertarians have good ideas so we should just ignore the really crazy parts. Kinda like bible thumpers ignore the bad parts such as where it says it’s ok to beat your wife and sell your daughter into slavery.
It’s a fuked up world inside whatever passes for John Galt Cole’s brain.
But the best part about these reality filter (cue scary music) threateners is that they are full of shit and won’t do it but now they cannot post as themselves when they want to respond. See, they lack any kind of foresight whatsoever. So now you get all these brand new handles posting “you’re a poopy face” responses with detailed chronological knowledge of totally useless info about what some shit disturber said to some John Galt Cole groupie 4 weeks ago on this backwoods swamp piece of shit blog of his.
Fukin hilarious shit.
TG Chicago
@Suzan
But there has to be a reason why she lied. I mean, as far as I can tell, DSK’s story is that (a) they had consensual sex and (b) she then decided to falsely claim rape. But (a) seems implausible and I’m not seeing the motive for (b).
So that’s why the evidence that she’s a liar doesn’t sway me all that much. Unless you’re willing to believe that she just suddenly couldn’t resist un petit dsk, then something illegal had to be happening in that room. What was it?
harlana
Nothing other than it brings into question whether she was lying about being raped, it damages her credibility significantly.
Tom in TN
The whole case seems to turn on consensual versus non-consensual. It would then come down to he-said/she-said testimony, and the jury would be left to their own devices to figure out whom to believe.
These guys have tried enough cases to know that they’re not likely to get a guilty verdict, given the circumstances. Rather than dragging everyone through a trial they’re pretty sure they’ll lose, it’s simpler just to drop the case.
Regardless of whether they think he’s actually guilty, if they can’t prove it beyond any reasonable doubt, he walks.
brettvk
To me, it feels like DSK was lucky enough to rape a woman who has some criminal connections. That, combined with her race, class, nationality and religion render her attacker justice-proof. The obvious conclusion is, she was blackly/poorly/alienly/criminally/muslimly asking for it and deserved to be raped.
Chyron HR
@Fred Fredburger:
Well, we can’t all have wooed the Moon Princess like you did, Baron.
jheartney
The standard for conviction in a criminal case is “beyond a reasonable doubt.” To the extent that a rape case is dependent upon the credibility of the victim, revelations that the victim has been dishonest in the past may create a reasonable doubt.
Add to that the fact that the defendant is a very substantial person both politically and financially, and you create a pretty high bar for the victim if the case relies on a jury believing her rather than him. (Perhaps unfair, but that’s the reality of it).
I know very little of the specifics of the case, so I have no idea if the prosecutors were wrong to bring the charge or wrong to drop it so quickly. (Though the fact that judge set no bail is kind of a tell here.) But I can see why credibility problems on the part of the victim could be fatal to the case.
Nutella
Because they don’t think they can win the case. People on juries, and people in general, really want to believe that ‘bad girls’ can’t be raped.
We know they can be raped and this chambermaid very likely was, but DSK’s expensive lawyers would have destroyed her on the witness stand.
I can’t say the prosecutors are wrong to do this but DSK is (almost certainly, based on what we’ve learned) a filthy and disgusting violent criminal who is getting away with his crime. Sometimes that happens when a case can’t be won.
Brain Hertz
Derf,
Please check your meds. WTF was that rambling rant supposed to be about?
JordanRules
Why do you come here Fred? Seriously? You found out he voted for Bush twice and seriously lost your ish?? What gives? We are a big tent FWIW.
My hard-working black stepmother voted for Bush twice too over abortion and she’s now a staunch Obama supporter. Shall we purge her from the party too? Would you like her info so you can stalk her?
Your purity schtick is no better than firebaggers and I find it hilarious that you go to BWD’s blog and act all innocent as if you haven’t stirred the d*mn race pot up over here.
Either contribute to this democratic space or find another one, but your obsession with Cole is getting downright creepy. Kick rocks.
burnspbesq
@ Brain Hertz:
The pharma industry hasn’t come up with any drug that can fix what’s wrong with ol’ Derfie.
Amir_Khalid
Lying about her past would seriously weaken her credibility. Especially since one of those lies was a false claim that she had been raped. $100
She admits lying about, rather than just misremembering, what happened right after the incident with Strauss-Kahn. She also admits talking to an imprisoned man about how she might gain from accusing Strauss-Kahn. Taken together, these admissions could allow a defense lawyer to suggest that she invented the allegation for profit.
To salvage the case, the prosecution would then need to have her testimony corroborated either by physical evidence or by other witnesses. Plus
trollhattan
Near as I can tell, serial banee pissed about being serially banned. Perhaps can start a club with the BOB and beat each other with it.
As to Frenchie, he could be anything from a rapist to somebody trapped in a honeypot. I’ll leave that to the D.A., who ends up looking like a real schmuck here. A poorly, poorly done investigation.
burnspbesq
Subway Series time. Y’all will have to deal with ol’ Derfie without my help. Treat him with the same respect that Dalton showed to Brad Wesley.
Brain Hertz
Somehow I think we haven’t heard everything yet. Looking at all the reports that are around, there just looks to be something significant missing that we haven’t seen.
Edit: not sure why the blockquote isn’t appearing properly. It’s around the second paragraph too.
KS
I can’t remember where I saw this, but basically, when it comes down to a rape accusation that is “he said, she said,” it basically comes down to whom a jury believes.
In addition, she didn’t just lie, she lied about a previous rape that may or may not have happened to her in her home country. Because we have a criminal justice system that requires guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
So when you tell a jury, “this woman not only is a liar, but she has previously lied about being raped,” what will they think? They may think DSK is a creep, but there’s no way that they’ll send him to prison for a dozen years on the word of a woman who previously cried rape.
That’s the problem with being the boy who cried wolf. If the wolf ever does come, nobody gives a shit and you end up being torn to shreds.
KS
I can’t remember where I saw this, but basically, when it comes down to a rape accusation that is “he said, she said,” it comes down to whom a jury believes.
In addition, she didn’t just lie, she lied about a previous rape that may or may not have happened to her in her home country. Because we have a criminal justice system that requires guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
So when you tell a jury, “this woman not only is a liar, but she has previously lied about being raped,” what will they think? They may think DSK is a creep, but there’s no way that they’ll send him to prison for a dozen years on the word of a woman who previously cried rape.
That’s the problem with being the boy who cried wolf. If the wolf ever does come, nobody gives a shit and you end up being torn to shreds.
Tonal Crow
A person who lies constantly (e.g., Sarah Palin) is more likely to continue lying than a person who generally tells the truth. Being as the entire rape case appears to be based upon the housekeeper’s assertion that she did not consent to sex, how can it be irrelevant that she may have lied about other things, and especially that she may have lied to the people investigating the case?
Also the defendant has a 5th and 6th Amendment right to all exculpatory evidence.
That said, I’m nauseated by the amount of trolling through a person’s life that occurs when she alleges some crime (such as rape) for which credibility becomes a central factor because harder forensic evidence cannot usually prove all the elements.
jheartney
Brain Hertz
You have to put separate blockquote tags for each paragraph. PITA.
Sapient
Nutella: “I can’t say the prosecutors are wrong to do this but DSK is (almost certainly, based on what we’ve learned) a filthy and disgusting violent criminal who is getting away with his crime. Sometimes that happens when a case can’t be won.”
Okay, then. Innocent until proven guilty? The prosecutor was right to bring the case, and will be right to drop the case if it turns out his evidence isn’t credible. His evidence was (is) his witness who, as a proven serial liar, isn’t credible.
Anniecat45
I’ve worked in the legal system for 26 years, including stints in criminal law and civil trial work.
The credibility of a witness ALWAYS matters, and it’s pretty normal to distrust somebody’s testimony on all issues if you can prove they have lied on one major point, In California there’s even a jury instruction about this that’s actually fairly generous, something like “a witness found to have been untruthful in one instance may be mistrusted in other instances.” This applies to white, native-born citizens as well as minorities; when I was at the civil firm, we had to drop several civil cases because we found out the plaintiffs (who were white, native-born American citizens) lied about something major that related to the cases.
I hope somebody investigates further and tries to find out what was going on with the complaining witness in the DSK case.
she's crafty
She doesn’t make a good witness if her credibility can be impeached through admissions of lying about things not related to the rape. If the prosecutors can’t get a jury to believe the complaining witness — and that’s a difficult thing to do in any rape prosecution given juror biases, even when there are admissions by the defendant and witnesses and videotape — they can’t ethically go forward with the case.
And DSK can afford the best lawyers out there, not overloaded public defenders.
It doesn’t mean she wasn’t raped, and it doesn’t mean that he’s not guilty. It means that prosecutors have made the decision that they can’t get a conviction.
Trentrunner
According to her lawyer, the medical reports showed her vagina was bruised by DSK’s grabbing it, and her shoulder ligament was injured by DSK’s shoving her.
DSK is one sexy, sexy powerful man to be able to do all that during a hot consensual encounter. And good news, ladies–he’s married!
Comrade Mary
Some people can’t handle a simple two-four on Canada Day.
Antonius
Fix = In. But whose fix? On which side of the equation? He could easily have been set up, she could easily have been paid to destroy her own (scant) credibility in this case. We’re not going to find out.
Tonal Crow
On a related note, prosecutors should never be allowed to trumpet their cases to the media. It prejudices potential jurors and judges, inflames the public at large, and creates social pressure to convict.
she's crafty
I hope somebody investigates further and tries to find out what was going on with the complaining witness in the DSK case.
Most likely, a mistrust of authority, given that she was from a country where the authorities engage in violence and she also probably didn’t trust the NYPD given that her relatives had been jailed.
Corner Stone
@Nutella
I’m sorry. I missed where he had a chance to face his accusers and rebut their sworn testimony.
nancydarling
I’m wondering how well she speaks English. I don’t have to wonder how terrified she must be. She has very powerful forces arrayed against her. Whether it goes to trial or not, she is being chewed up into little pieces. I also don’t see the relevance of the rape/not rape in her home country. Rape is very common in many African countries and is seldom prosecuted.
Elizabelle
Any bets on how quickly the housekeeper is deported? (Unless they keep her around to testify against her associates.)
RE DSK: consensual sex with a hotel housekeeper. Or, as TG suggested in 2, pay for play and he wouldn’t pay. Or, an actual sexual attack on someone who is vulnerable and just not credible. Classy, any way this turns out.
No winners in this one, except maybe Christine Lagarde.
Sapient
“the medical reports showed her vagina was bruised by DSK’s grabbing it, and her shoulder ligament was injured by DSK’s shoving her.”
The medical evidence may have indicated that her vagina was bruised and that her shoulder ligament was injured. It’s impossible for medical evidence, without substantive corroboration, to have “shown” that DSK caused these injuries.
eemom
the accuser’s attorney says there is medical evidence that she was attacked.
Of course, they said that in the Duke LAX case too, and it turned out to be total bullshit.
There is a reason we have presumptions of innocence, and trials.
eemom
hmm…..this reminds me of a recent thread in which inaccurate nomenclature was discussed….
Amir_Khalid
Sorry about comment #16. My keyboard fainted.
Anyway, I was saying what others have also said here: that the credibility of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s accuser is now shot. His defense counsel can now cast doubt on her testimony very easily. Unless critical elements of that testimony can be corroborated, either by other witnesses or by physical/circumstantial evidence, there is little chance of conviction.
Reports I’ve seen suggest that the DA’s office jumped the gun on the case by failing to make sure the complainant, and main witness for the prosecution, was credible. And that this particular DA has bungled more than one case before in this way.
That DA’s name is given as Cyrus Vance Jr. Is he by any chance the son of the former Secretary of State?
Elizabelle
You do wonder about a set-up.
Whoever could have made use of the fact that DSK is sexually rapacious. (Just as Eliot Spitzer — aka Client 9 — was incautious and left himself vulnerable. I still wonder who orchestrated the leak to the media/authorities on that one. Recall the banksters high fiving up one side of Wall Street and down the other.)
Observer
The accuser was terrfied according to all accounts. So therefore DSK must be a terrorist.
Which means DSK should have been put in Guantanamo Bay in indefinite detention because the authorities are always correct in all cases involving evidence withheld from the public. This whole episode would have been totally avoided if they had just done so.
Laertes
Imagine yourself on that jury, John. He tells one story, she tells another, and you know that she’s a serial liar and that she conferred with a drug dealer friend of hers about what she might gain from making the accusation.
Of course it matters. I believed her before, and now I don’t. I bet lots of prospective jurors, at at least one in twelve, will have that same reaction. They can’t possibly convict unless they can find some evidence of his guilt that has no possible innocent explanation, since at this point no jury is going to believe a word the poor woman says.
And that wouldn’t include bruises, either. He can say she wanted it rough, and that’s at least plausible, so that’s that.
Damn shame. One of these people has terribly wronged the other, and nobody except the two of them will ever know which it was.
MattR
nancydarling –
You don’t see how admitting that she made up a rape in order to gain admission to this country might lead people to question whether she is now making up another rape for her own personal gain? The only thing irrelevant is that rape is common in Africa while being rarely prosecuted there. Those facts do not excuse or amerliorate the lies that she has admitted to.
The Spy Who Loved Me
I guess John forgot the story of the little boy who cried wolf. When you have a reputation as a liar, people don’t believe you even when you’re telling the truth.
tookish
If she had a history of lying about rape that would be relevant. Lying about con-artist type stuff is not relevant to whether she’s lying about consensual sex. Unfortunately, whether a case can be proven or not is another matter entirely. Rape is not difficult to defend against. It’s why there are many rape trials with so few convictions. It’s incredibly difficult to prove rape and prosecutors really don’t want to have anything (esp. character issues) muddy the waters b/c they know how difficult it is to prove.
Which means (whether this woman is telling the truth or not) that only women who don’t lie, don’t get caught lying, don’t sleep w/ a lot of men, make certain types of mistakes, have a criminal record etc… will be good “candidates” for credible rape victim status. Which means: hey you guys who seek a supportive environment for sexually available, non-consenting women–it’s free season if you choose your victims wisely! Just make sure she’s on record as having lied at some point in her past about something a jury will find distasteful and you are free to ignore her implicit “no” or extremely obvious screams of displeasure. Bruises are just b/c she wanted it rough. Lucky bastards.
joes527
OF COURSE he raped her. How could you think otherwise?
OF COURSE she made up the whole rape thing. How could you think otherwise?
All the conclusion jumping going on here … The sandbox recreations that prove (PROVE!!) that she is telling the truth. The kerning analysis that demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that he didn’t do it.
Some days the intertubes are too predictable.
This is probably going to all peter out with the unsatisfactory conclusion: unprovable in court. The only evidence of wrongdoing is the word of someone with a history of making stuff up. (and yes, when the only evidence that a crime occurred is testimony, the reliability of the person testifying IS relevant)
He won’t won’t be found guilty or innocent. She won’t see justice done, and he will never really be cleared.
If he did it, sucks to be her. If he didn’t, sucks to be him.
Wake me when someone brings something that looks like evidence one way or another. ‘Till then I’ll keep my expert internet analysis to myself. Besides, There are dick pictures on the internet that it need to be doing analysis on so that I can prove (PROVE!!) that they were taken by John Boehner’s blackbery.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
Here in the US, we actively look for any possible excuse for a person accused of rape. That’s just how it is.
Prosecutors have been known to pass on slam-dunk cases where the rapist confessed if the victim was the wrong kind of girl. Some men, if chosen for a jury, will never vote to convict in a rape case. Even beside that, juries are known to be easily swayed simply by showing that the victim has had consensual sex in the past. The sad fact is that for a significant portion of this country’s people, rape is just not a crime.
Under the best circumstances, getting a rape conviction is hard as hell in this country. If the victim is a known con-artist or liar, it is impossible.
Fuck the world.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@44 In the US, if your rape victim can be painted as a slut, a liar, or is drunk, raping her is de facto legal. You will almost never be convicted.
But but but, let’s hear more about how the Duke Lacrosse team are the greatest victims of all time. ALL TIME. Being brutally raped ain’t nothin’ compared to the horror of having all charges dropped before trial, as more than a few people here will be glad to tell you.
tookish
@46 and @47
Thank you Baron Jrod of Keeblershire. Exactly.
Tonal Crow
@tookish:
Sure it’s relevant. Sarah Palin has never (to my knowledge) lied about being raped, but given the multitude of other whoppers she’s told, I’d be much less inclined to believe her than an otherwise similarly-situated person claiming rape. Wouldn’t you?
JPL
It’s not only that she lied, she cleaned his room after he left. She would be a defense attorney’s star witness against herself. We might not ever know what happened but DSK’s reputation is going to be hard to repair in either case. After her initial report, a few French females publicly called his morality into question.
Elizabelle
Here’s a NYTimes column on Cyrus Vance, Jr. (yes, dad was Carter’s Secretary of State). Junior’s had a few high profile cases head south.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/mr-vances-spectacular-botch/?hp
(Readers comments attached; several praise Vance for coming clean so quickly once it was clear prosecution’s witness was a serial liar; others won’t vote for him again …)
Justin Morton
She’s been paid off.
burnspbesq
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
How about you shove a lacrosse stick up your nose. There was no “brutal rape” that night. There is no evidence that any player committed any crime that night. I’m sure you know that.
Greatest victims of all time? Of course not, you ignorant ass. But yes, Dave, Reade, and Collin were victims.
Tonal Crow
@Elizabelle: And that’s yet another reason for prosecutors to keep their traps shut with the media and do their jobs, which involve, you know, gathering evidence and presenting it to
Fox News, ABC, NBC, and CNN so they can sensationalize it and spew the resulting detritus all over the body politicthe judge and the jury so that they can determine, as much as they are able, whether the defendant did the crime with which the prosecutor charged her.We can haz a better code of prosecutorial ethics and an enforcement body worth its salt?
JonF
I think he did it, but he didn’t pay her off: she’s told the DA she plans on testifying still. As for these “revelations”. There’s only one directly tied to the accusation, but it seems minor.
Tde
So basically, I guess this means they still think he raped her but she is making it impossible for them to prove it. What does her past have to do with anything, though?
———
No. What it means is that the trial would come down to hisnword against hers and she lied again and again and again about different things AFTER the incident.
The bonus points are that she apparently also perjured herself repeatedly in her asylum application. You know lied under oath.
nancydarling
burnspbsesq, This is not what Baron said.
He said being falsely accused is not as bad as being brutally raped.
dmbeaster
Before anyone gets too worked up about this, they should read the prosecution’s letter to the defense disclosing potentially exculpatory evidence. The disclosures are brutal to any attempt to persuade beyond a reasonable doubt that the sex was forced rather than consensual. Lying to the grand jury about what happened? (in particular, instead of hiding and then reporting the incident as she testified to under oath, she now admits that she went and cleaned another room, and then back to clean DSK’s room. The crying out behavior she allegedly claimed initially is critical to a favorable case; yes, it also makes sense that a small delay is a result of shock, but she lied about how she cried out – very bad) Lying on her visa application to get asylum in this country? Lying about having been previously raped in Africa (which she admitted she lied about)? Blabbing in a recorded call the day after the attack to someone who appears to be a confederate in significant drug sales, and was in prison at the time, about how she might profit from the case?
It is a prosecutor’s nightmare. I don’t think she could win a civil case either with a “more likely than not” standard. No one can really say what happened in that room.
eemom
@ keebler elf
You’re a fucking idiot.
One injustice doesn’t excuse another; nor are sane people in the business of assuming that an accused criminal is guilty because it would be worse to be a victim denied justice than an innocent person wrongly accused.
And if you’re so sure of yourself on that latter point, fuckwad, go read a few cases about innocent people on death row — or dead, as in the Texas case of the man executed for setting a fire that killed his children based on bullshit “scientific” evidence.
AAA Bonds
Derf rippin it up today in here, good job Derf
AAA Bonds
Jrod I see you in the cut, y’all have a good night here on Balloon Juice and drinks drop a dollar at midnight
nancydarling
@57 I should have said it is not as bad to be falsely accused AND have the charges dropped as to be brutally raped.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
Aaaaaaaand eemom and burns are along right on schedule to deliberately misrepresent what I wrote. I’d respond to what you morons said if either of you bothered responding to the things I actually wrote, but you didn’t. So I’ll just tell you both to go fuck yourselves.
“If eemarm or burnsbbq!ESQ!(check it I’m totally a lawyer I’m so speshul) oppose you, you’re probably correct,” is a fine rule to post by.
pete
We really shouldn’t jump to conclusions, should we? However, as a point of information, Alan Dershowitz did suggest in Newsweek that the most profitable action the complainant could take would be to sabotage the case once a substantial sum had been paid to certain parties outside this country.
TG Chicago
Can someone just give me a plausible scenario in which DSK is innocent? The only one I could come up with is up there at #2.
The idea that she was planning to shake down DSK doesn’t make much sense. If you were going to do that, wouldn’t you have a plan in place ahead of time?
Some of you seem to be suggesting an underpants gnome kind of logic
1) have sex with rich guy, then accuse him of rape
2) ??? call fiance in jail to figure out step 2 ???
3) profit!
That doesn’t strike me as plausible.
Elliecat
In imagining yourself on that jury, don’t forget that juries do not hear all the details that we read or hear from the media. If you’ve ever served on a jury and then read about the case afterwards, you’d know that what you hear in the courtroom is often just a small part of the whole story. So if DSK is tried, jurors are not going to hear every detail we are all privy to. They will have to make their verdict based on much narrower information.
I served on a jury hearing a she said/he said assault case where both victim and defendant were clearly lying assholes. There was some evidence the victim had pulled some petty vindictive shit on the guy in the past but otherwise, there was no background on their lives, their relationship (boyfriend/girlfriend was all), their reputations, etc.
In the courtroom, you don’t have all the stuff that’s in the media. You have to judge a case on what you see and hear right there, and what is admissible can be maddeningly narrow. That was my introduction to jury duty and I had never expected it to be so frustrating and agonizing.
All this by way of saying I’m not particularly surprised or outraged by this news.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Absolutely right, John. The fact that a complainant is a pathological liar who has never told the truth about anything in her life should have no bearing on her credibility as a witness in court. I mean, come on, right?
MattMinus
@Baron Jrod
Thats some of the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen. I bet that facing years in prison for something you didn’t do is pretty fucking horrifying, even if you eventually are acquitted.
A lot of people here seem to be pushing an ideology that requires a standard softer than reasonable doubt for rape cases.
Would any of you seriously vote to convict DSK based on all the facts available to the public? Do you not think that all the credibility problems add up to reasonable doubt? If you don’t, what kind of defense could DSK use?
Anya
Amir_Khalid @16 ~~ What about DSK lying to the investigators and the grand jury? He first claimed that he was having lunch with his daughter, then he claimed that he never saw her. He then changed his story to consensual sex. Who said only virginal girls without any blemish on their reputations get raped? Granted this woman has some shady things in her past, but does that mean he did not rape her. And why are his lies not an issue?
The discrepancies in her story after the incident can be explained by fear or maybe she thought, if she told them that she cleaned his room and another room before she reported the incident, no one would have believed her. If she was raped, she was probably confused, ashamed and did not know what to do, so she did her job. Who knows about what someone would do immediately after they’ve been raped.
Patty K
John, I’ve been wondering from the start how the federal government would help him wriggle out of this and here we have it. I quite agree that her past lies have nothing to do with this case. Yet supposely they can impeach her credibility even while alleged prior offenses on his part, like the accusation that he attempted to rape a young French woman, can’t be used as evidence against him. Of course, he is the defendant, with more to lose, and she is only a witness but I still have never understood the rule against admitting evidence of prior bad acts.
Amir_Khalid
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
If I understand you, you’re saying that too few Americans, in particular too few American men, see rape as all that much of a crime; and that this is why DSK’s accuser’s newly- admitted record of dishonesty has weakened the case against him.
No. Nobody here is arguing that the rape, as alleged by the complainant, was not serious. The case against DSK is weakened — perhaps fatally, perhaps not — because the main witness to the alleged crime, the woman who claims to be the victim, is no longer credible.
It might now be impossible to get a conviction, in which case the DA can no longer justify the public expense of going ahead with the prosecution. At this point he needs to see if he can salvage it with corroborating testimony, or physical and circumstantial evidence. If he can’t do that, he’ll have to drop the case.
Suzan
TG Chicago:
I can imagine 100 reasons why she lied. Since I don’t know the circumstances some of them sound silly but as both a former chamber maid (in college) and public defender it might be that she was not supposed to be in his room at all or not alone or she was in the room for longer that she was supposed to be or her supervisor suspected she’d had sex with him which would be forbidden in most high end hotels or she thought “he’s rich, I’ll be able to blackmail him to drop the charges” (which might be what is happening, he paid her off?). Why did the woman lie in the Duke rape case? In To Kill a Mockingbird? I am NOT saying that most rape victims lie it is just that it is so easy to lie about and the consequences are so dire.
Amir_Khalid
@Anya #69:
I’m well aware that DSK has been inconsistent with his alibi, and that this does give reason to doubt his innocence. But an inconsistent alibi, by itself, is not proof of guilt. Remember, the prosecution must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that DSK raped the woman. And now that their main witness is a admitted liar, that task just got very much harder.
None of this is to say that I have any clear sense of DSK’s guilt or innocence. Only to point out that it may no longer be determinable in a court.
Sapient
What makes me happy about this case (and proud of the criminal justice system) is the candor of the prosecution about the exculpatory evidence, and the prosecution’s willingness to back off. They had a case; they found huge flaws in it; they came clean. Good prosecutors. This is how justice is supposed to work – both sides serving the cause of justice.
Anya
@Sapient~~ I agree that this is the only positive part.
Frankensteinbeck
Amir @73 and Anya @69:
And despite Keebler’s attempts to diminish it, being falsely convicted of rape… yeah, that can destroy your life and traumatize you horribly. So, ’bout as bad as rape.
One person says the sex was consensual. The other says it wasn’t. NEITHER person is a believable witness. Who knows what happened? But you can’t and shouldn’t convict anyone of anything on that kind of flimsy evidence.
Even if they’re guilty.
wasabi gasp
The truth feels even truer when you lie about everything up to 5 minutes before it.
Valdivia
Please note that some of her ‘lies’ have to do with her refugee application. I can see why she would not want to talk about that and be confronted with it, or clarify it. It would mean she looses her status. I still don’t understand how this encounter was consensual unless it was a pay situation as suggested in @2. Yeah I am sure she just volunteered for sex when she came to his room. Cause he is that sexy.
Jules
Only “good girls” can be raped, the rest of us are just dirty whores who were asking for it in one way or another.
TG Chicago
@Suzan:
Given the fact that it’s no longer disputed that they had sex, these reasons don’t hold water.
I explained at #65 why I find this unpersuasive. She obviously had no plan for blackmail prior to the incident. The idea that they she had consensual sex with him then later decided to try to blackmail him, but did so by contacting the police rather than DSK… that strikes me as unpersuasive as well.
Because the Duke guys were being a-holes and she was mad at them and wanted revenge.
You could imagine that sort of scenario with DSK… except that we know there was sexual contact in this case. I guess you could imagine that DSK was an a-hole, so to get revenge on him, she had consensual sex and then said it was rape. But how many people have consensual sex as part of revenge? I don’t find that plausible either.
Elizabelle
Some playwright is going to have a field day with this case.
One of these days.
Powerful older man, representative of the IMF and its debt bondage? Throw in some discussion of imperialism; give him some human qualities and kindness, when it suits him …
Younger African woman, trying to survive, not always by accepted or honest means; you can make her conniving, but also with many fine qualities and a tragic past …
Which or whose version of events is actually true? Could have 3 or 4 different scenarios, in rotation.
That said, I suspect the Socialists might have missed a disastrous presidential campaign. More stories were bound to come out and, as Anya (comment 69) noted above, DSK’s first impulse was to lie his way out of this one.
Wondering if Vance Jr. proceeded because stories about DSK and what he’s capable/culpable of are legion and they were predisposed to believe this woman (who might be very appealing and seem honest; we don’t know yet …)
Cacti
Cynical me never believed for a moment that the chamber maid would prevail in her accusation against the IMF chair.
Predators rarely choose prey with a real chance to harm them.
Bloix
#82 – how clever of him to have his minions research her and discover that she was a serial liar, deportable alien in the US on false pretenses, and drug-dealing criminal before he raped her.
Jon Marcus
She didn’t just lie about her asylum application. (Although that lie was about a former rape charge, seriously undercutting her credibility on this rape charge.) She lied about what she did immediately subsequent to the alleged rape.
She claimed that subsequent to being raped, she walked around in the elevator lobby for a while before notifying her supervisor what had happened. In actuality, she went and cleaned the next room before notifying her supervisor. And she lied about that the the grand jury, so it’s not just a case of her being upset and not thinking clearly immediately after the rape.
She was also recorded speaking to her fiance (who was in jail at the time on drug charges, and who has deposited bunches of money in her bank account) about the “possible benefits” of pressing charges against DSK.
None of that means she wasn’t raped. But when your case is based solely on her testimony, those lies and statements leave a whole lot of room for reasonable doubt.
Oregon guy
OK, I’ve actually prosecuted acquaintance rape cases and even put some of those rapists in prison. They are VERY difficult to take to trial. It is normal for a sexual predator to seek out flawed and weak victims. However, if the victim in this case admitted to lying to the grand jury, its game over. There are some victim problems you can overcome, and there are some you can’t. I had a victim admit she committed perjury in an Article 32 hearing (the military equivalent of a grand jury hearing) – we were happy to get out of that case with a Chapter 10 (other than honorable discharge, no jail time) for an unrelated charge. All the rape stuff just went *poof*.
The burden of proof is on the government, not the defense. The defense merely must raise reasonable doubts, they do not have to fill in the blanks as to why a victim would fabricate a story. So there does not need to be a rationale as to why the victim would come forward with a false story – rather, the burden is on the government to prove that the accused is a sexual predator who deserves to be on a sex offender registry for the rest of his life.
eemom
@ 80
No, actually not.
Go read about the case before you go talking out your ignorant ass.
I can’t BELIEVE this bullshit. None of us knows jack shit about what happened here; this is a community of supposedly reasonable, rule of fucking law based people — and nevertheless, you all feel qualified to opine about the truth of what happened just as though you were eyewitnesses.
Cacti
You forgot to call her a slut.
Keith G
@Cacti: You are amazingly unpersuasive. What agrument are you trying to build?
Atticus Dogsbody
Can someone just give me a plausible scenario in which DSK is innocent?
OK. DSK was a serious contender for the French presidency, now he isn’t and will never again be.
I’ll go a little further: French organized crime has very close ties to Guinean (formerly French Guinea) crime groups. The lady is Guinean with criminal ties.
Conspiracy theory? Sure.
Plausible? Very, especially when you consider that the man he could’ve taken the presidency from is basically Berlusconi Jr.
Cacti
Or, you have a man who has previously accused of attempted rape, and of coercing a subordinate at the IMF to have an unwanted affair.
Maybe it’s all part of a great conspiracy to bring him down…
Or maybe he has a real problem with women who tell him “non”.
cbear
And both you and Anya know jackshit about his “first impulse” although Anya also has this gem of wisdom to impart:
So fear and shame are perfectly appropriate reasons for the woman to lie, but not the man?
Logic, how does it work.
Roy G
It’s easy to play at rhetorical questions, but this guy wasn’t your Average Blue Collar Bill, who just got horny and out of control one night; DSK is/was one of the most powerful men in the world, with powerful enemies. The smoke around the rape charge seems to be just enough to obscure the fait accompli of deposing DSK from the head of the IMF, just as Christine Lagarde was sworn in as head of the IMF all of 3 days ago. Misson Accomplished, I’d say, so now the accuser is left to hang out to dry.
Atticus Dogsbody
Or maybe he has a real problem with women who tell him “non”.
I don’t disagree with you, but, we will never know (although there seem to be plenty of people in this thread that KNOW he is guilty).
Cui bono?
toujoursdan
Unfortunately false rape accusations aren’t all that uncommon. There is an article How Often Do Women Falsely Cry Rape? that says that “good” studies put the number of false rape accusations at about 8-10%.
dpcap
Don’t know if this has been mentioned in the previous 89 posts but has anyone questioned where all this information about her past came from?
Strauss-Kahn is very wealth and has many very wealthy friends. Whats to say that her boyfriend and all the evidence of her credibility wasn’t created in the past few weeks by those who wish to protect him?
Doesn’t even pass the Occam’s Razor test.
EDIT: eemom @86 I couldn’t agree with you more.
Corner Stone
@Valdivia
I hope you’ll understand where some do not consider that very helpful.
Heliopause
In order to even have a chance of answering this question rationally you would have to pretend for the sake of the discussion that it was not a sex crime. Remember, this is America. Children can be exposed to an image of someone being dismembered, but not of a tit.
So suppose you have a case which depends about 50% (or more) on the credibility of the complaining witness and sex has nothing to do with it, then ask yourself the question.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
basically, even if the prosecutors don’t believe anything she is saying, they still have to say they believe that a crime was committed, because admitting otherwise would lead to the false arrest crime of the century. that is a feature of any case that gets a wave of wealth, celebrity, or prominence fueled media coverage.
it doesn’t mean, even if she is ten times worse than the stories suggest so far, that she wasn’t raped. what is the open records law like in new york? details of the investigation, should they be released, are about the based way to play along at home and draw one’s own conclusions.
TG Chicago
@eemom #86
Thanks for the informative response regarding the Duke case. However, I did read about the rape case. I looked at the wikipedia article, which says:
It’s all corroborated by the Newsweek article cited in the wiki. So if that’s wrong, then please educate me as to what her motives actually were. As needed, I’ll send the info along to Newsweek so they can correct their article.
TG Chicago
@Atticus Dogbody #89
If what you suggest was correct, then why would she be talking to her fiance in jail about the benefits of prosecution? Wouldn’t that have already been settled?
I guess I can imagine that perhaps there was a lot more said in that conversation than they’re letting on (in order to track the source of the international plot), but that’s getting pretty deep in the weeds.
Also, this theory requires DSK to believe that a random maid is going to come up to him and want to get it on just because he’s such a sexy MF from the IMF. I guess when you get to a certain level of privilege and entitlement, perhaps you do, in fact, believe that the whole world is just aching for the opportunity to fellate you. But I still find that odd.
Calouste
The police taped the conversation with the bf in prison the day after DSK got arrested. (First I thought, why would they tape her, then I realized that the bf is in prison and of course all his calls are recorded.) So unless you suggest that the NYPD and/or corrections department are actually falsifying evidence, that fact stands.
bryanD
LOL. (From D.A.’s letter to DSK attorney ‘splainin’ new developments.)
“The complainant has since admitted that this account was false and that after the incident in Suite 2806, she proceeded to clean a nearby room and then returned to Suite 2806 and began to clean that suite before she reported the incident to her supervisor.”
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2011/07/asylum-fraud-and-dsk.html
Gian
some women do lie about being raped. Some men lie about raping women. Both lies do happen. Be it as simple as mom or dad walking in, and a young lady looking for an excuse to not be in trouble, to a young man trying to get himself out of trouble for doing something clearly evil.
people lie, and rape is at the core about consent. people will lie about what they wanted to do. If they really wanted to have sex with a passed out female, they will lie about it.
Burden is reasonable doubt. if the prosecutors don’t have evidence stronger than the word of someone who previously lied about being a victim of the same crime, they can’t meet the reasonable doubt burden short of giving the jury nitrus or somtehing…
guilty people walk every day. the burden of proof is high because it really sucks to get killed when you didn’t do the crime, unles it’s arson murder in texas… then we don’t give a shit if you did it
The Tim Channel
Me, for one. But many Americans can be so forgiving that they’ll let a known liar continue to propagate lies all the way to invading a foreign country and torturing it’s citizens.
Enjoy.
Chris
@ Elizabelle –
Of course, and I did at the time he was arrested too; the timing, right when he was about to jump into an election cycle where he was the favorite candidate, was quite fishy.
What it comes down to is, I find it perfectly plausible that DSK would have raped her and expected to get away with it because of his rank and wealth. I also find it plausible that his political opponents could have paid or blackmailed her to set him up. You never know. I was kind of hoping for more definitive answers from the investigation than what I’ve read so far, alas.
@ Atticus –
Not only that, but French organized crime has had very close ties to French authorities over the course of the last century. Most infamously the Service d’Action Civique militia of the De Gaulle era (basically the French version of COINTELPRO) was stuffed with former Corsican mob goons and carried out all kinds of dirty work on the Gaullists’ behalf both inside and outside the country.
Funny that you should compare Sarkozy to Berlusconi; he kind of reminds me of Nixon.
The Tim Channel
I find the ‘Sarah Palin’ lies comparison apt, but why is everyone forgetting the BIG LIARS? You know the guys? The ones who went from “We don’t torture” to “I’m proud of doing it and would do so again?”
In the case of DSK, there is plenty of room for doubt and yet there are still many calling for his head on a platter. In the case of Bush, Cheney, Rice, ad hominem, there is NO DOUBT. Sure be nice to see legal injustices like lack of prosecution for admitted war crimes rise to the same level as this more trivial DSK matter.
Enjoy.
Atticus Dogsbody
Funny that you should compare Sarkozy to Berlusconi; he kind of reminds me of Nixon.
Nixon never dressed that well.
Triassic Sands
This is taking naiveté to the nth degree.
Well, of course, for the last thirty years Lucy has pulled the football away every time Charlie Brown was going to kick it, but this time Charlie Brown should believe her when she says she won’t do it again.
One of the things that makes rape prosecutions difficult is that prosecutors, jurors, and judges can’t simply take the victim’s word for what happened. You can’t just ruin a person’s life, based solely on the word of another person, because sometimes, however rarely, the accuser might not be telling the truth.
One of the things that got DSK “convicted” in the media for this alleged crime was his past behavior. He apparently has a long-standing pattern of womanizing, with some intimations of very questionable behavior. But if you can use his past to remove the presumption of innocence, then similarly, why can’t you use the accuser’s past behavior to cast doubt on the veracity of her current statements.
If you, John Cole, were accused of raping a woman, would you really argue that if the woman had a history of lying — on whatever topics — that her dishonesty would be totally irrelevant to your own case?
Conviction means “beyond a reasonable doubt,” but for better or worse, and it’s may often be for worse, doesn’t a history of general dishonesty on the part of an accuser create some reasonable doubt about the current case? Other compelling physical evidence may erase that element of doubt, and that is what we always have to hope for in rape cases. Sadly, that evidence does not always exist, and if physical evidence does exist, if may be ambiguous.
And no matter how unpalatable we may find it, he should walk. We can’t convict people on the word of people whose honesty is questionable.
It is unfortunate that we can’t simply believe without reservation the word of an accuser. Life and the justice system would be a lot simpler if we could. But our prisons would be filled with innocent people — well, maybe guilty of something, but innocent of the crime in question.
In all likelihood, innocent or guilty, DSK has already received some pretty severe punishment. If he’s guilty, then that punishment is less than he deserves and we have grave injustice. However, if he’s innocent, that punishment represents grave injustice in the other direction, and that kind of injustice — wrongly punishing the innocent — is considered, for good reason, the worst kind of injustice there is in a legal/justice system.
Mnemosyne
Unless there’s been some great outcry from the right for DSK’s prosecution, I’m pretty sure that if you created a Venn diagram of people who wanted to see Bush prosecuted and people who wanted to see DSK prosecuted, the circles would essentially be the same. IIRC, it was places like Red State that were coming up with conspiracy theories to exonerate DSK.
Also, I will say in a spirit of sisterhood that I want to punch this woman in the neck. She just made it infinitely harder for the next dozen or hundred marginal victims to get their cases prosecuted and see some kind of justice done.
r€nato
Ben Stein too. Which goes to prove that the extreme right, when push comes to shove, places the perogatives of the wealthy over their fear of dreaded soc.ialism.
BattleCat
I hate being late.
I was going to say something about how women never lie about rape, but now that’s shot with all these bullshit rational arguments.
Then I was going to take a cheap shot, you know, the whole “With all that power, for all the loose women in the world, why hit that?” but damn, she is one fine lady. If she came to my room dressed as a maid, I mean, damn, I’d suddenly forget where the keys to my 599 GTO Ferrari were, even though I just had them, and you know if she wanted to trade a little something something for a free ride at a later, undetermined date, that’s cool too.
On a slightly related note, how creepy is it when the darling young African-American women you’re dating wants to play “master & slave” with you? That mental image is hard to shake.
Pat
I predicted this outcome as soon as it happened. Did anyone really think justice would be served when the guy is white and a millionaire while the accuser is black and a pauper? Of course not. This is America where the laws are made to protect the rich, whoever they may be.
Atticus Dogsbody
I predicted this outcome as soon as it happened. Did anyone really think justice would be served when the guy is white and a millionaire while the accuser is black and a pauper? Of course not. This is America where the laws are made to protect the rich, whoever they may be.
So what happened? Did the rich, white guy buy a time machine and go back in time to convince the poor, black woman to tell lies and make a dodgy phone call to a guy in prison which could later be used to discredit her and get the rich, white guy off the hook for the rape he would later commit? Sounds plausible, but wouldn’t it be simpler to just go back and tell the poor, black woman not to clean his room while he was still there?
bob h
If you are going to rape, rape a woman with shady things in her background so the law cannot protect her due to her compromised credibility.
Atticus Dogsbody
If you are going to rape, rape a woman with shady things in her background so the law cannot protect her due to her compromised credibility.
Especially if you have a time machine and can observe her shady past as it happened.
dmbeaster
dpcap at 95:
It came from the prosecution and was disclosed to the defense in the Brady letter they sent – see my link in 58 above.
People seem to think it is the result of some sort of cabal by defense investigators going beyond the pale in digging up dirt. It wasn’t.
Jnc
apparently she was recorded 28 hours after the alleged rape “this guy has a lot of money, I know what I am doing”.
So maybe all the folks who were reflexively whining about how the poor wimmins can’t get no justice could pull their heads out of their asses.
Jnc
apparently she was recorded 28 hours after the alleged rape “this guy has a lot of money, I know what I am doing”.
So maybe all the folks who were reflexively whining about how the poor wimmins can’t get no justice could pull their heads out of their beehinds
grandpajohn
And for all the defenders here who just know it was rape, and defend her on the previous false rape claim she made, you should realize this,as in the case of the boy who cried wolf, every false rape charge made makes it that much harder to get a conviction when real rape occurs
jshubbub
#94
#119 re: 94
@94
In what universe is something that happens only 8-10% of the time a relatively common occurrence? If that percentage isn’t actually rare it’s at least uncommon despite your claim. Taking into account the fact that roughly 60% of rapes are never reported at all, the significance of that 8-10% rate of false reports gets reduced tremendously. You’re not talking about 10% of all rapes being dreamed up by nefarious supposed “victims” with ulterior motives. You’re talking about 10% of the 40% of all rapes that are reported potentially being false. I add “potentially” because your linked article goes to great pains to point out that even those numbers are troublingly unreliable due to the reasons some in law enforcement classify certain accusations as false. In the end, when you take into account report rates, arrest rates, conviction rates and sentencing the number of actual rapists who ever serve time for their crime is roughly 1 in 16, or 6.25%. I’d call that pretty rare and a much more serious problem.
@119
Of course, you’re correct. Every false rape charge makes it harder to convict actual rapists. It’s also true, however, that every false rape charge gets outsized coverage when compared to the actual number of rapes in the U.S. each year. Throughout this thread, I’ve seen a mere handful of false rape charges discussed, and yet for many the default assumption is that rape charges are, if not false, at least questionable. I’m not saying you’re making that assumption, but when you make a point such as you do here it certainly serves to support those who make it. The bottom line is that 60% of rapes are never reported, and a small percentage of those that are reported are determined to be false (whether all of those are actually false is another argument altogether). Without getting into details about whether or not this particular woman was raped (unknown and possibly unknowable), the far greater problem we face is people blowing the number of false rape allegations out of proportion. It’s a relatively rare problem that receives so much attention due to its high titillation/sensationalism factor that it leads many otherwise well-meaning people to believe it is far more common. In short, it sells papers, puts viewers in front of the TV and increases site traffic. Stories about the extremely high number of rapes that never go reported are just bummers.
mythago
Actual, real, not-just-made-up-on-a-blog studies estimate that false reporting rates for rape are about the same as for all other crimes. The “women do too lie” studies the previous poster references are studies that examine how often accusers recant if, at the police station, they are threatened with perjury prosecutions if they lie.
Regarding the gang rape allegations – DSK’s accuser did not try to get a specific person convicted of rape. What she did apparently do was to fill out a false asylum application, reciting a canned story designed to get her application approved.