Dominique Strauss Kahn: While he may have escaped U.S. justice,
he is now facing extremely serious
charges in France for an alleged
gang rape committed in America
just steps from the White House.
Alleged Washington
Gang Rape Victim Testifies Against Dominique Strauss Kahn (Le Monde, France)
“I tried to get
away but it was difficult because he was on top of me and was very heavy. … I
kept saying that I didn’t want to ... I didn’t scream, but I said clearly ...
several times out loud ... I tried to get away ... but Dominique Strauss-Kahn
pinned me down with his weight. … David Roquet ...
held my wrists ... to stop me from moving ... After that I said no more and
waited until it was over.”
-- ‘Marion,’ Paid to party
with Dominique Strauss Kahn at Washington’s W Hotel
By Emeline
Cazi
Translated By Jill Naeem
May 21, 2012
France
– Le Monde – Original Article (French)
After complaints from Nafissatou Diallo and Tristane
Banon, a third tiresome chapter is beginning for Dominique
Strauss-Kahn and his defense team - yet relatives
continue to insist he is not a violent man. On Monday, Lille prosecutor Frédéric Fèvre announced the
opening of a preliminary investigation for gang rape. This follows a public
condemnation by the judges investigating the Carlton Affair, surrounding events
that took place at a party held in Washington for the former head of the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) by his friends from Lille.
Marion, the young woman concerned here, filed no complaint.
"If I hadn’t been there working as an escort, this wouldn’t have happened
to me," she explained to officers when questioned about her story. But her
silence doesn’t prevent the court from filing serious charges directed at DSK and David Roquet, the former
head of a subsidiary of [construction conglomerate] Eiffage
in the North of France.
"This is an entirely typical judicial process, since
there are serious and contradictory accusations. Only a thorough investigation
will determine whether or not an offense has been committed," the
prosecutor warns. Mr. Fèvre is a prudent man. It is
this same prudence that led him to wait until the end of the presidential
election to make his decision public.
To determine the facts, the Lille’s Criminal Investigation
Department, to which this investigation has been assigned, will have to compare
testimonies, some of which are contradictory, of those who were present behind
the closed doors of the hotel room. The party was held on December 16, 2010 at
the W Hotel, just steps from the White House. Present were Fabrice
Paszkowski, a major organizer of DSK’s
evening soirees; David Roquet, the public works
entrepreneur; National Assemblyman Jean-Christophe Lagarde, and their Belgian companions, Estelle and
Marion. All arrived the day before from Paris to meet the IMF chief after a
meal washed down with plenty of alcohol, the small band decided to continue
partying in the suite with the two girls. Only Jean-Claude Menault, a police chief from the north [of France], also on
the trip, slipped away before this turn of events.
‘I KEPT SAYING I DIDN’T WANT TO’
Marion, who received €2,300 [$3,000] for the trip, says that
at the beginning of the after-dinner “feast,” she had conventional sex with
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, even if she was surprised at the "roughness” of
her partner. Then came the second sexual act that DSK wanted to force on her, which she confirmed to police
in her Dec. 11, 2011 testimony, which she says she refused with a clear
"no."
"I tried to get away but it was difficult because he
was on top of me and was very heavy." Estelle, the other escort, wasn’t
far away, and was preoccupied with her "business," but she heard me
protesting, swears Marion. "I kept saying that I didn’t want to ... I
didn’t scream, but I said clearly ... several times out loud ... I tried to get
away ... but Dominique Strauss-Kahn pinned me down with his weight. "
David Roquet then came to DSK’s aid.
"He ... held my wrists ... to stop me from moving ...
After that I said no more and waited until it was over," Marion confirmed.
If Roquet hadn’t kept her there, Marion swears that
she "would have tried to make a discrete escape.” Alone with DSK, she "might have been able to convince him,"
she thinks. "But since David Roquet held my
hands and verbally encouraged DSK ... I’m sure DSK wouldn’t have listened to me."
All of the evening’s participants have already given a first
version of events. "Everything went well," David Roquet
assured investigators on January 16, even if alcohol may have altered some of
his memories. "[We drank] perhaps a little more than usual," he
admitted. "Champagne and Red Bull. ... I had to take half a capsule of
Viagra. And during the meal, we had wine and before that several pre-dinner
drinks." It isn’t clear whether Fabrice Paszkowski was present at the scene. To the judge who asked
about his "love of power relations" and "appetite for [certain
types of] rough sex, without taking into account the views and welfare of [his]
partners," DSK, has always denied any coercion.
"There has been no rough sex, no degraded view of
women and no violence.” he has always maintained to police and to judges.
Posted by Worldmeets.US
Yet it is precisely on coercion and surprise that the debate
hinges. Was the young woman willing? Was her behavior ambiguous or not? A
person paid for a sexual act can still be a rape victim. "Any act of
sexual penetration of any kind committed against another person by violence,
coercion, threat or surprise is rape," says Penal Code Article 222-23.
SEE ALSO ON THIS:
Le Depeche, France:
Ruling Party Calls DSK Conspiracy Charges 'Pure Fantasy'
Le Journal du Dimanche, France:
DSK Affair Sanitizes New York 'French Bashing'
Huanqiu, China:
Did U.S. 'Frame' DSK Over IMF Economic Forecasts?
Folha, Brazil:
DSK: Would You Vote for a Sexual Predator?
Der Standard, Austria:
Europeans Must Act Quickly or Lose IMF
Jornal De Negocios, Portugal:
DSK Would Have Been Right at Home at Elysee
Liberation, France:
Sex, Power and French Journalistic Principles
Der Western, Germany:
DSK and Schwarzenegger: Reprehensible 'Breaches of Contract'
Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace, France:
Strauss-Kahn: He's 'Nothing But a Man'
The Australian, Australia:
French 'Code of Silence' Protected Strauss-Kahn
Financial Times, U.K.:
VIDEO: After Strauss-Kahn,
Will IMF Look East?
Der Spiegel, Germany:
French 'Aghast' at Arrest of IMF Chief Strauss-Kahn
Der Spiegel, Germany:
Fall of
Strauss-Kahn, the Global
Economy's Top Steward
Le Monde, France:
Infidelity: An American Social and Political Obsession
Nachrichten, Switzerland:
Spitzer's Fall: A Tale That 'Never Gets Old'
Folha, Brazil:
Spitzer's Fall and America's Archaic Laws About Sex …
Der Spiegel, Germany:
Fall of
Strauss-Kahn, the Global
Economy's Top Steward
The Daily Sun, Nigeria:
Explaining Tiger Woods' 'Lust for White Women'
Rue 89, France:
Tiger Woods' Fall from Grace: Only in America
De Volkskrant, The Netherlands:
Tiger Woods: Fallen Star for a Public Age
The Times, U.K.:
Tiger Woods 'Blackened' By All-White Trophy Cupboard
The Telegraph, U.K.:
Tiger's Birdies Make Golf So 'Rock'n'Roll'
Le Journal de Montreal, Canada:
Bonds Tiger Sought to Save Weren't of Marriage
Confronted by men who deny or have problems remembering what
happened, the testimony of Estelle, the second escort in the room, will be
critical. Estelle; the one who suggested to her close female friend that she
accompany her to Washington; the one who didn’t hide her admiration for
"Dom"; and the one whose story also reveals inconsistencies. "
She heard me protest," says Marion. She said it was
“not something that I did.”
“I saw in her face that she wasn’t happy because she had a
filthy look on it,” admitted Estelle to police on December 6, 2011. “I told DSK to stop ... because she didn’t like it," but
"I didn’t hear her say no. If she hadn’t wanted to and if she had screamed,
I would have heard and I would have intervened."
When the investigation is over, the public prosecutor’s
office will either close the case without further action or take it to an
investigating judge. The authors of a gang rape can face up to 20 years
imprisonment.
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