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Washington Post, Feb. 2 2015
The lurid tale of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s alleged ‘pimping’ parties
By Terrence McCoy
On May 11, 2011, the world’s most powerful economist’s career exploded.
Rumors and whispers had long followed Dominique Strauss-Kahn — he was a
womanizer, a philanderer, an adulterer. But on that day in May, when New
York police arrested the managing director of the International Monetary
Fund on charges of sexual assault, another label was added to that list
of allegations: rapist.
That case, which ignited a chain reaction of allegations against the
French economist, was later dismissed — but not before Stauss-Kahn lost
his $500,000-a-year job atop the IMF, which had brought him to the
pinnacle of establishment power and prestige. Now nearly four years
since that epic collapse, the silver-haired economist known as “DSK” may
yet have further to fall.
On Monday, the man many thought would one day be president of France
will stand trial in the city of Lille in northern France. He’s faced
with charges he helped procure sex workers for sex parties from Paris to
Brussels to Washington. Dubbed the Carlton affair because it involves
the Hotel Carlton in Lille, the case stars luxury hotel managers,
Freemasons, Viagra, purple carpet and even a brothel owner called “Dodo
the Pimp” (Dodo la Saumure). In a charging document that runs 240 pages,
French authorities said Strauss-Kahn may have helped organize the
affairs, during which female attendants were allegedly paid to have sex
with businessmen.
Strauss-Kahn has acknowledged participating in group sex but denied
being involved in prostitution. “I challenge you to tell the difference
between a naked prostitute and a naked woman of the world,” his lawyer,
Henri Leclerc, said in 2011, according to the Guardian.
French judges described Strauss-Kahn as the “king of the party” — the
“linchpin” who orchestrated what amounted to “carnage on a pile of
mattresses on the floor,” where Strauss-Kahn allegedly partook in “pure
sexual consumption.” These were no ordinary swingers’ parties, a French
legal document reported by the Telegraph said. It was “factory line sex”
and “orders for services.”
But beyond its salacious aspects, the case is something of a crossroads
for French society. Bolstered by strict privacy laws, French journalists
long prided themselves on their discretion when it came to the personal
lives of public figures. Leave the sensational sex scandals to the
Americans and the Brits. Personal lives — like Strauss-Kahn’s — that
brim with the lurid should stay in the shadows. Until it becomes a legal
matter.
“If a politician is alcoholic, that’s his private life,” Christophe
Barbier, editor of L’Express, told Reuters in 2011. “If he walks the
streets screaming out loud in the middle of the night and gets arrested
by the police, we talk about it.”
Strauss-Kahn, a man married three times who doesn’t deny he loves a good
sex party, now talks openly about his proclivities. “I long thought that
I could lead my life as I wanted,” the New York Times quoted him as
saying in 2012. “And that includes free behavior between consenting
adults. There are numerous parties that exist like this in Paris, and
you would be surprised to encounter certain people. I was naive. I was
too out of step with French society. I was wrong.”
But prosecutors are alleging what he did wasn’t just wrong — it was
illegal. In France, prostitution is legal. But procuring it is not. And
that represents the crux of the case: Strauss-Kahn admits attending the
sex parties, which were reportedly posh, $13,000 affairs that called
together international businessmen looking to ingratiate themselves with
Strauss-Kahn. But the economist denies he either organized those soirees
or had any knowledge women were paid to be there. He said prosecutors
are trying to “criminalize lust.”
The drama ensnared Strauss-Kahn just as he was emerging from a 2011 New
York scandal ignited by a 32-year-old Guinean maid who accused him of
accosting her. In allegations later dismissed, she said he forced
himself on her after he emerged from the shower. Then the economist was
hit with more charges that he participated in the gang rape of a
prostitute in a New York hotel room, allegations he denied and that were
later dropped as well.
This time, he hasn’t been as lucky. French authorities said they came
across Strauss-Kahn by chance. In May of 2011, investigators were
looking into an alleged prostitution ring in northern France. From
there, some of the prostitutes started mentioning Strauss-Kahn’s name,
Agence France-Presse reported. Soon he was the target a fresh
investigation, which ultimately yielded allegations of “aggravated
pimping in an organized group.”
Strauss-Kahn, who faces up to 10 years in prison, will have a chance to
rebut those claims on Feb. 10, when he is expected to take the stand.
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