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how do the powerful fall?

International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, accused of attempting to **** a hotel maid, was ordered held without bail by a New York judge.

Strauss-Kahn, who was taken into custody May 14 aboard an Air France flight at John F. Kennedy International Airport as it prepared to depart, appeared in Manhattan criminal court today. Prosecutors said they considered him a flight risk and asked the judge that he be held in custody until trial. Strauss-Kahn faces as long as 25 years in prison if convicted of the most serious count, prosecutors said.

“He has almost no incentive to stay in this country,” Assistant District Attorney Artie McConnell told Judge Melissa Jackson. McConnell said authorities don’t know what travel documents Strauss-Kahn has access to.

The IMF chief is also charged with unlawful imprisonment and a criminal sex act. A potential candidate for the French presidency, Strauss-Kahn, 62, has denied the charges and will plead not guilty, his lawyer Benjamin Brafman has said. He didn’t enter a plea today.

The alleged attack on a 32-year-old woman at a Sofitel hotel in midtown Manhattan occurred May 14, according to the New York Police Department. Strauss-Kahn was picked out of a lineup by the maid, police said.

Brafman asked the judge to let his client reside with his daughter in New York while awaiting trial. Brafman said Strauss- Kahn’s wife, television journalist Anne Sinclair, was flying in to New York today.

The arraignment had been scheduled for yesterday and was delayed after investigators sought a warrant for a physical examination. Strauss-Kahn gave police permission to examine him for physical evidence of scratches and DNA from his accuser, according to Brafman.

According to an account the woman provided to police, Strauss-Kahn emerged from the bathroom naked, chased her down a hallway and pulled her into a bedroom, where he began to sexually assault her. She said she fought him off, then he dragged her into the bathroom, where he forced her to perform oral sex on him and tried to remove her underwear. The woman was able to break free again and escaped the room and told hotel staff what had happened, authorities said. They called police.

France woke to the bombshell news Sunday with a measure of surprise.

Strauss-Kahn was expected to be the main challenger against President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose political fortunes have been flagging, in next year's presidential elections. The arrest could shake up the race and throw the long-divided Socialists back into disarray about who they could present as Sarkozy's opponent.
It wasn't clear why Strauss-Kahn was in New York. The IMF is based in Washington, and he was due in Germany on Sunday. His attorney declined to answer questions beyond saying his client denied the charges.

Strauss-Kahn was alone when he checked into the luxury Sofitel hotel not far from Manhattan's Times Square Friday afternoon, police said.

When detectives arrived moments later, Strauss-Kahn had already left the hotel, leaving behind his cell phone, Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said. "It looked like he got out of there in a hurry," Browne said.

The maid was taken by police to a hospital and was being treated for minor injuries. John Sheehan, a spokesman for the hotel, said its staff was cooperating in the investigation.





  by their own hands

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Yup.

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You just know the headline editors in the paper were falling over each other to get this headline out... :-)

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Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:


According to an account the woman provided to police, Strauss-Kahn emerged from the bathroom naked, chased her down a hallway and pulled her into a bedroom, where he began to sexually assault her. She said she fought him off, then he dragged her into the bathroom, where he forced her to perform oral sex on him and tried to remove her underwear. The woman was able to break free again and escaped the room and told hotel staff what had happened, authorities said. They called police.

Ok, the boldface bit is what has me curious.  I can understand how someone might beat the woman and forceably **** them.  How does he force her to perform oral sex?  I mean, think about it.  The man has to sort of....trust her...a LOT....for this to happen.  Trust her not to ...Bobettize him.   Seriously, if a woman is traumatized and scared and hurt and angry and its MY fault....I dont want her teeth anywhere near my junk!

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lol

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A majority of French people believe presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn, accused of sexually assaulting a chambermaid, is the victim of a plot.

Almost 60 per cent feel the International Monetary Fund chief is innocent and has been framed in a conspiracy.   this is disturbing to me.

Straus-Kahn, 62, is being held in Riker Island prison in New York. He denies a string of charges including criminal sex acts, attempted **** and illegal imprisonment.

Former French culture minister Jack Lang described the treatment of Strauss-Kahn as a "lynching" that had "provoked horror and aroused disgust". Liberation, a Left-wing daily newspaper, has published details of off-the-record comments made by Strauss-Kahn as recently as April 28, in which he said he feared a plot.

Discussing his plans to challenge Nicolas Sarkozy as Socialist candidate for the presidency next year, he said he imagined "a woman who had been raped in a car park and who was offered between 500,000 and a million euros to make up such a story".

It emerged today that Strauss-Kahn may have to undergo an HIV test following claims his alleged victim could be a carrier. The hotel chambermaid who is accusing the IMF chief of **** is reported to have been under the care of a charity helping people with HIV and Aids.

It has emerged the 32-year-old and her 15-year-old daughter were being housed in a Bronx apartment block by Harlem Community Aids United. The charity has not revealed the medical status of the maid, who is a migrant from Guinea, west Africa, but did confirm it only rents apartments for adults with either HIV or Aids.

This comes as a European journalist, named only as Martina, alleged that Strauss-Kahn offered her an exclusive interview in exchange for sex.

She said: "He was incredibly insistent ... He made it almost explicit that I had to sleep with him for the interview."

Economist Piroska Nagy, who worked at the IMF, warned the organisation about Strauss-Kahn's behaviour towards women in a letter in 2008 after they had an affair.

French author Tristane Banon, 31, has accused Strauss-Kahn of trying to **** her a decade ago and is considering reporting him to the police in Paris.

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Yeah, imagine seeing conspiracy theories in everything - next thing they'll be asking for the guy's birth cert :-p

Thing is, if this had happened in France then it never would have made the news, the French press are so much under the thumb of the politicians that these things just disappear.  Everyone would have known it happened, but no-one would have "known" that it happened (if you get my drift), and the whole incident would just be made to go away.  So, the conspiracy part probably isn't that it happened, but that it happened in the US where it couldn't be swept under the carpet.

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Originally Posted by Kieran Colfer:
the French press are so much under the thumb of the politicians that these things just disappear.

more that we have to look forward to. hopenchange baby!

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Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:

Originally Posted by Kieran Colfer:
the French press are so much under the thumb of the politicians that these things just disappear.

more that we have to look forward to. hopenchange baby!

Well, these things are getting harder to hide away even in France because of the internet. Thanks to the web, the news will always leak out these days....