DSK Off the Hook in (Another) Rape Case

Posted on Oct 13, 2011

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DSK disagreed with Ms. Banon’s account of the goings-on in their 2003 interview.

It’s been a few months since former International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn made news for all the wrong reasons, and on Thursday yet another headline about DSK’s sexual past cropped up. This time, the story practically ended before it began, unlike last spring’s case brought by a hotel maid in New York.

Partly because of chronology and partly due to lack of evidence, French prosecutors dropped rape charges this week stemming from an alleged incident in 2003 in which Stauss-Kahn’s accuser, novelist Tristane Banon, said he attacked her during an interview. Mais non, his side said once again.  —KA

Bloomberg Businessweek:

Strauss-Kahn and Banon were brought together by Paris police on Sept. 29 for simultaneous questioning to try to reconcile their differing versions of what happened when Banon met Strauss-Kahn for an interview.

She said he assaulted her, trying to remove her clothes and putting his hands in her mouth and underwear, according to an interview in the July 6 issue of the magazine L’Express.

He called her account “imaginary” in a slander suit he filed against her.

Banon, speaking at a Sept. 24 rally supporting tougher sexual-assault laws, said she may seek a private prosecution, in which a criminal complaint can be taken directly to an investigating judge, or pursue a civil case against Strauss- Kahn. Charges of attempted rape and rape can be brought for 10 years after the incident in France, while sexual assault has a three-year limit.

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