Disgraced ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is seeking more than $1 million in a countersuit against the New York hotel maid whose accusation of sexual assault last year brought down his glittering political career.

"/> Disgraced ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is seeking more than $1 million in a countersuit against the New York hotel maid whose accusation of sexual assault last year brought down his glittering political career.

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DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KAHN

Strauss-Kahn seeks at least $1 million from maid

Disgraced ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is seeking more than $1 million in a countersuit against the New York hotel maid whose accusation of sexual assault last year brought down his glittering political career.

Published: 16 May 2012 07:27 CEST
Strauss-Kahn seeks at least $1 million from maid
WTO

The countersuit, signed on Monday and made public on Tuesday, seeks a minimum of $1 million, plus legal costs and undetermined punitive damages from the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, who is accused of “falsely and maliciously asserting” she was attacked.

The 18-page document accuses Diallo of malicious prosecution, abuse of process, false imprisonment, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

“Ms Diallo participated in the commencement and maintenance of a baseless criminal prosecution,” the suit said, “and in doing so intended to injure Mr Strauss-Kahn.”

The suit was the French politician’s latest attempt to turn the tables on Diallo and recover from a scandal that started a year ago when Diallo accused him of forcing her into oral sex when she went to clean his luxury hotel room.

An initial criminal case against Strauss-Kahn collapsed because Diallo lied to Manhattan prosecutors on certain aspects of the story.

However, Strauss-Kahn was forced to resign from the International Monetary Fund and abandon his hopes of winning the French presidency.

Subsequently, Diallo launched a civil suit seeking unspecified damages in New York, while in France prosecutors opened a separate criminal case  against Strauss-Kahn, alleging involvement in a prostitution ring serving orgies in several countries.

The rival civil suits are both filed in New York state court in the Bronx, where a judge has ruled against Strauss-Kahn’s bid to claim diplomatic immunity and have the maid’s action thrown out.

They represent diametrically opposed versions of what happened when Diallo went to clean Strauss-Kahn’s Manhattan Sofitel suite.

According to Diallo, she was ambushed by a nude Strauss-Kahn. Shortly after, she notified hotel staff, the police were called, and Strauss-Kahn was arrested at John F. Kennedy Airport just as he was about to fly to Europe.

In his suit, Strauss-Kahn says there was a sexual encounter, but “no violence, force or coercion” and “Ms Diallo suffered no injuries whatsoever.”

He then presents a version of events that makes him the sole victim, starting with “a degrading and humiliating strip search” by police and being “paraded in front of international media in handcuffs as part of a ‘perp walk’ intended to humiliate him.”

The suit notes that Diallo was determined to have lied to prosecutors about her past, most damagingly about a supposed gang rape in her native Guinea, which in fact did not take place.

Strauss-Kahn blames the legal onslaught and publicity for “causing grievous harm to his personal and professional reputation” and “losing his position with the IMF.”

“As a direct and foreseeable result of Ms Diallo’s abuse of process, Mr Strauss-Kahn has suffered actual damages in an amount to be determined at trial, and also is entitled to punitive damages to be assessed by the jury,” the suit stated.

A US lawyer for Strauss-Kahn, William Taylor, said Diallo should expect to face the suit.

“She is directly responsible for his being arrested, imprisoned, and subjected to extraordinary pain, anguish and expense,” Taylor said.

“He is not required to simply endure what she did and her effort to profit for herself without fighting back.”

But Diallo’s lawyer Douglas Wigdor dismissed the countersuit as an example of “Strauss Kahn’s misogynistic attitude.”

“As with his plea for diplomatic immunity, we are entirely confident this latest desperate ploy will be swiftly rejected.”

Wigdor also said he did not expect the countersuit to be more than a “very small bump in the road” for his own client’s legal strategy.

This move was an effort in spin and public relations,” he said.

Before the New York scandal and the French prostitution allegations, Strauss-Kahn, 62, was seen as a champion of France’s Socialist Party and expected to beat vulnerable president Nicolas Sarkozy at the polls this year.

Instead Socialist candidate Francois Hollande stood against Sarkozy, and won. He took the oath of office on Tuesday.

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ECONOMY

World unprepared for next financial crisis: ex-IMF chief Strauss-Kahn

The world is less well equipped to manage a major financial crisis today than it was a decade ago, according to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a former chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Published: 9 September 2018 14:08 CEST
World unprepared for next financial crisis: ex-IMF chief Strauss-Kahn
Former French Economy Minister and former managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Dominique Strauss-Kahn , poses during a photo session in Paris on Thursday. Photo: JOEL SAGET / AFP
In an interview with AFP, the now-disgraced Strauss-Kahn — who ran the fund at the height of the 2008 financial meltdown — also said rising populism across the world is a direct result of the crisis. 
 
Strauss-Kahn resigned as head of the IMF in 2011 after being accused of attempted rape in New York, although the charges were later dropped. He settled a subsequent civil suit, reportedly with more than $1.5 million.
 
Q: When did you become aware that a big crisis was brewing?
 
A: When I joined the IMF on Nov 1, 2007, it became clear quite quickly that things were not going well. That is why in January 2008, in Davos, I made a statement that made a bit of noise, asking for a global stimulus package worth two percent of each country's GDP. In April 2008, during the IMF's spring meetings, we released the figure of $1,000 billion that banks needed for their recapitalisation.
 
Q: Did the Bush administration grasp the danger of Lehman Brothers going bankrupt?
 
A: No, and that is why Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson decided not to save Lehman, because he wanted to make an example of it in the name of moral hazard. Like everybody else, he considerably underestimated the consequences. Allowing Lehman to go under was a serious mistake. Especially because only a week later they were forced to save the insurer AIG, which was much bigger.
 
Q: Ten years on, are we better equipped to deal with a crisis of such a magnitude?
 
A: No. We have made some progress, particularly in the area of banks' capital adequacy ratios. But that is not nearly enough. Imagine Deutsche Bank suddenly finding itself in difficulty. The eight percent of capital it has at its disposal are not going to be enough to solve the problem. The truth is that we are less well prepared now. Regulations are insufficient.
 
Q: How so?
 
A: After 2012-2013 we stopped talking about the need to regulate the economy, for example concerning the size of banks, or concerning rating agencies. We backtracked, which is why I am pessimistic about our preparedness. We have a non-thinking attitude towards globalisation and that does not yield positive results.
 
Q: Do we still have international coordination?
 
A: Coordination is mostly gone. Nobody plays that role anymore. Not the IMF and not the EU, and the United States president's policies are not helping. As a result, the mechanism that was created at the G20, which was very helpful because it involved emerging countries, has fallen apart. Ten years ago, governments accepted leaving that role to the IMF. I'm not sure it is able to play it today, but the future will tell.
 
Q: Do you believe that Donald Trump's election is a consequence of the crisis?
 
A: I believe so. I'm not saying that there was a single reason for Trump's election, but today's political situation is not unconnected to the crisis we lived through, both in the US with Trump and in Europe.
 
Q: Connected how?
 
A: One of the consequences of the crisis has been completely underestimated, in my opinion: the populism that is appearing everywhere is the direct outcome of the crisis and of the way that it was handled after 2011/2012, by favouring solutions that were going to increase inequalities.
 
Quantitative easing (by which central banks inject liquidity into the banking system) was useful and welcome. But it is a policy that is basically designed to bail out the financial system, and therefore serves the richest people on the planet.
 
When there's a fire, firemen intervene and there is water everywhere. But then you need to mop up, which we didn't do. And because this water flowed into the pockets of some, and not of everyone, there was a surge in inequality.
 
By AFP's Antonio Rodriguez