Dominique Strauss-Kahn: a vile rapist, or the victim of a brilliantly executed political plot? An article in The New York Review of Books combs through room key records, a hotel video, and details of a lost Blackberry during the fateful day—May 14, 2011—when DSK had a sexual encounter with a maid at Sofitel New York. Whatever happened that day, the fallout was undeniable: He soon resigned as head of the IMF and lost his chance to challenge Nicolas Sarkozy for the French presidency.
According to the article:
- Sofitel's engineer—who is linked through his boss to Sarkozy intelligence—was spotted by a hotel video camera high-fiving and dancing with an unidentified man for 3 minutes near the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, just after the cops were called on DSK.
- Diallo's room key shows she entered DSK's room between 12:06 and 12:07pm. At 12:13pm, DSK called his daughter on the phone. During the 6 or 7 minutes Diallo was in there, she says, DSK brutally attacked her and dragged her around the room.
- At 12:26 Diallo went into another hotel room, #2820, which she had entered several times that day. Then she returned to DSK's empty room and reported the attack. But Diallo never told police about room #2820, and the cops never searched it. Sofitel never divulged who stayed there.
- Sources close to DSK say his Blackberry may have been under surveillance, and a DSK email apparently ended up on a computer in Sarkozy's office. That morning, DSK lost his Blackberry, never to be found again.
Mere coincidence, or political conspiracy? Sarkozy's political party is denying allegations of a frame-up, the
Guardian reports. But you can read more in the
Review's article. (More
Dominique Strauss Kahn stories.)