Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was cleared of rape charges in France today, prosecutors announced. The former IMF chief had been accused of gang raping a prostitute at a party in a in a D.C. hotel, one of a string of sex scandals that derailed his political career.
The Washington Post explains why the latest charges were dropped:
The gang rape charges grew from accusations by one of the prostitutes who traveled to Washington. She told police she was held by her feet and hands while Strauss-Kahn sodomized her in a room at the W Hotel in the District. Her cries to stop went unheeded, police said she told them.
But the prosecutor’s office, in its announcement, said she did not lodge a formal complaint during her interrogation and later sent a letter to the prosecutor saying she had consented to paid sex with Strauss-Kahn and did not intend to make a legal complaint against him. As a result, the prosecutor’s office said, the charges were dropped because, without a complaint, “the crime of rape was not constituted.”
Because the woman bringing the accusation has recanted, there’s no more case to pursue, French prosecutors explained. A previous sexual assault case against Strauss-Kahn, based on the accusations of a New York hotel maid, was also dropped after the woman’s reliability was questioned.
