Celebrity Scandal!
Luxury hotel staff at Sofitel fail to report high-profile crime in time?
[May 23]
He was one of the most influential men in the world but now is one of the most notorious thanks to a hotel scandal involving rape and hookers. As if it weren’t bad enough that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former head of the International Monetary Fund, essentially got away with a sexual assault on a female hotel staffer last week after having posted a million dollar bond to get out of Rikers, there are allegations popping up against the high-profile hotel at which he was staying made by rumor mills for both failing to report the crime and allowing prostitutes to conduct business behind their closed doors while management and staff may have turned the other cheek. New York investigators are looking into allegations that the Sofitel staff waited more than an hour to report the attack against one if its own.
A damning consideration of the NYC resort notes that the Sofitel is a French-owned hotel, and that management may have been reluctant to sponsor an accusation against a high-profile Frenchman, reports Reuters. Dominique Strauss-Kahn not only was the head of the International Monetary Fund, but he was considered a fornt-runner against French President Nicolas Sarkozy in upcoming national elections. Perhaps hotel management gave the diplomat some time to clean up evidence (or maybe they helped him do it) before he left.
Video from the hotel shows that Strauss-Kahn left the Sofitel approximately 12:30 p.m., yet the first call to emergency personnel didn’t take place until shortly after 1:30 p.m. However, it’s possible that the 32-year-old woman who was attacked was so distressed that she couldn’t bring herself to report the attack right away, or that Sofitel management took some time to settle her before making a call to police. But we find that hard to believe.
Additional concerns have circled around diplomatic immunity being a get out of jail free pass for such a high-profile diplomat like Dominique Strauss-Kahn. The Frenchman is offered diplomatic immunity for his position as an international diplomat who represents financial markets worldwide; however the IMF reports that it extends immunity only to him for hours doing official business for the IMF.
Since Strauss-Kahn was in NY on personal business, he is receiving no special protection through his diplomatic immunity powers, according to Reuters.
So he’s stuck with needing to defend himself and fight his way through the various claims against him the old-fashioned way — dy hiring a lawyer to defend him in court through the predictable legal processes of the US justice system.
Despite protests of victims rights advocacy groups and the prosecutor who said Strauss-Kahn was a real flight risk, a New York judge did release Strauss-Kahn on a $1 million bail. However, he has been ordered to wear an ankle bracelet and is being monitored under armed guard. They have also grounded the accused assailant to a Manhattan location pending a trial date. according to an AFP report.
A spokesman for the company which produces the monitoring equipment has noted that it is pretty well foolproof, which is good because Strauss-Kahn clearly has resources to effect an escape should he make an attempt. If he flees, however, the US does not have an extradition treaty with France — so many in upper level social circles are expecting him to forfeit the cool million and jump bail.
AFP reports:
“Like with the GPS in your vehicle, I’ll see dots showing wherever a person is at,” said Perry Smith, president and owner of ADAPT Inc, a Bismarck, North Dakota-based company that supplies GPS tracking services.
“I’ll see dots going from the bedroom to the living room,” Smith told AFP. “You can set it as accurate as you want — within feet or within yards.”
Updates to the allegations of sexual misconduct and how Dominique Strauss-Kahn will attempt to defend himself, if at all, are on the horizon. The US government isn’t about to let this fish get away. Meanwhile, it’s good at least to know that someone like Strauss-Kahn is highly unlikely to rise to the ranks of the French presidency anytime soon.
Further questions are coming up as well about the kind of business the luxury hotel is running now that a Madam has stepped forward to say Strauss-Kahn regularly hired $1000 per hour prostitutes from her organization to stay with him at hotels — and that he was very rough with the girls.
Bossip reports:
Head of the IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn sensationally quit his post today, amid fresh claims that he paid an infamous brothel madam $2,500 for escort girls. Kristin Davis, 35, claimed the IMF chief used the services of Wicked Models twice in 2006. The Frenchman, who was not in the IMF post at the time, was believed to have been referred to the brothel owner by Irma Nici, a Bosnian prostitute who had been living in Paris, according to The Times newspaper.
Ms Nici – also linked with Davis’s most famous client, the former New York governor Eliot Spitzer – recently claimed to have slept with David Beckham. The footballer denies the allegation. Mr Spitzer, who is now an anchor for CNN, was forced to resign from the role in 2008 when the scandal was made public. According to The Times, Strauss-Kahn – who is currently on remand in New York accused of the attempted rape of a hotel chambermaid – called Davis in the third week of January 2006 to request an ‘all American’ girl, and paid £1,500 ($2,400) for two hours with her.
‘He paid in cash’, she was quoted as saying. ‘The first girl I sent to him said he was aggressive and didn’t want to be back with him again.’
In his letter of resignation released by the IMF, Strauss-Kahn said: ‘I deny with the greatest possible firmness all of the allegations that have been made against me,’
Speaking about her alleged liaison with the IMF boss, Ms Nici told the Daily Mail: ‘Strauss-Kahn was rough and aggressive, however he maintained a certain level of decorum because he was dealing with an agency. ‘The girls said he was pushy, overly grabby and forceful. He did not rape anyone. However, at $1,000 or more an hour, we expected the clients to behave like gentlemen, not animals.’
While there is no direct allegation against Sofitel by the madam, Strauss-Kahn was known to stay in the NYC hotel on a regular basis, making it likely he has brought prostitutes to the hotel.