She has already altered the course of world events -- but she's just getting started.
The humble hotel maid at the center of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn sex assault case plans to take the witness stand and testify against him at trial, her lawyer announced this morning after the banker pleaded not guilty.
She will not take a payoff and go away, the maid's lawyer stressed.
"All of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's power and money and influence will not keep what happened in that hotel room from coming out," the lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, told reporters gathered for the disgraced banker's arraignment today.
"She is going to come into this courthouse, get on that witness stand and tell the world what happened to her."
The fiery statements overshadowed the other news from the morning, that the former International Monetary Fund head pleaded not guilty as expected to charges of criminal sex act, attempted rape, sex abuse, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching.
The charges stem from his alleged attack on the 32-year-old hotel housekeeper from Guinea, who he is accused of forcing to give him oral sex when she came to clean his suite at the Sofitel hotel on May 14.
"Not guilty," Strauss-Kahn said calmly, in French-accented English, rising from his chair at the defense table after his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, told him to stand up. His wife, Anne Sinclair, sat in a front row seat, dressed all in black.
Law enforcement sources have said they've found Strauss-Kahn's semen on the maid's shirt; outside court today, Brafman repeated his previous insistence that whatever happened in the hotel room was consensual.
"In our judgement, once the evidence is reviewed, it will be clear that there was no element of forcible compulsion in this case whatsoever," Brafman said. "Any suggestion to the contrary is simply not credible.
But the maid will prove she's a victim, and to dispel the notion that she's part of some international conspiracy to destroy the banker, Thompson said, approaching the mike stand to confront Brafman's claims directly.
"The victim is simply a hard-working single mother," Thompson said. "The suggestion by defense counsel that this was consensual was preposterous.
Thompson said that the woman -- who is being kept in a secret location and whose name is being withheld from news accounts -- wants to stand up for the rights of abused women everywhere.
"She's standing up for all women and children around the world," he said. "She is a very courageous woman and she has come to this country because of the great promise of America.
"She is devastated," he said when reporters asked how she is doing. "She is suffering and she is traumatized by what Dominique Strauss-Kahn did to her. This was a terrible assault.
The lawyer would not address questions concerning an eventual lawsuit against Strauss-Kahn, or concerning any attempts by Strauss-Kahn to "buy" her silence.
Close friends of the banker have told The Post that they are sure he'll never spend a night in jail because a payoff has already been broached with her family in Guinea -- a claim family members have insistently denied.
Either way, her silence is not for sale, Thompson insisted.
"What she wants is justice," he told reporters. "What she wants is to be heard. What she wants is for the world to understand that she is a woman o dignity and respect.
Strauss-Kahn, 62, had been greeted by a jeering crowd of women at Manhattan Supreme Court -- chanting "Shame on you!" at the alleged violent molester.
More than 200 news reporters and photographers from around the world descended on the courthouse, along with busloads of more than 100 shouting protesters from the housekeeping union local and from women's rights organizations.
"Shame on you! Shame on you!" they shouted as Strauss-Kahn and his wife walked by.
"We're here to support the woman," said room attendant Ismenia Diaz. "We need respect from everybody who comes to New York. They don't respect us."
"It's a dangerous job. You never know who's in the room," agreed another, Doris Augustina.
Barbara Cardona, a room attendant at the Shelburne Hotel in Murray Hill, said maids need more security "We should have a panic button," she said.
Once widely considered to be a leading contender for the French presidency, Strauss-Kahn resigned his IMF post and scuttled his political plans three weeks ago when he was dramatically pulled off a Paris-bound Air France plane and arrested.
He has been living under house arrest at a $50,000-a-month rented townhouse on Franklin Street in TriBeCa.
Meanwhile, his police statements will be filed, and publicly available, sometime this week, said prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Orbon.
The defense team has also filed routine motions seeking Strauss-Kahn's statements, investigator notes and other evidence in the case. His other attorney, William Taylor, asked for six weeks adjournment so that the team can begin receiving and studying those materials before responding
"We believe it's appropriate to have that period in which to study that discovery," Taylor said.
"We are in receipt of the request for discovery and we'd like the opportunity to respond to it," Illuzzi-Orbon said.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus set July 18 as the next court date; defendants are typically required to attend all court dates, but court officials suggested that this next, routine appearance may be waived to avoid the crowds of hundreds of reporters, protesters and onlookers that ringed the courthouse this morning.
Seems to me that young Cyrus could have a problem...if it turns out that the DNA in the stain really matches Mr Kahn's own secretions, then this leak had to come from the DA's office or the NYPD.
ReplyDeleteCases have been thrown out of court for less than this.
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