Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former head of the IMF, goes on trial on pimping charges
Former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn goes on trial today accused of aggravated pimping
PUBLISHED : Monday, 02 February, 2015, 2:00am
UPDATED : Monday, 02 February, 2015, 2:00am
Agence France-Presse in Paris
Dominique Strauss-Kahn: A mighty fall from grace
Power can be a heady aphrodisiac and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, when chief of the International Monetary Fund and about to run for French president, had plenty of it.
But eventually his power, apparently used to feed his voracious sexual appetite, would prove his undoing.
"Yes, I like women, so what?" the silver-haired Strauss-Kahn told the Liberation newspaper in April 2011, just weeks before his high-flying career imploded over accusations he sexually assaulted a New York hotel maid.
After settling the case in a civil suit, Strauss-Kahn admitted "a moral failing", but the next sex scandal was just around the corner when he became a key suspect in an investigation into a prostitution ring in northern France and Belgium.
The once-dazzling politician and economist, known as DSK in France, goes on trial today for "aggravated pimping" over his role in initiating sex parties attended by prostitutes in France, Belgium and Washington.
Strauss-Kahn, who denies the charge, was ordered to stand trial in 2012 by investigating magistrates despite prosecutors calling for the charges to be dropped for lack of evidence.
The case, known as the "Carlton Affair", began with a probe of a notorious pimp who owns a string of bordellos near the French border in Belgium, where prostitution and brothel ownership are legal.
It emerged that Dominique Alderweireld, nicknamed "Dodo la Saumure" - which loosely translates as Dodo the Mackerel, the French slang for pimp - was allegedly involved in procuring prostitutes for sex parties in various locations such as Lille's upmarket Carlton hotel.
Pimp Dominique Alderweireld has been tied to Strauss-Kahn in a criminal case. Photo: AFP
In a complex and lurid web of details revealed in the probe, Dodo and managers of the Carlton and other hotels are accused of trafficking prostitutes and pimping them out to a network of local businessmen and police officials. Strauss-Kahn's name cropped up when one of the prostitutes working for the "Carlton" ring told investigators she had been paid to participate in a sex party in a luxury Parisian hotel attended by the former head of the IMF, prosecution sources said.
Subsequent investigations revealed DSK had taken part in such parties in Belgium, Paris and even on business trips to Washington, according to the sources, who wished to remain anonymous.
But was DSK just a "libertine" with a voracious sexual appetite taking part in orgies organised by his entourage or was he aware the women lavishing their attention on him were prostitutes?
And did he, as prosecutors allege, play a role in organising their presence?
These are among the key points to be argued in court.
In France, while prostitution is legal, proxenitisme, or procuring, is not.
Pimping has a much wider scope in the eyes of the law than its common definition of being an agent for prostitutes and includes aiding and abetting prostitution in various ways.
DSK, for example, is accused of providing a "bachelor's pad" in Paris for sex parties as well as encouraging his entourage to organise the parties, as evidenced in text messages.
His defence is that he was merely a swinger and not aware the women taking part in the orgies were being paid.
Prosecutors say DSK was the "king of the party", and the evenings were organised according to his schedule and catered to fulfil his every whim.
Those attending the gatherings described "carnage with a heap of mattresses on the floor", and DSK the focus of several women at those times of "pure sexual consummation".
The court is likely to hear sordid details as the government seeks to portray Strauss-Kahn as a sexually obsessed man who knew no limits.
The pimping charge against him is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to €1.5 million (HK$13.12 million). Strauss-Kahn is one of 14 defendants in the trial, which is expected to last three weeks.
He is scheduled to take the stand from next Tuesday.
The trial is remarkable fall from grace and from the top for a man who once jetted around the world steering the International Monetary Fund through the global financial crisis.
Born to a Jewish family in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1949, Strauss-Kahn spent part of his childhood in Morocco.
He racked up diplomas at the elite Paris universities Sciences-Po and HEC, marrying a woman two years his senior at the tender age of 18.
He joined the Socialist Party in 1976 and within a decade underwent a total makeover, marrying for a second time, shaving off his beard and also ditching the thick glasses he wore.
Skilled at explaining complex economic issues in simple terms, he soared through the ranks of the party, entering parliament in 1986 and later becoming mayor of a Parisian suburb.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn with third wife Anne Sinclair. Photo: NYT
Strauss-Kahn's third marriage, to famous French television journalist and wealthy heiress Anne Sinclair, made him part of a slick power couple.
In 1997 he became finance minister, taking part in negotiations on the creation of the euro currency and winning respect across the continent.
After winning the French presidency in 2007, conservative Nicolas Sarkozy put Strauss-Kahn forward as France's candidate to head the IMF, a move that was seen as a bid to neutralise one of the Socialists' most prominent leaders.
Rumours of DSK's dalliances had lurked in the background for years, making few waves in France where attitudes are typically relaxed to matters of the flesh and the press keep their noses out of politicians' sex lives.
His first sex scandal erupted in 2008: an affair with a married Hungarian IMF economist who said she felt coerced into the fling. An IMF probe concluded he had not exerted pressure on her, but had made an error of judgment.
Then in 2011, hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo accused him of sexually assaulting her in his luxury suite in New York.
Nafissatou Diallo. Photo: EPA
The charges were described as a "thunderbolt" by fellow Socialists, dumbstruck at seeing their likely presidential candidate paraded in handcuffs before the world's media.
He was forced to quit the IMF and abandon what was seen as a promising presidential challenge to Sarkozy.
Criminal charges were dropped after Diallo was found to be an unreliable witness.
But whatever really happened in that hotel room in New York, more allegations of DSK's sexual excesses awaited him on his return to France.
First, a 32-year-old writer accused him of trying to rape her in 2003, but investigators ruled the incident allegedly happened too long ago to be prosecuted.
But then the pimping charges emerged in Europe.
They proved the final straw for his wife, Sinclair, who stood by him during the New York scandal but left him in 2012.
He has attempted to rebuild his life, acting as a consultant to the governments of Serbia, South Sudan and the Russian Regional Development Bank.
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Affairs of Dominique Strauss-Kahn in the headlines
The New York maid affair
Dominique Strauss-Kahn is arrested in New York on May 14, 2011, as his plane is about to take off for France after Nafissatou Diallo, a maid at his hotel, accused him of sexually attacking her when he emerged from the shower.
He denies the accusations, which shock his native France where he is expected to run for president in a year.
He is held in prison for four days before being placed under house arrest for seven weeks pending a hearing. He also resigns from his post as head of the IMF.
On July 6 a French writer, Tristane Banon, lodges a complaint against him for an alleged sexual assault in 2003, which she later drops after a court says the incident happened too long ago.
Strauss-Kahn's semen is found on Diallo's dress, but in August the charges are dropped against him after a court ruled she was an unreliable witness.
The Guinean then files a civil suit against him, which is settled in December and reported to be in excess of €$1.5 million (HK$13.12 million).
The Carlton affair
This case involves a ring of businessmen and police - connected through freemasonry - setting up sex parties in luxury hotel rooms. In October 2011, Dominique Alderweireld, a convicted pimp, is charged with procuring prostitutes and money laundering.
As part of the investigation into Alderweireld, who runs brothels near the French border in Belgium, police uncover an alleged cross-border prostitution ring involving the managers of the luxury Carlton hotel in Lille, local business leaders and police officials.
Rene Kojfer, former Carlton public relations officer, is one of the key accused.
He is charged with "aggravated pimping" for allegedly advertising "Dodo's" brothels in France, putting clients in touch with prostitutes and setting up sex parties in the hotel as part of the vice ring.
He admits to providing the contact details of prostitutes to businessman David Roquet.
Roquet, former police commissioner Jean-Christophe Lagarde and businessman Fabrice Pazskowski are accused of directly setting up sex parties for the IMF chief.
Along with Dodo's girlfriend Beatrice Legrain - who ran a massage and sex parlour in Belgium - they are among 14 accused standing trial for aggravated pimping in an organised group.
