Even a Whorehouse Madam Could Have Won Rape Conviction Against Lecherous Strauss-Kahn; So why Did New York DA Drop the Case?

I'm embarrassed to say that I had never before paid attention to how our courts prosecute rape cases. But I should have.   The fact that New York District Attorney, Cyrus Vance, dropped charges against former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, accused of rape by hotel maid, Nafissatou Diallo, has set my b.s. meter wailing like a cyclone.  And I'm having trouble finding a button that will turn the damned thing off.

French journalist Tristane Banon
Accuses Strauss-Kahn of Rape 
DNA evidence confirmed that something of a sexual nature had occurred between Strauss-Kahn and the hotel maid, on May 14, 2011.  But maybe Strauss-Kahn's team of lawyers could have persuaded jurors that Mrs. Diallo, a frumpy, middle-aged widow,  was a prostitute, albeit a rather un-competitive  one.   Maybe these attorneys, who were hired by Mr. Strauss-Kahn's billionaire wife, could even have persuaded jurors that the maid had a shady past.  They certainly could have nailed her honesty, by providing evidence that the West African immigrant had lied on her income tax returns, and on an application for U.S. asylum. 

But with all that being said, what if a prosecutor, who actually cared about justice rather than merely the politics of his re-election,  had called Strauss-Kahn's goddaughter, Tristane Banon to testify?  Not only has the woman, who described Strauss-Kahn as a "rutting chimpanzee,"  filed rape charges, but she even confided the incident  to Strauss-Kahn's daughter and told her story on French television.  There is also the female economist at the International Monetary Fund, which Strauss-Kahn used to head, Piroska M. Nagy, who accused the man of using the power he had as her boss to coerce her into having an affair with him.

Bytheway, in speaking of "madams," it was recently reported that: 
"An infamous New York brothel madam claims IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn paid $2500 for prostitutes — and one of them complained he was too rough."
 In dropping the case, is District Attorney Cyrus Vance suggesting that all of these women were in collusion?     I'm not a lawyer, so maybe I'm missing something here.

 RELATED POST:  Casey Anthony & Strauss-Kahn Rape Case Show Broken Criminal Justice System

Comments