DSK vs. the Maid
A hotel maid. A high-powered French official. A sexual-assault accusation. The bare facts of the attempted-rape case against International Monetary Fund director Dominique Strauss-Kahn read like the plot of an episode of the crime show Law & Order: SVU. On May 14, the New York City Police Department boarded an Air France flight just before its departure for Paris from JFK airport and arrested the IMF official on charges that he sexually assaulted a Sofitel hotel housekeeper. DSK was charged with attempted rape and spent six weeks in jail and under house arrest while the prosecution tried to build its case. Meanwhile, an international media frenzy ensued, as French news outlets and politicos lambasted the NYPD as well as the alleged victim, an immigrant single mother. Eventually the woman was prompted to face the public and tell her side of the story, but the case was already in tatters. Prosecutors, feeling that the maid lacked credibility, dropped the charges against Strauss-Kahn, and he returned to France. Though the scandal was effectively over, no one was vindicated: while DSK was forced to resign from his IMF position and his political career was severely damaged (he'd once been the favorite to replace Nicolas Sarkozy as President of France), the alleged victim was perhaps the most affected, as she was publicly humiliated and branded a prostitute and liar by tabloids. And the public was left with some lingering uncomfortable questions about the ethics of men in power, the justice system and whether sexual harassment still exists in the workplace.