New York, May 16: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the leader of the IMF, was ordered today to be held without bail over allegations that he had sexually assaulted a maid in a $3,000-a-night suite at a New York hotel.
Prosecutors had asked the judge, Melissa Jackson, supervising judge of Manhattan Criminal Court, to remand Strauss-Kahn, 62, contending that he was a flight risk.
They also highlighted the serious nature of the allegations.
“The defendant restrained a hotel employee inside his room,” said John McConnell, an assistant district attorney. “He sexually assaulted her and attempted to forcibly rape her,” and when that failed, he forced her to perform oral sex.
Benjamin Brafman, one of Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers, argued that “there is a very very defensible case and he should be entitled to bail”. He added that his client was not trying to flee when he was arrested on an Air France plane that was about to take off from Kennedy International Airport on Saturday.
Brafman said that Strauss-Kahn’s travel plans had been set for some time, and he indicated that there was evidence that between the time of the alleged attack and his flight, Strauss-Kahn was in the area, taking care of other business.
But Judge Jackson ruled against Strauss-Kahn, and returned him to custody.
Strauss-Kahn’s appearance in the court, which lasted only 26 minutes, capped a 43-hour odyssey through New York’s criminal system. He was arrested, held in a special cell in East Harlem, placed in a police line-up, and submitted to a forensic medical exam for possible evidence.
He even was subjected to a ritual familiar to high-profile suspects: the so-called perp walk, providing newspapers around the world with a front-page picture of Strauss-Kahn being led away from a police station in handcuffs.
He first appeared in the court at 10.49am (New York time), brought in from the back-room cells to the gasp of a rows packed tightly with reporters. Some stood up to get a glimpse of him as he sat on a bench with other defendants. Court officers quickly admonished the reporters to sit down.
But just eight minutes after he had been brought into the courtroom, Strauss-Kahn was ushered back out by a police officer wearing a short-sleeved polo shirt, signalling an even further delay in the arraignment.
Strauss-Kahn looked just as he had the day before — in a dark, full-length coat, hands cuffed behind his back and a stern gaze on his face.
The long wait for Strauss-Kahn’s arraignment unfolded as an international corps of reporters, photographers and camera crews were crowded outside the courtroom because there was not enough seating to accommodate everyone.
Yesterday afternoon, Strauss-Kahn’s accuser picked him out of a line-up in East Harlem, where he was being held at the Special Victims Unit, and new details emerged on how he came to be taken into custody.
The authorities said they had moved to obtain a court order granting them a search warrant to examine Strauss-Kahn for signs of injury that he might have suffered during a struggle or for traces of his accuser’s DNA.
“Things like getting things from under the fingernails,” a law enforcement official explained, “the classic things you get in association with a sex assault.”
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