Strauss-Kahn countersues hotel maid in US court for US$1m
Former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn leaves after casting his vote at a polling station in the second round of the 2012 French presidential elections in Sarcelles on May 6, 2012. — Reuters picNEW YORK, May 15 — Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has filed a US$1 million (RM3.08 million) countersuit against the hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault, costing him his job and any chance of being elected president of France.
New York police arrested Strauss-Kahn a year ago when hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo accused him of forcible oral sex and trying to rape her in his luxury suite at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan. Prosecutors later dropped charges after losing confidence in Diallo’s credibility.
The countersuit was filed yesterday on the anniversary of the incident and a day before Francois Hollande — the Socialist who took the nomination that Strauss-Kahn once coveted — was sworn in as president of France.
Strauss-Kahn denied the allegations, saying the sexual encounter with Diallo was consensual. Diallo nonetheless sued Strauss-Kahn in Supreme Court in the New York City borough of the Bronx, where she lived at the time.
Strauss-Kahn denies all wrongdoing in the countersuit and accuses Diallo of “knowingly and intentionally making a false report to law enforcement authorities.”
The former international financier seeks damages for his arrest, which included jail time at New York’s Rikers Island and house arrest in an upscale Manhattan neighbourhood; for losing his job as managing director of the International Monetary Fund; and for harm to his reputation.
The countersuit seeks at least US$1 million in damages plus an undetermined amount of punitive damages. — Reuters
