Accusing Dominique Strauss-Kahn

On May 14, 2011, Nafissatou Diallo, a housekeeper at the Sofitel New York, a luxury Manhattan hotel, reported to security that she had been sexually assaulted by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund and potential French presidential candidate. Her account, which she later gave to the New York Police Department, was simple and straightforward. Thinking the room was unoccupied, she entered the suite to perform her housekeeping duties, only to find Strauss-Kahn emerging naked from the bedroom. Diallo told investigators that, after closing the door to the suite, Strauss-Kahn pulled her into the bedroom, pushed her onto the bed, and attempted to forcibly insert his penis into her mouth, which caused his penis to make contact with her closed lips. Then, she said, he pushed her down a narrow hallway. He pulled up her uniform, partially rolled down her stockings, reached under her panties, and grabbed the outside of her vaginal area forcefully. He then physically compelled her to her knees, forcibly inserted his penis into her mouth, held her head, and ejaculated. This sexual act occurred at the end of the suite's interior hallway, near the suite's full bathroom. The housekeeper said that she spat his semen onto the suite's interior hallway carpet and continued to do so as she fled from the suite.

Her statements implied that the encounter lasted only a short period of time. Further investigation revealed that Diallo entered Strauss-Kahn's suite by keycard at 12:06 PM. Telephone records revealed that Strauss-Kahn called his daughter, with whom he later lunched, at 12:13 PM. Thus the encounter probably lasted only seven to nine minutes.

Police detectives tracked Strauss-Kahn to an Air France flight scheduled to depart from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Europe. They asked him to disembark, and he was taken into custody. The housekeeper later identified him in a police lineup. Preliminary results from DNA testing established that several stains on her dress contained Strauss-Kahn's semen and that his DNA was found on both the interior and exterior waistband of her panty hose and the waistband of her underwear. But the DNA evidence would not prove dispositive, because Strauss-Kahn admitted to a sexual act that he claimed was consensual. Medical personnel who examined the young woman noted no visible injuries but did find "redness" in the vaginal area, which could have been attributed to the incident but could also have been due to a host of other causes.

Strauss-Kahn appeared in court and was held without bail pending a grand jury investigation. On May 19, a Manhattan grand jury indicted Strauss-Kahn on seven criminal counts, two of which were first-degree criminal sexual acts. Eventually Strauss-Kahn posted bail — $1 million in cash and a $5 million bond. He was confined to twenty-four-hour home detention and made to wear an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet.

The story quickly became a media sensation. One French media analyst found that in the first ten days of the scandal it appeared on the front page of more than 150,000 newspapers around the world.

Subsequently, a young French reporter stepped forward to report that Strauss-Kahn had attempted to rape her during a 2002 interview but that her mother had dissuaded her from filing a criminal complaint. Now she had decided to contact the authorities.

Riley

Riley is a relative of Richard, a colleague at my university. He heard me speaking about rape and approached me to tell me Riley's experiences. Then he asked if I would like to speak with her the next time she came to Chicago for the holidays. Knowing that many women are not comfortable talking about this subject, I jumped at the chance to hear her account and learn more about acquaintance rape.

Riley's scenario is one in which her date, Luke, exploited her extreme weaknesses (which is something rapists look for when marking their victims for attack, many people believe). Riley has cystic fibrosis, an inherited, fatal disease that causes mucus buildup in the lungs, trachea, and sinuses, blocking the airways and providing a fertile field for bacteria growth. The mucus also impairs the cilia critical to cleaning the airways; on average, individuals with cystic fibrosis lose 2 percent of their lung function each year, a development that drastically shortens their lifespan. Cystic fibrosis also drastically affects the digestive system; the body is unable to break down food on its own, which causes malabsorption and malnutrition. This state can lead to pancreatic insufficiency and diabetes. People also become deficient in vitamin D, which results in bone weakness.

When Riley met Luke, her health was increasingly precarious. Riley describes the course of treatment that began a few months before:

Due to coughing up blood and difficulty breathing, my doctors started me on a strict, permanent regimen that I am still on to this day. First, they started me on more oral antibiotics to take daily. They also prescribed inhaled antibiotics, which I had to inhale twice daily for thirty minutes. This was inhaled using a nebulizer, and after inhalation I have to thoroughly clean the machine and parts to be sure no bacteria or mold infected the parts that I breathed through. I was also put on an airway-clearance vest for my chest. It is literally a vest that I strap on to my chest, and it pulsates and vibrates my chest to get me to cough up mucus. I do that for twenty minutes twice daily as well, in the morning and at night, like the inhaled antibiotics. I was on many oral medications and an inhaler throughout the day. I was also doing sinus rinses at the time to try to clear up infection in my sinuses. I would have to squirt one cup of saltwater up each nostril twice a day. And at night I took a drink/mix medication for my digestion, because cystic fibrosis clogs the digestive system and I can't digest food on my own. I also had to exercise daily to try to get myself to cough up more mucus and exercise my lungs as much as possible to keep them as clear as possible.

The introduction to Luke came from Riley's mother, who was employed by the university and met Luke on campus. Luke told her he had just moved from California, and he complained about the lack of success he was having with dating — all the girls just wanted to drink and have sex. Riley's mother thought Luke would be perfect for one of her three daughters. It later turned out that everything Luke said was a lie; he might have lived in California, but he moved from there when he was five years old and had been in the college town for almost twenty...