Strauss-Kahn’s accuser may have sought financial gain, official says

NEW YORK — Scrutiny of the accuser in the sexual assault case against former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn intensified Saturday after more revelations about her conduct following the purported May 14 attack.

A judge released Strauss-Kahn from house arrest and lifted strict bail conditions Friday after prosecutors discovered a pattern of lying in the accuser’s background, although serious charges including sexual assault and attempted rape remain in place against the man once seen as a top French presidential contender.

A report says the 32-year-old woman, a hotel maid, spoke of the possibility of financial gain from the incident.

In a phone conversation with her boyfriend, who was held in an Arizona jail on suspicion of possessing 400 pounds of marijuana, she said there was money to be made from Strauss-Kahn, a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation told Reuters on Saturday.

The call was recorded and the woman told her boyfriend she was fine and not to worry about her, the source said.

The New York Times quoted a well-placed law enforcement official as saying: “She says words to the effect of, ‘Don’t worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I’m doing.’”

On Friday, prosecutors said the accuser had lied about being gang-raped in her native Guinea as part of her application for U.S. asylum and changed details of her story about what she did after the incident in Strauss-Kahn’s luxury Manhattan hotel suite.

Strauss-Kahn’s whereabouts on Saturday were unknown. He left his Manhattan townhouse where he had been under house arrest until Friday and got into a black sedan, followed by a flock of photographers in vehicles and on motorcycles. His car then pulled into a garage with restricted access and he disappeared.

Revelations about the accuser have left prosecutors struggling to make a case with a central witness whose credibility would be targeted by Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers.

Investigators once portrayed the woman as a devout Muslim who immediately reported that Strauss-Kahn, a steward of the world economy from the French elite, emerged naked from the bathroom while she was in his suite to clean it, tried to rape her and forced her to perform oral sex.

Her lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, came to her defense Friday, portraying her as a frightened, illiterate woman who remained a victim, her body badly bruised in the encounter.

“The victim here may have made some mistakes, but that doesn’t mean she’s not a rape victim,” Thompson said.

He said that since the start of the case, the woman had been consistent in the most important part of her story, saying that as she began cleaning Strauss-Kahn’s suite he grabbed her breast, violently knocked her down and forced her to perform oral sex. He said she suffered bruises and torn ligaments.

Linda Fairstein, who oversaw the sex crimes prosecution unit in the Manhattan district attorney’s office for 25 years, said rape and sexual assault cases are “especially difficult” to try.

“But they are nearly impossible to try when you find out the witness has already lied to you,” she said. “The prosecutors and police, they took her word over the word of one of the most powerful men in the financial world.”

Investigators have gathered forensic evidence in the case, including traces of Strauss-Kahn’s semen found on the woman’s work uniform, but that evidence alone isn’t enough, said Fairstein, now a crime novelist.

“The DNA clearly suggests there was some kind of sexual exchange between [Strauss-Kahn] and the woman, but it tells you nothing about whether it was forcible,” she said.