Prosecutors could still pursue case against Strauss-Kahn

The rapidly dissolving case against former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn faces challenges fairly common in sexual assault prosecutions, namely a less-than-perfect accuser.

So while Manhattan prosecutors face a more difficult task now that the accuser has been found to have lied on several occasions including about what happened immediately after the purported attack, it is too soon to consider the case closed.

“This would not be the first case where an important prosecution witness turned out not to be the angel or pure victim that the prosecution initially thought. Nor would it be the first case a prosecution’s office took a case to trial where a witness had real credibility issues,” Columbia Law School Professor Daniel Richman said. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance admitted a setback with revelations about the accuser’s past.

“She’s already lied under oath in this case. I can’t imagine more of a home run for the defense,” said Gerald Lefcourt, a well-known Manhattan defense attorney.

But tellingly, experts said, prosecutors did not dismiss the case, a strong indication prosecutors believe the hotel maid’s story that Strauss-Kahn attacked her in a luxury suite. Had Vance given up hope, he likely would have folded the case immediately.

There’s no doubt, however, that prosecutors face a much more difficult path to conviction because Strauss-Kahn’s defense lawyers would seize upon the accuser’s past misstatements and try to discredit her before any jury.

“It’s theoretically possible that the case could survive because there’s a long history of sex crimes being prosecuted by imperfect complaining witnesses,” said Paul Callan, a former prosecutor now in private practice. Crucial to the case would be to present corroborating evidence beyond forensics evidence gathered from the hotel suite and in medical examinations of the accused and accuser. Defense lawyers could argue any sexual contact was consensual.

If there were witnesses in the hotel who heard the woman scream or testify that she looked distraught after the incident, prosecutors could use that to bolster their case in spite of inconsistencies in the woman’s own story, said Bradley Simon, a defense attorney in Manhattan.

CREDIBILITY IN DOUBT
Prosecutors say the woman lied to immigration authorities while seeking US asylum, claiming she had been gang-raped in her native Guinea. The story was fabricated, though the woman said she was raped on another occasion under different circumstances.