Dominique
Strauss-Kahn was acquitted of sex crime accusations by a French court on
Friday, the final chapter in a transatlantic scandal that destroyed the
political ambitions of a man once tipped to become his country's president.
A court in the
northern city of Lille dismissed charges that the former International Monetary
Fund chief's sexual escapades with prostitutes amounted to "aggravated
pimping" -- the charge on which French magistrates sent him to trial.
The verdict came
four years after sex assault accusations by a New York hotel maid ended his
political ambitions and forced him to step down as head of the Washington-based
IMF and ends Strauss-Kahn's legal battle on both sides of the Atlantic.
But local media
said the damage to his reputation after four years of occasionally salacious
revelations about his sexual practices almost certainly ruled out a political
comeback.
Having settled
financially with Sofitel maid Nafissatou Diallo after New York prosecutors
abandoned criminal charges in 2011, the 66-year-old stood accused in France of
instigating the organization of orgies with prostitutes.
"He cannot be
attributed the role of instigator," judge Bernard Lemaire said when
reading out a verdict in the presence of Strauss-Kahn and 13 others. "He
just availed of the sexual services of a group."
Strauss-Kahn
and his lawyers had argued that he was a "libertine" with an appetite
for rough sex but was unaware that women he frolicked with at parties and
hotels in Paris, Lille and Washington, mostly while in the IMF post, were
prostitutes.
Since returning to
Paris after his IMF stint in Washington abruptly ended, Strauss-Kahn has sought
to start a new life with a now-troubled venture in investment banking and a new
female partner, after celebrity journalist wife Anne Sinclair left him.
SEX PARTIES
In the so-called
Carlton affair, named after a luxury hotel in Lille, the acclaimed economist
and French finance minister of the late 1990s was tried with 13 others on
charges that he instigated sex parties with prostitutes. He flatly denied any
wrongdoing.
While frequenting
prostitutes is not a crime in France, procuring them is. A conviction on
charges of "aggravated pimping" can carry a sentence of up to a
decade in prison and a fine of up to 1.5 million euros ($1.7 million).
The Lille ruling
closed a saga that began live on TV when Strauss-Kahn was shown walking
handcuffed through New York streets after police escorted him off a plane about
to leave for Europe.
The
affair felled one of the world's most powerful financial policymakers days
before he planned to announce his candidacy in France's 2012 presidential
election. "DSK", as he is known to many French, was runaway favorite
in opinion polls at the time.
Instead, Francois
Hollande ran as the Socialist candidate and beat conservative incumbent Nicolas
Sarkozy.
Strauss-Kahn has
since set up his own business consultancy firm. Media talk of a political
comeback fizzled out long ago.
He has made
appearances at banking conferences as a paid guest speaker and took part in a
troubled investment venture with a partner who committed suicide.
Anne Sinclair, the
ultra-wealthy heiress to an art dealer family's assets, split from Strauss-Kahn
after their return to Paris and has since returned to work in the French media.
Ivan
Levai, Sinclair's partner before she met Strauss-Kahn, told BFM TV on Friday
acquittal would allow the former French finance minister open a new chapter in
his life but that he was politically ruined.
BFM TV said
Strauss-Kahn's only reaction before vanishing from the courtroom was a whisper
to his daughter and new partner: "All that for what? Such
destruction."
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