Dominique Strauss-Kahn woke-up in a jail cell on Rikers Island on Tuesday morning as his accuser prepared to tell her story to a Manhattan grand jury. "There was nothing consensual about this encounter," Jeffrey Shapiro, the woman's attorney, said.
The woman, Shapiro said, was simply cleaning rooms at the Sofitel when she became the victim of a violent, sexual assault.
"She didn't know who this man was," he said. "This is a woman who has no agenda. She has no ulterior motive."
The alleged victim is an immigrant from the Republic of Guinea in West Africa . She has been here for approximately seven years and is here legally, working at the hotel.
She is also a single parent with a 9 year-old daughter. She speaks basic English, although French is her native language. Her attorney does not believe, however, that she will require an interpreter for the legal proceedings.
"When she will eventually testify, and people will hear her story from her mouth, I don't think you'll have any doubt that it's true," Shapiro said.
Strauss-Kahn is charged with attempted rape, sexual abuse and unlawful imprisonment. His attorney has suggested there was no evidence of a forcible encounter.
"This battle has just begun," defense attorney Benjamin Brafman told reporters Monday.
Brafman said defense lawyers believe the forensic evidence "will not be consistent with a forcible encounter." Defense lawyers wouldn't elaborate, but Brafman said "there are significant issues that were already found" that make it "quite likely that he will be ultimately be exonerated."
The brother of the alleged victim told Eyewitness News that she would neverfabricate such a story and would never have had a consensual encounter with a hotel guest. "She's not that kind of woman," he told us, "She is a good Muslim woman. A decent hard-working woman." He says he first learned of the alleged attack when his sister called him from the emergency room. "She called me and said, 'Something really bad happened,' and I said, 'stop crying, stop crying.' She was devastated," he said. "Devastated."
Strauss-Kahn, a member of France's Socialist party, was widely considered the strongest potential challenger next year to President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Defenders of Strauss-Kahn, a former finance minister, said they suspected a smear campaign or a set-up. Others expressed sympathy.
"I didn't like the pictures I've seen on television," Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said Monday night, referring to footage of Strauss-Kahn in handcuffs being escorted by police outside a New York precinct house.
Showing a suspect in handcuffs is illegal in France since a 2000 law aimed at the preserving the presumption of innocence.
"K.O." screamed banner headlines in France's Le Parisien and Liberation papers, with full-page photos of an unshaven Strauss-Kahn in the New York courtroom where he was ordered held without bail Monday.
Strauss-Kahn's situation could translate to political leverage for Sarkozy, who is likely to get a populist boost from reports in a German newspaper, quoting the president's father, that Sarkozy's wife is pregnant.
Financial and world leaders are already speculating on who would succeed Strauss-Kahn at the IMF.
A final choice would largely hinge on whether the U.S. and the European Union continue to split the jobs of the two Washington-based sister organizations - the IMF and the World Bank. Since World War II, a European has headed the Fund, while the U.S. has grabbed the top job at the World Bank.
Strauss-Kahn was arrested Saturday at Kennedy Airport after the allegations at the Sofitel hotel near Times Square.
Strauss-Kahn was ordered jailed at least until a court proceeding Friday. He cannot claim diplomatic immunity because he was in New York on personal business and was paying his own way, the IMF said. He could seek that protection only if he were conducting official business, spokesman William Murray said.
Because of his high profile, Strauss-Kahn is being held in protective custody on Rikers Island, away from most detainees, said city Correction Department spokesman Stephen Morello. Unlike most prisoners who share 50-bed barracks, he has a single-bed cell and eats all meals alone there. He has a prison guard escort when he is outside his cell.
Rikers, on an island in the East River between the Bronx and Queens, is one of the nation's largest jail complexes, with a daily inmate population of about 14,000.
Its history includes run-ins between inmates and guards. In one case last year, a guard was sentenced to six years in prison for ordering inmate beatings as part of a rogue disciplinary system.
Prosecutors said he imposed order by having teenage inmates beat other teenagers who had stepped out of line.
Also last year, more than a dozen guards were injured while quelling fights between inmates awaiting pretrial hearings. And in February, the city settled a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the family of an inmate who died after a scuffle with guards.
The French newspaper Le Monde, citing people close to Strauss-Kahn, said he had reserved the luxury hotel suite for one night for a quick trip to have lunch with his daughter, who is studying in New York.
Strauss-Kahn is accused of attacking a maid who had gone in to clean the penthouse suite Saturday afternoon. He is charged with attempted rape, sex abuse, a criminal sex act, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching. The most serious charge carries five to 25 years in prison.
The 32-year-old maid told authorities that she thought the suite was empty but that Strauss-Kahn emerged from the bathroom naked, chased her down a hallway, pulled her into a bedroom and dragged her into a bathroom, police said.
He grabbed her breasts, tried to pull down her pantyhose, grabbed at her crotch and forced her to perform oral sex, according to a court complaint. She broke free, escaped the room and told hotel staffers what had happened, authorities said. She was treated at a hospital for minor injuries.
"The victim provided a very powerful and detailed account of the violent sexual assault," Assistant District Attorney John "Artie" McConnell said. He added that forensic evidence may support her account. Strauss-Kahn submitted to a forensic examination Sunday night.
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Some information from The Associated Press.
