A hotel housekeeper whose account of being sexually attacked was so compelling that it brought tears to the eyes of seasoned investigators. Preliminary forensic and electronic evidence, as well as interviews with witnesses, that poked no immediate holes in her story. And an accused man, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, with a ticket for a flight to France, approaching boarding time at Kennedy International Airport.
These were among the circumstances that confronted detectives of the Special Victims Squad of the New York Police Department who were summoned into action on May 14.
In recent days, prosecutors have disclosed troublinginconsistencies in the housekeeper’s account of what happened immediately after the alleged attack at the Sofitel New York in Midtown, uncovered associations she had with people suspected of crimes, and revealed that elements of her life story had been fabricated. These developments eroded the accuser’s credibility and altered law enforcement officials’ view of her. But none of those things were known to the police the day of the arrest of Mr. Strauss-Kahn, whose next scheduled court appearance is July 18. All they knew was that they had to act quickly.
“Since he was getting on a plane, getting out of the nation, they grabbed him faster than sooner, because it would have looked bad if they let him out of the country and they couldn’t get him back,” said a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case against Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who stepped down as managing director of the International Monetary Fund after his arrest.
“I guess, in a perfect world, they would not have had to arrest him right away,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity because the case is continuing. “They could have checked the evidence and everything. But I guess they figured they had to get him off the plane. It changed the circumstances quite a bit.”
Even before the criminal case against Mr. Strauss-Kahn started to fall apart, there were questions about how the investigation was being handled. With his release from house arrest, those concerns have only intensified.
Kenneth P. Thompson, a lawyer for the 32-year-old housekeeper, asked why Mr. Strauss-Kahn had remained in police custody for several hours before anyone asked him directly about what had happened in his hotel suite. Others questioned why prosecutors had sought to hold him; they noted that had Mr. Strauss-Kahn been released on bail, prosecutors would have had weeks to investigate the complaint and secure an indictment.
The case exposes the “punish first, figure out what happened later” state of American justice that is usually visited upon “ordinary schnooks,” said Eugene J. O’Donnell, a professor of police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.
But in this case, Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s celebrity and his high-powered legal team helped show potential liabilities associated with detectives’ duty to advocate for a victim.
“I think that any high-profile case exposes routine police work, and when you get into the guts of routine police work it is often not a pretty picture,” Mr. O’Donnell said. “Not all the ends tie up neatly, and when you are racing that clock, that is even more possible.”
Still, he added, “Maybe at the time steps were taken, there was no choice but to take them.”
Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, was handed off to New York detectives by officers from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who had removed him from his flight to Paris. He was taken to the East 123rd Street offices of the Manhattan Special Victims Squad and kept there for hours before detectives asked him about the episode.
According to court papers filed by the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., it was shortly before 11 p.m. when Detective Steven Lane, of the Special Victims Squad, asked Mr. Strauss-Kahn if he wanted to talk about “the incident.” Mr. Strauss-Kahn replied: “My attorney has told me not to talk. I was ready to talk.”
Mr. Thompson, the accuser’s lawyer, said Friday that he had asked Mr. Vance to explain why the police waited so long to ask Mr. Strauss-Kahn if he had attacked the woman — characterizing that as a “Policing 101” oversight. He said Mr. Vance gave no answer.
“One of the first things you do is you try to get them to make a statement,” Mr. Thompson said. “They didn’t do that. Instead, for five hours he sat there and nobody had the guts to go up to him and ask if he had committed these acts.” Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, declined to discuss the matter. “I’m referring all D.S.K. inquiries to the D.A.,” he wrote in an e-mail. But in the days after the episode, the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, reinforced the idea that Special Victims Squad detectives found the housekeeper to be credible, stressing that the detectives were trained to assess a complainant’s trustworthiness.
A former Manhattan prosecutor defended the police, saying that no detective likes to ask a potential defendant to answer questions if the detective himself does not know what the answers are. In this case, the detectives were still most likely gathering the housekeeper’s statements and other evidence in the hours immediately after Mr. Strauss-Kahn was taken into custody, and were probably formulating the best way to get at the truth.
“Before you talk to him, you have to have your ducks in a row,” said the former prosecutor, who asked not to be identified for fear of offending Mr. Vance. “They are trying like crazy to corroborate what they can. Four hours is not a long time.”
As for Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s claims of a willingness to speak, the former prosecutor expressed doubt, saying, “This kind of guy is going to lawyer up within seconds.” He added: “As far as I am concerned, the Police Department did everything right.”
However, had Mr. Strauss-Kahn been asked about the encounter and flatly denied it, it would have been more difficult for his lawyers to present a defense that a sexual act had been consensual.
The former prosecutor said that once a suspect is indicted, it is primarily the job of the district attorney’s office to carry out a comprehensive vetting of the complainant’s background, even if that included assigning detectives to do some of that work.
Linda A. Fairstein, who spent a quarter-century as Manhattan’s chief sex crimes prosecutor, credited Mr. Vance’s office for disclosing how the housekeeper’s own statements, as well as other factors, had caused her to be viewed as a deeply flawed witness. The case rests entirely on the accuser’s credibility, and “she is the single person responsible for compromising that credibility,” Ms. Fairstein said.
Ms. Fairstein added that the fabrications in the housekeeper’s past were an issue, but that she made things worse by clinging to them for so long. Perhaps most damaging, Ms. Fairstein said, was the housekeeper’s changing her account of what occurred in the moments after her encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn. She initially told detectives that she had waited in a common hall on the 28th floor of the Sofitel until Mr. Strauss-Kahn left, but she later said she had left to clean a nearby room before reaching out for a supervisor.
“I am told she is the most convincing reporter that most people have ever interviewed,” Ms. Fairstein said. “I am told that experienced, senior people cried when she told her life story, in each of the agencies.”
These were among the circumstances that confronted detectives of the Special Victims Squad of the New York Police Department who were summoned into action on May 14.
In recent days, prosecutors have disclosed troublinginconsistencies in the housekeeper’s account of what happened immediately after the alleged attack at the Sofitel New York in Midtown, uncovered associations she had with people suspected of crimes, and revealed that elements of her life story had been fabricated. These developments eroded the accuser’s credibility and altered law enforcement officials’ view of her. But none of those things were known to the police the day of the arrest of Mr. Strauss-Kahn, whose next scheduled court appearance is July 18. All they knew was that they had to act quickly.
“Since he was getting on a plane, getting out of the nation, they grabbed him faster than sooner, because it would have looked bad if they let him out of the country and they couldn’t get him back,” said a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case against Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who stepped down as managing director of the International Monetary Fund after his arrest.
“I guess, in a perfect world, they would not have had to arrest him right away,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity because the case is continuing. “They could have checked the evidence and everything. But I guess they figured they had to get him off the plane. It changed the circumstances quite a bit.”
Even before the criminal case against Mr. Strauss-Kahn started to fall apart, there were questions about how the investigation was being handled. With his release from house arrest, those concerns have only intensified.
Kenneth P. Thompson, a lawyer for the 32-year-old housekeeper, asked why Mr. Strauss-Kahn had remained in police custody for several hours before anyone asked him directly about what had happened in his hotel suite. Others questioned why prosecutors had sought to hold him; they noted that had Mr. Strauss-Kahn been released on bail, prosecutors would have had weeks to investigate the complaint and secure an indictment.
The case exposes the “punish first, figure out what happened later” state of American justice that is usually visited upon “ordinary schnooks,” said Eugene J. O’Donnell, a professor of police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.
But in this case, Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s celebrity and his high-powered legal team helped show potential liabilities associated with detectives’ duty to advocate for a victim.
“I think that any high-profile case exposes routine police work, and when you get into the guts of routine police work it is often not a pretty picture,” Mr. O’Donnell said. “Not all the ends tie up neatly, and when you are racing that clock, that is even more possible.”
Still, he added, “Maybe at the time steps were taken, there was no choice but to take them.”
Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, was handed off to New York detectives by officers from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who had removed him from his flight to Paris. He was taken to the East 123rd Street offices of the Manhattan Special Victims Squad and kept there for hours before detectives asked him about the episode.
According to court papers filed by the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., it was shortly before 11 p.m. when Detective Steven Lane, of the Special Victims Squad, asked Mr. Strauss-Kahn if he wanted to talk about “the incident.” Mr. Strauss-Kahn replied: “My attorney has told me not to talk. I was ready to talk.”
Mr. Thompson, the accuser’s lawyer, said Friday that he had asked Mr. Vance to explain why the police waited so long to ask Mr. Strauss-Kahn if he had attacked the woman — characterizing that as a “Policing 101” oversight. He said Mr. Vance gave no answer.
“One of the first things you do is you try to get them to make a statement,” Mr. Thompson said. “They didn’t do that. Instead, for five hours he sat there and nobody had the guts to go up to him and ask if he had committed these acts.” Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, declined to discuss the matter. “I’m referring all D.S.K. inquiries to the D.A.,” he wrote in an e-mail. But in the days after the episode, the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, reinforced the idea that Special Victims Squad detectives found the housekeeper to be credible, stressing that the detectives were trained to assess a complainant’s trustworthiness.
A former Manhattan prosecutor defended the police, saying that no detective likes to ask a potential defendant to answer questions if the detective himself does not know what the answers are. In this case, the detectives were still most likely gathering the housekeeper’s statements and other evidence in the hours immediately after Mr. Strauss-Kahn was taken into custody, and were probably formulating the best way to get at the truth.
“Before you talk to him, you have to have your ducks in a row,” said the former prosecutor, who asked not to be identified for fear of offending Mr. Vance. “They are trying like crazy to corroborate what they can. Four hours is not a long time.”
As for Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s claims of a willingness to speak, the former prosecutor expressed doubt, saying, “This kind of guy is going to lawyer up within seconds.” He added: “As far as I am concerned, the Police Department did everything right.”
However, had Mr. Strauss-Kahn been asked about the encounter and flatly denied it, it would have been more difficult for his lawyers to present a defense that a sexual act had been consensual.
The former prosecutor said that once a suspect is indicted, it is primarily the job of the district attorney’s office to carry out a comprehensive vetting of the complainant’s background, even if that included assigning detectives to do some of that work.
Linda A. Fairstein, who spent a quarter-century as Manhattan’s chief sex crimes prosecutor, credited Mr. Vance’s office for disclosing how the housekeeper’s own statements, as well as other factors, had caused her to be viewed as a deeply flawed witness. The case rests entirely on the accuser’s credibility, and “she is the single person responsible for compromising that credibility,” Ms. Fairstein said.
Ms. Fairstein added that the fabrications in the housekeeper’s past were an issue, but that she made things worse by clinging to them for so long. Perhaps most damaging, Ms. Fairstein said, was the housekeeper’s changing her account of what occurred in the moments after her encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn. She initially told detectives that she had waited in a common hall on the 28th floor of the Sofitel until Mr. Strauss-Kahn left, but she later said she had left to clean a nearby room before reaching out for a supervisor.
“I am told she is the most convincing reporter that most people have ever interviewed,” Ms. Fairstein said. “I am told that experienced, senior people cried when she told her life story, in each of the agencies.”
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