International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn departs a New York Police Department precinct in New York late May 15, 2011
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the embattled French politician who was accused of sexually assaulting New York City hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo last May, is apparently not ready to cut his ties quite yet. Claiming that Diallo’s “malicious and wanton false accusation” cost him his bid for the French presidency and other opportunities, Strauss-Kahn is countersuing for $1 million. “She is directly responsible for his being arrested, imprisoned and subjected to extraordinary pain, anguish and expense,” his lawyer William Taylor told the New York Daily News.
The defamation claim comes exactly one year after Diallo claims Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her in his suite at the Sofitel hotel in midtown Manhattan. Police uncovered evidence that a sexual encounter did occur between them, but he has maintained it was consensual. Charges against him were dropped after prosecutors lost confidence in Diallo’s credibility.
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Strauss-Kahn filed his suit in Bronx Supreme Court, which is where Diallo is suing him in a civil case, which she filed a few weeks before the criminal case was dismissed. The suit seeks monetary damages from Strauss-Kahn stemming from the incident, in which Diallo says she sustained several injuries. Earlier this month the former International Monetary Fund chief tried to convince a judge that diplomatic immunity protected him from Diallo’s litigation, but the judge rejected that claim and allowed the suit to proceed.
The one-time presidential ambitions of Strauss-Kahn have been thwarted, however. The scandal prompted his resignation from the IMF and all but ended his campaign to become president of France. That job went to François Hollande, who was sworn in on Tuesday.
“One year to the day of his brutal sexual assault of Ms. Diallo, this is yet another example that personifies Strauss Kahn’s misogynistic attitude,” Diallo attorneys Kenneth W. Thompson and Douglas H. Wigdor wrote in an email to TIME. “As with his plea for diplomatic immunity, we are entirely confident this latest desperate ploy will be swiftly rejected.”
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