Ex IMF boss ‘ posed for photo with a prostitute’
FRENCH politician and banker Dominique StraussKahn posed for a picture with a prostitute in his office on a trip to Washington, a court heard yesterday.
Strauss- Kahn, known as DSK, was at the time the married head of the International Monetary Fund and was considering running for French president.
He invited the sex worker to the US in 2010, and she was paid £ 1,500, the court in Lille, northern France, was told.
Strauss- Kahn, 65, is on trial accused of aggravated pimping and faces up to 10 years in jail and a fine of more than £ 1million. Prostitution is not illegal in France but procuring women for sex is.
He insists paying for sex would have been too great a risk for an IMF boss busy “saving the world” from financial crisis.
On his second day in the witness box, Strauss- Kahn defended himself against claims he was a pimp who regularly abused women he paid.
The prostitute, known as Jade, testified that he had subjected her to a “brutal” sex act against her will in a Brussels hotel room in 2009.
She said it was a sex act “which had not been requested. If he’d asked me, I’d have said no”.
Jade said she got £ 370 for the night, which was to include an orgy at a swingers’ club.
Services
But she said she did not take part in the party – which she called a “massacre”, a “mishmash” of writhing bodies.
Instead, Strauss- Kahn left the sex party and took her away for more “services”, she said. “If I was chosen, it was for my discretion. I didn’t say I was a prostitute,” she said. But she implied Strauss- Kahn knew she was paid for sex. She said he had known she worked in a swingers’ bar in Brussels and added: “He said it would be nice to come and see me.”
Strauss- Kahn admitted: “I thought it would be fun to go to a swingers’ club.”
But he denied claims his “brutal” treatment of prostitutes proved he knew they were being paid. He said: “I have a rougher sexuality than the average man. I have not been charged over my sexual behaviour.”
When asked why she had agreed to go to Washington, Jade said: “For 2,000 euros I am not going to say no.”
She said she had been “delighted” to pose for the picture with Strauss- Kahn in his office – but that his advisers told her to pretend she was a secretary. StraussKahn has admitted he is a libertine and unashamed of attending orgies but he denies all the charges.
The trial continues.