Hotel maid’s legal team guns for EX-IMF boss

NEW YORK: Lawyers for the hotel maid who accused former International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Dominique Strauss-kahn of sexual assault asked a judge on Friday for permission to seek a wide array of investigative documents from law enforcement agencies.

Nafissatou Diallo’s lawyers also seek evidence of leaks to the media, asking for any “statements made by the (Manhattan District Attorney’s Office) to the press and/or media, whether on or off the record”.

Any information generated by the proposed subpoenas would be used by Diallo in the civil lawsuit she filed against Strauss-kahn in Bronx Supreme Court last summer.

Strauss-kahn filed a $1 million (R8.2m) countersuit this week, alleging defamation and other claims.

In May 2010 Diallo accused Strauss-kahn of attacking her in his Manhattan hotel suite. After he was arrested, Strauss-kahn resigned from his post as IMF managing director and abandoned his plans to seek the French presidency, though prosecutors eventually dropped the case after developing doubts about Diallo’s truthfulness.

“We’re looking forward to gathering the evidence and demonstrating not only that the district attorney’s office made a mistake in dismissing the case, but ultimately proving Ms Diallo’s allegations and holding Strauss-kahn accountable for his actions,” said Douglas Wigdor, one of Diallo’s attorneys.

The latest motion from Diallo’s lawyers seeks investigative notes, medical records, interviews with witnesses and other documents from the district attorney’s office, the New York City Police Department and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, all of whom investigated the incident.

One portion of the subpoenas is designed to ferret out the origin of news stories that Diallo told an inmate at a detention facility in Arizona she was after Strauss-kahn’s money.

The subpoenas request copies of the phone calls between Diallo and a fellow Guinean native, Amara Tarawally, from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. – Reuters